The 30 most romantic films ever
Love makes the world go round – and box-office tills ring, so here are our top 30 romantic films. Do you agree with the selection? Let us know at
romance@telegraph.co.uk. At least it's something to argue about on Valentine's Day…
1 Brief Encounter 1945
Parting has never been such sweet sorrow as in David Lean's adaptation of a Noël Coward play. Celia Johnson is Laura Jesson, the suburban housewife married to a crossword-fixated man; she falls in love with a dashing medic called Alec (Trevor Howard), and the rest is – repression. It's almost unbearable to watch Laura straining against her suburban self, trying to convince herself that she has a right to lunge for happiness. "This can't last. This misery can't last," she cries. Wonderful.
Heartstopping moment: As Alec leaves Laura in the train station, he puts his hand on her shoulder, expressing in that gesture fathomless depths of gratitude, tenderness, longing and regret.
2 The Graduate 1967
"Elaine! Elaine! Elaine!" It's the interrupted wedding scene to end them all. Dustin Hoffman's screams to bride Katharine Ross are racked with a desperation that borders on mania. And it's not just romantic - it's deep. The lost dream of the late 1960s, the battle of cynical middle-age against youthful idealism, the timeless appeal of a bright red Alfa Spider - all are bound up in this peerless finale to a lyrical and life-affirming film. "It's too late," smiles her mother, Mrs Robinson. "Not for me," says Elaine. Exit the lovers on an unforgettable bus-ride to ambiguity.
Simon and Garfunkel singing "Are you going to Scarborough Fair?"
3 Jules et Jim 1962
Three's not a crowd in François Truffaut's wonderful adaptation of Henri-Pierre Roché's novel.
Henri Serre and Oskar Werner are the two friends who are equally smitten by Jeanne Moreau, an exuberant free spirit whose vagrant character they find encapsulated by a phrase in a novel: "On a ship, a woman made love to a stranger in her mind." The camerawork on this New Wave classic is as ecstatic and giddying as falling in love itself. Truffaut moves between comedy and tragedy with awesome ease.
Moreau, baggy-jumpered and sporting a moustache, races across a bridge with Jules and Jim.
4 Casablanca 1942
"You must remember this…" could stand as a motto for this golden-age Hollywood triumph, an endlessly immersive tale of wartime intrigue and thwarted amour. Bogart and Bergman are beyond incomparable, and the happy-accident screenplay collaboration is the stuff of legend.
Simply the most memorable farewell in the history of farewells. "Inside of us, we both know you belong with Victor… If that plane leaves the ground and you're not with him, you'll regret it. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of your life…"
5 Gregory's Girl 1980
When the voluptuous Dorothy joins the school soccer team, tongues start wagging, hormones surge out of control, and love blossoms in the damp and sweaty changing rooms. But is she really Gregory's girl? Bill Forsyth's delightful comedy, set in an ultra-average new-town comprehensive and starring the gloriously gawky John Gordon Sinclair, captures the exquisite agony of teenage infatuation with unerring affection.
Gregory, bamboozled into a date with the far more suitable Susan (Clare Grogan), "explains" gravity as they dance horizontally in the park at sunset, warning her: "Don't stop, or you'll fall off."
6 It Happened One Night 1934
Famously causing a drop in vest sales when Clark Gable revealed a bare chest, this Frank Capra comedy is one of only three films to take the top four Oscars – for best film, direction and acting. It combines a magical innocence of tone with a risqué plot as married rich girl Ellie (Claudette Colbert), on the run from a disapproving father, hooks up with Gable's resourceful journalist Peter on the night bus to New York. As they cross the country, sleeping in motels and haystacks, contempt becomes love, and the walls of Jericho – the sheet on a rope that has divided their beds – come tumbling down.
When Ellie, tear-stained and wide-eyed, appears from behind the sheet to declare: "Take me with you, Peter. I can't let you go out of my life now. I cannot live without you."
7 The Philadelphia Story 1940
Never has class war seemed more elegant and, well, classy, than in George Cukor's version of Philip Barry's comedy. Everything about it is so darned stylish that it could end up as brittle as its heiress heroine (Katharine Hepburn at her most luminous). Its great heart springs from that fact she learns to love the right man (ex-husband Cary Grant) by kissing the wrong one, James Stewart's love-struck journalist.
