MOVIES ALL TIME

Whether you’re generally sappy or cynical, devoted or dubious, once in a while, everyone needs a little romance. Some of the films on this eclectic list will send you scrambling for a Kleenex, while others will lift you up (where you belong); the best may do both. Lose yourself in these love stories, but remember: a kiss is never just a kiss.

10. Brokeback Mountain (2005)

The slew of dismissive “gay cowboy” and “quit you” jokes that inundated the airwaves and the internet after the release of this movie could easily have made the experience of watching it feel like nothing more than an extended joke, but in fact it’s still as powerful as ever. You’d be hard-pressed to find a screen kiss more powerful than the one a reunited Jack (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Ennis (Heath Ledger) share in Ennis’ stairwell, or an ending more subtly, silently heart-breaking. Despite—or perhaps, because of—the insurmountable obstacles Jack and Ennis face, this movie makes a love that strong seem worth fighting for.

9. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

“Meet me in Montauk.” Breaking through the memory-erasure procedure Joel (Jim Carrey) has impulsively agreed to undergo to wipe out any recollection of his failed relationship with Clementine (Kate Winslet), those whispered words evoke the possibility of second chances, of lost lovers reunited, of happiness recaptured and held. Eternal Sunshine is unique because as Joel loses his memories, the film in turn discards all the reasons why he and Clementine were wrong for each other, and rediscovers the ways in which they initially were—and might one day be again—so right.

8. The Notebook (2004)

Directed by Nick Cassavetes (son of the inimitable John Cassavetes) and starring Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams, The Notebook offers all the components of an epic love story: beautiful young protagonists are madly in love but kept apart by social differences; steamy love scenes; and tear-jerking tragedy. Based on a novel by Nicholas Sparks, the story is set in the 1940s yet told in present time by an elderly man (James Garner) to a fellow nursing home patient (Gena Rowlands, the director’s mother).

7. Moonstruck (1987)

Sometimes, Cupid has a sense of humor. Just a few weeks before her wedding, Loretta (Cher) falls in love with her fiancé’s estranged brother, Ronny (Nicolas Cage), who lost his hand in a tragic bread-making accident. As goofy as it sounds, the comedy in this Oscar-winning contemporary classic is as organic as the attraction between Loretta and Ronny is undeniable. You’ll feel just as caught up in the lunar lunacy (and love) by the end.

6. An Officer and a Gentleman (1982)

Boasting the consummate embodiment of the modern fairy tale ending, An Officer and a Gentleman makes the idea that a handsome young man in uniform might come sweep you off your feet and lift you up where you belong seem…well, at least a little plausible. That the handsome young man in question (Richard Gere) has to grow up and mature as a person in order to be worthy of his factory worker girlfriend, Paula (Debra Winger), adds another touch of realism, and makes that famous closing scene even more sublime.

5. The Age of Innocence (1993)

From the lavish sets and scenery to the Academy-award winning costume design, The Age of Innocence is a visual feast with love and longing at its core. Dashing Newland Archer (Daniel Day-Lewis) and demure May Welland (Winona Ryder) seem to be the perfect match until Michelle Pfeiffer’s Countess Olenska enters the picture. Every gesture and glance is pregnant with meaning in this intricately and grandly conceived film based upon the 1920 novel by Edith Wharton.

4. An Affair to Remember (1957)

Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr star as an artist and a nightclub singer who are destined to be together—and are almost kept tragically apart. The dramatic plot, full of chance encounters, misunderstandings and a pivotal meeting atop the Empire State Building, has inspired countless remakes and homages, including, most famously, Sleepless in Seattle. It’s easy to see why: Grant and Kerr’s passion is so intense, it can’t help but inspire equal fervor in others.

3. Casablanca (1942)

Great love stories are often about sacrifice. Many would argue: what truer test of devotion can there be than the willingness to give anything, everything, for the one you love? Enter Casablanca, arguably the greatest love story ever filmed, in which Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman must give up their chance at personal happiness not for each other, but for a cause that’s greater than them both. It’s more than just a romantic story, it’s a noble one, made even more powerful by the sweeping, bittersweet memories they—and we—will always have of when they were happy in Paris.

2. Roman Holiday (1953)

Like a modern fairy tale, Roman Holiday concerns the love affair between a princess (Audrey Hepburn) and a commoner (Gregory Peck). Though this improbable pairing is destined not to last, Peck’s paparazzo honorably suppresses his exposé of the princess and thereby remains in her good graces. This fun frolic through the streets of Rome was Hepburn’s first starring role, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress.

1. Gone with the Wind (1939)

When two people as headstrong and passionate as Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh) and Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) meet, enough sparks fly to set Atlanta alight — if it weren’t already burning. The classic romance set against the dramatic backdrop of the Civil War is as epic as they come, with such an ardent, arduous romance at its core that nearly 70 years later, we’re all still holding our breaths at the thought of what the tomorrow Scarlett famously speaks of might bring for her and Rhett

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