Valentine's Day is here and it's normally shared with your loved ones: friends, family, husband, wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, lover, kids, sisters, brothers, anyone you love; and for the people who love movies a great way to spend the day is watching movies at home. So I prepared this list of 25 movies about L-O-V-E. I'm not saying they're "the best 25 love movies" or "the most romantic". Love is great, but it's also a complicated feeling which can be magically found anywhere, anyhow, with anybody, but it also can be mixed with sadness, grief, sacrifice and as everything in this life, it ends. So I put on this list happy endings, sad endings, open endings, funny moments, drama, music, tears, death, smiles, memorable lines, recent movies, classic movies, animated movies, a little bit of everything in a wide sample, to provide a list in which everyone can find at least one film to see and to share on thi special day.
People's favorites
If you ask people "What's the best love story on the screen" I bet 9 out of 10 will say the name of one of these two films: Titanic or The notebook. People, specially girls, went crazy on the theaters when these two movies were released and they're probably the two more watched films on Valentine's Day. I gotta confess, they're great love stories. We've all laughed with Jack teaching Rose how to spit, we've felt the heath inside that old car and we're still complaining about if there was enough space on that wood. They're young, beautiful and they felt in love right away. Art, dance and tragedy surround that love that equaly touches rich or poor people. Another story about poor boy meets rich girl is The Notebook. Unlike Jack and Rose, Noah and Allie have a long story, full of break ups and reecounters, because of their family or the war, but their later days with Noah telling their own story to an amnesiac Allie is one of the most romantic sequences filmed ever.
Three Classics
I could have picked fifty classics, so I'm really making an effort here. I like Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck and because of them I loved Roman Holiday, the impossible love story between a bored and sheltered princess and an American newsman in Rome. The youth, the audacity and of course Europe as a courtain tells a great story with a realistic ending, different from movies at its time. I didn't like the way Breakfast at Tiffany's changed so many things jumping from pages to the screen, but I couldn't think of anyone to play Holly Golightly better than Audrey Hepburn. She brings to life a character to fell in love with. She captives not only Paul but everyone who has seen the movie. The final kiss on the movie under the rain is a scene to remember.
And of course, no list of movies (any kind) would be complete without Casablanca: war, jazz, destiny, Paris and of course love. Rick doesn't die for Ilsa like Jack for Rose, but he chooses the best thing for her, even if it means to take her away from him. If you haven't seen this movie, run to see it! It has a great script with memorable frases like that iconic "We'll always have Paris" and that "Here's looking at you kid" Rick tells to Ilsa. Besides, As time goes by is one of most remarkable and recognized love songs in the history of cinema.
Drama and Romance
In Loving, we see the story of Richard and Mildred Loving, a couple whose arrest for interracial marriage in 1960s Virginia began a legal battle that would end with the Supreme Court's historic 1967 decision is a great story about how love, true love, can overcome anything. In Before sunrise we see how love can hit you in an instant and you can find it anywhere, even on a train in Europe. Jesse and Céline's spend the night together in Vienna (just talking and walking by) but unfortunately, they know it might be their only night, so it's surronded with that ephimeral halo in a "seize the moment" situation.
Of course you've all seen those two teenage cancer patients begin a life-affirming journey to visit a reclusive author in Amsterdam in The Fault in Our Stars. It's a romantic, tragic story with really sad scenes like that Gus early funeral but it's one of the most memorable recents love stories. And in oposite of Hazel and Gus, I bring you here a grown ups love story: on Bridges of Madison County, photographer Robert Kincaid wanders into the life of housewife Francesca Johnson, for four days in the 1960s having an affair with her. Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep play their parts and it's a great demonstration for that poeple who thinks love just happens to the young. You're wrong. Love can be found at any age, 'cause it's timeless. And if you like love stories between people of different ages, I recommend you 5 to 7, a romance between a young american writer and a beautiful french and married woman; and Lost in translation, where two people who feel lonely and lost, find the missing piece in the arms of each other. Even if it's not meant to last, it doesn't mean one can't embrace it.
Laughing with love
There are tons and tons of romantic comedies and I'm sure you all have your favorites. I've picked the first four that came to my mind. Let's start with that 80s classic When Harry Met sally with the queen of romantc comedies, Meg Ryan, and Billy Cristal; they've known each other for years, and they're very good friends, but they fear sex might ruin the friendship. Nonetheless wouldn't it be wonderful to fell in love with your friend? besides, it has that iconic scene of Meg's fake orgasm which is really funny.