"Put me in your pocket, Mike," Hepburn's husky just-kissed request to Stewart as he sweeps her into the darkness.
8 Solaris 2002
Steven Soderbergh's sombre meditation on love and loss has an almost unbearable intensity: although set largely in the vastness of space, it is one of the most emotionally claustrophobic films ever. George Clooney plays Kelvin, a shrink sent to a distant space station after the planet it orbits starts to play terrifying games with the minds of the crew. Kelvin discovers he is not immune when his dead wife materialises beside him in bed.
At the deeply ambiguous conclusion, Kelvin asks bewilderedly, "Am I alive or dead?", to which his wife replies: "We don't have to think like that any more."
9 Roman Holiday 1953
From the moment we see Audrey Hepburn toying with her shoes under her voluminous dress, we know she's bored with the regal lifestyle. Naturally, only one profession could provide someone dashing enough for her: journalism. And so it's into the arms of US hack abroad Gregory Peck that she falls, while William Wyler directs this sublime couple with infinite charm.
Peck pretends that his hand has been bitten off by the ancient stone face, without having warned Hepburn that he was going to do this. Her initial panic, and the way they hold and gaze at each other afterwards, radiate pure, unscripted affection.
10 Love Story 1970
Cancer and ice-hockey: not, on paper, a recipe for romance. But throw in Ali McGraw, a lush Oscar-winning score and some chunky early-1970s woollens and – hey, presto – it's the highest-grossing film of the year. "What can you say about a 25-year-old girl who died?" asks sportif rich boy Ryan O'Neil in the opening line. Plenty, of course, most of it schmaltzy, but irresistible. Meanwhile, poor-girl McGraw succumbs to terminal illness while remaining delicious and coining the phrase "Love means never having to say you're sorry." But it's the music that nails you.
The carefree snowball fight of the doomed lovers.
11 An Officer and a Gentleman 1982
He's an officer. He's a gentleman. And, let's not forget, he's a lovva. John Travolta turned down the role of the ne'er-do-well trainee fighter pilot redeemed by Debra Winger, and good thing too. He lacks the hardness that we have to see the character shedding, wouldn't have cut such a dash as Richard Gere in his white outfit, and would have been effortlessly outshone in the looks department by his smouldering belle.
Winger is in her dismal factory; Gere, in full dress uniform, strides in and sweeps her off her feet. The definitive romantic image.
12 Gone with the Wind 1939
With the American Civil War as an expansive backdrop, and enough famous set-pieces to win eight Oscars, this epic is still a simple love story at heart, though arguably it is more about the power of sex than the mysteries of love. Vivien Leigh's petulant Scarlett O'Hara is a terrible pain, but Clark Gable's Rhett Butler is besotted, witty and wise enough to make his kicking down of the bedroom door an act of passion rather than brutality.
Rhett to Scarlett as they kiss and she says she will faint: "I want you to faint. This is what you were meant for."
13 In the Mood for Love 2000
Like so many great romances, Wong Kar-Wai's modern Hong Kong masterpiece is about the impossibility of a romance. It overflows with sensuality and passion, but the man and woman at its heart (Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung) never consummate their love. They're both married, and are drawn together only when they discover that their partners are having an affair with each other. Soundtracked by the aching cries of cellos in the night, drenched in super-saturated tones, this is the ultimate in desire and frustration.
Tony Leung whispers his most secret thoughts into a hole in the ruined temple of Angkor Wat.
14 Sunrise 1927
Many silent classics tend to be admired from a reverential distance, but not FW Murnau's Sunrise: it's impossible not to respond to it like something that only came out yesterday. Led astray by a lascivious "woman from the city", George O'Brien plots to kill his unsuspecting wife (the luminous Janet Gaynor), only to see the light in a series of reconciliation scenes as tender as they are uplifting. Better still, it's on current release nationwide in a lovingly restored print.
O'Brien and Gaynor go to a photographer's studio and act like giggling newlyweds all over again.
15 Dirty Dancing 1987
A generation of teenage girls were obsessed with this Emile Ardolino film. It's the ultimate female adolescent romance: smart-but-plain daddy's girl (Jennifer Grey's "Baby") has sexual – and rhythmic – awakening with chiselled holiday resort dance teacher (Patrick Swayze's Johnny). It's 1963 and, away from the family activities, Baby is mesmerised by a below stairs world where the staff bump, grind and lose themselves in sensuous R&B rhythms. Baby saves Johnny from a lack of self-worth. He saves her from the foxtrot.