(500) Days of Summer is unbelievably funny but kind of meant to end up bad because we see what happens when a woman who doesn't believe true love exists meets the young man who falls totally for her. Summer is another character we love and even when she dumps Tom, we can't fully hate her. But the two I laughed the most with were Crazy Stupid Love, and How to lose a guy in ten days. It might be corny at some points and be filled with clichés but it's hilarious. Ben and Andie meet when he's looking for a woman to fall in love with him, and she's looking for a guy to suffer the most silly situations no men could ever stand, unless there's a bet in the middle.
Three from Woody Allen
In New Jersey in 1935, a movie character walks off the screen and into the real world and fells in love with the girl who assists every night to watch the movie. That clever plot is The purple rose of Cairo. The ups and downs between neurotic New York comedian Alvy Singer and the ditzy Annie is shown in Annie Hall and in Midnight in Paris we see a nostalgic screenwriter who finds himself mysteriously going back to the 1920s and earlier times everyday at midnight. That experience makes him discover himself and break with his fiancée, a woman he doesn't really love because she offers him a life he doens't really want. But there's room for hope at the end. I couldn't pick just one of these three movies, because they treat love in different but great ways, filled with humor, philofophy, clever sarcastic lines, like all Woody Allen's movies. One's got a happy ending, one's got a sad ending, and the other one... I'm not telling.
Possibly, my favorites
If I had to choose one romantic movie, just one, above all the rest I'd probably pick La La Land. The love story between Sebastian, a jazz pianist, and Mia, an aspiring actress, who meet and fall in love in LA while pursuing their dreams is one of the few movies I've seen over five times. And I enjoy it every time. The script, songs, the dancing sequences, the tap dancing scenes, jazz of course, colors, art, direction, everything in this movie is perfect. The fact that they don't end up together (I guess you've all seen this one) doesn't bother me. It has the perfect realistic ending for their story, but even being apart, after all those years, they still love each other so much and you can see it in that final scene when she sees him play the piano.
But there's also Her, one of my favorite movies ever that make us wonder if it's possible to fall in love with someone who's not there. Samatha is not a person, is she? does that mean that Theodore can't love her? Is that a real emotion or just an irrational infatuation? I love Phoenix and Johansson and although is a very slow and nostalgic movie, I found it very romantic. Just like Portrait of a lady on fire, one of the most romantic stories ever told. Two women love each other very deeply in the wrong time and place; they try to fight against that feeling but it's inevitable, just as they separation. The plot is great, the actresses are amazing, the direction is incredible and the photography is absolutely mind-blowing. Pure art
Love is really everywhere
There are dozens of Disney's princesses (well, at least one dozen) but I wanna tell you about two non-princess animated films. That adventure of seventy-eight year old Carl Fredricksen to Paradise Falls in his home equipped with thousands of balloons is maybe the most amazing love tribute someone can desire, he does it because he promised to his death wife Ellie. The first 15 minutes of the film tell a complete and tragic love story that ends but the love remains within his heart through all the movie.
You've read that WALL-E is about a small waste-collecting robot who inadvertently embarks on a space journey that will ultimately decide the fate of mankind, but it really tells the love story between him and EVE, that sexy Extra-terrestrial Vegetation Evaluator robot that totally drove him crazy.
And what can I say about Forrest Gump? the guy played football in college, went to Vietnam, got a bullet on his butt, played Ping Pong for his country, survived a storm in the sea, became a billionaire and throghu all that journey he never stopped thinking about the most beautiful name in the world. Remember? yes, Jenny. Every girl wants to be loved like Forrest loved Jenny. Finally I bring to you The handmaiden where a woman is hired as a handmaiden to a Japanese heiress, but secretly she is involved in a plot to defraud her. The movie has a beautiful photography, well-cared spaces, artistic treatment of the erotic scenes, great performances, unexpected twists in the plot, it's part a psychological thriller, but also drama, erotic novel, gothic and of course romantic, with an intense love story that hides at plain sight
So there you have them, twenty-five stories to analize love and all that surrounds it. Which one have you seen? which one is your favorite? Did I miss any? of course I did! like I said it's not the ultimate list, it's just a list of movies you can enjoy on Valentine's Day with your special one. So make popcorns, pick one of these movie and celebrate L-O-V-E. Happy Valentine's Day to you all!
Some of the movies are you review indeed new for me and seem interested to watch. So thanks for the recommendation.
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Wow, thank you very much for those kind words and the invitation, sure I'm gonna take a look at that community. Greetings from all over a cross the world.
A very good selection of films about love as a couple. The subject has given rise to diverse perspectives and treatments, as is to be expected. I missed Love by Michael Haneke, and The French Lieutenant's Mistress by Karel Reisz. Greetings, @cristiancaicedo.
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Thank you for your support. As always, thanks for those recommendations, I haven't seen any of those movies but sure I'm gonna look them up. Greetings.