"Nobody puts Baby in the corner," says Johnny, and leads her on stage for the dance of her life.
16 An Affair to Remember 1957
This is the film that Meg Ryan keeps talking about in Sleepless in Seattle. Cary Grant is a carefree playboy who falls in love with Deborah Kerr, a nightclub singer engaged to a wealthy businessman, and vows to meet her six months later at the top of the Empire State Building. Shot in lush Cinemascope, it looks great and features some of the most romantic lines ever written. Sighs Kerr: "Winter must be cold for those with no warm memories." Grant was rarely this sad or soulful again.
Kerr tells Grant, "I was looking up. It was the nearest thing to heaven. You were there."
17 The Way We Were 1973
It's a case of opposites attract when impoverished communist student Katie (Barbra Streisand) falls for rich jock Hubbell (Robert Redford at his most gorgeous). He, however, hardly knows she exists until a chance meeting years later. They fall in love and for a brief, honeymoon period life is filled with long walks on the beach, before their different views drive them apart. All they're left with are "misty water-coloured memories of the way we were".
Hubbell turns up drunk to Katie's romantic meal and falls asleep. But he does so beautifully.
18 La Belle et la Bete 1946
The film may be based on the classic fairytale, but Cocteau transforms it into a heartstopping examination of what is meant by sexual and romantic love. Jean Marais as the Beast is a real animal – clawing at Belle's door at night and drinking the blood of his prey. Josette Day's delicate heroine is terrified and disgusted by this high-testosterone monster, but comes to love the Beast's gentle, self-sacrificing soul. Deeply Freudian, but oh so moving.
Belle offers the Beast some water in her hands and he laps it like a cat.
19 Laura 1944
Unusually for a romance, the heroine is dead when the hero falls in love with her. Laura (Gene Tierney) has been murdered and tough cop Mark McPherson (Dana Andrews) is interviewing two of the men who loved her. He becomes smitten by the sweetness they describe and also by the portrait above her fireplace. Then she comes back from the dead. Part-thriller, part-romance, with plenty of sharp humour thrown in, Otto Preminger's film is near-perfect.
It's late at night and McPherson has fallen asleep drunk in front of Laura's portrait. A key turns in the lock and in walks a woman. It is Laura. "You're alive!"
20 Punch-Drunk Love 2002
Teetering on the brink of terminal depression, Paul Thomas Anderson's beautiful pipe dream of a modern romantic comedy turns the genre on its head with a mixture of skewed invention and giddy sincerity. Trust the smartest talent in contemporary American cinema to find gainful employment for its most gormless clown - Adam Sandler - whose small-time entrepreneur Barry Egan is a vulnerable and touching creation; Emily Watson glows from within as his expectant sweetheart.
Sandler races through the corridors of Watson's apartment block, rings her doorbell, and they kiss as the music soars.
21 True Romance 1993
It took Quentin Tarantino five years to find backing and a director (Tony Scott) for his first, most personal, script. An update of Badlands, Tarantino admits it is also the romantic fantasy of a single 25-year-old "movie geek". Thus, Patricia Arquette's endearingly ditzy trailer-trash blonde (Alabama) shares a love of kung-fu movies and Elvis with Clarence (Christian Slater). As their cocaine deal-of-a-lifetime goes wrong, the film bursts into a symphony of violence, and we root for this "real cute couple" to make it out alive.
Alabama purrs: "I feel real goofy saying this, me being a call girl and all, but I think I love you."
22 Now, Voyager 1942
This film directed by the British-born Irving Rapper gets stranger and more compelling as the years go by. Bette Davis plays a dowdy spinstress who is transformed from ugly duckling into a swan after a nervous breakdown. On an ocean cruise she falls for unhappily married Paul Henreid and ends up looking after his troubled daughter. As for marriage, she tells him: "Don't let's ask for the moon. We have the stars." Romance doesn't always have fairytale endings, then, but Davis's transformation is gripping to behold.
When Henreid lights up two cigarettes, then hands one to Davis.
23 When Harry Met Sally 1989
"We could never be friends," announces Harry smugly. "Men and women can never be friends because the sex part always gets in the way." Sally – a fresh, fluffy, all-American ditz – disagrees; 11 years and several regrettable hair-dos later, they're still arguing the point. Nora Ephron's script, zinging with one-liners and verbal sparring, crystallises an imperishable core issue in the war between the sexes; Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal update Hepburn and Tracy in style.
The climactic new year's eve party where Sally wails: "Harry, you say things that make it impossible for me to hate you, and I hate you, Harry, I really hate you."
24 Titanic 1997
James Cameron's $200 million account of the world's worst shipping disaster is also a classic tale of doomed love across the social divide. On an ocean liner bound for the States, a bored young English aristocrat (Rose, played by a ravishing Kate Winslet) discovers her soulmate in Jack, a penniless Irish charmer (Leonardo DiCaprio). But it's not just the class system that's against them – a 500,000-ton iceberg strikes a hole in the ship, and their passionate affair is sunk.
"Promise me you'll survive," stammers the near-dead Jack as they float in the freezing North Atlantic. Rose clutches his hand: "I'll never let go, Jack, I'll never let go."
25 Lost in Translation 2003
Sofia Coppola's postmodern Brief Encounter is full of unspoken, low-key longing and tentative open spaces, proving that in romance, less is often more. It brings Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson together by chance as guests in a Tokyo hotel. Cut adrift from their normal lives and partners, they shyly, slowly come to recognise each other as kindred spirits. Darting through neon streets, holding hands, singing karaoke – nothing happens, but everything happens. It's wonderful. If you haven't seen it yet, go tonight.
They're falling asleep after talking all night. He holds her foot.
26 Une Partie de Campagne 1936
In Renoir's miniature masterpiece (it's only 39 minutes long), Henriette, a fresh and lovely Parisienne, takes a day trip to the country one sunny summer's day with Mum, Dad, Gran and idiot husband-to-be Anatole. She is utterly intoxicated by the gorgeousness of nature and, separated from her family, falls into the arms of young Henri, a handsome, poetic-looking sort. After a brief moment of passion in the long grass, the clouds burst; she heads back to humdrum domesticity with Anatole.
Henriette's resistance to Henri's advances crumbles and her eyes fill with tears when she hears a nightingale warbling in the tree above them.
27 I Know where I'm Going 1945
This black-and-white gem from Powell and Pressburger is almost as much an ode to the Western Isles as it is a tale of romance. Joan Webster (Wendy Hillier) is all set to marry a wealthy man, but bad weather prevents her from getting to the wedding. While she's stranded, she meets Torquil MacNeil (Roger Livesey), a naval officer and the laird of Kiloran. She is sucked into the otherworldliness of the Scottish islands, complete with superstitions, curses, ceilidhs and whirlpools.
She's leaving to marry her rich man. "Will you do something for me before I go away?" she asks. "I want you to kiss me."
28 Breakfast at Tiffany's 1961
Purists maintain that the cinematic version of Truman Capote's novel is a bowdlerised travesty. Few, these days, read Breakfast at Tiffany's, but we keep watching the film. It transformed a slight, amoral tale into a poignant love story where two lost souls, Audrey Hepburn's high-class call girl Holly Golightly, and George Peppard's failed writer, find each other in high-chic bohemian New York. Forty years later, every girl still wants to be an Audrey-style Cinderella walking down Fifth Avenue in a Givenchy dress.
The kiss at the end in the rain with the cat.
29 Bonnie and Clyde 1967
The prototypical warped love story, and, for many, the first modern American movie, this constantly and effortlessly juggles tragedy and comedy, while a cloud of dread at the inevitable outcome hangs over the proceedings. For us not to dismiss them as repugnant killers, the central duo needed to be very beautiful and genuinely touching - and we could have asked for no more than Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway.
Having just killed his first man, Clyde selflessly suggests to Bonnie that she leave him, adding: "You ain't gonna have a minute's peace!" Her trembling reply is: "You promise?"
30 Annie Hall 1977
Woody Allen's funniest, saddest, finest film, about the life and one true love of Manhattan stand-up Alvy Singer, is almost unbearably heartbroken, a lament for chances missed as well as a fond flashback to better times. Out of the great relationship of his life, Woody fashioned the great relationship of Alvy's and the most personal, mature, reflective film of his career. He couldn't have done it without Diane Keaton, whose Annie is simply unforgettable.
The final montage of Alvy and Annie's life together, set to Keaton's achingly lovely rendition of "Seems Like Old Times".
11-02-2008, 04:29 PM
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