Romantic Movies

Everyone knows that watching a romantic movie can really help to set the mood, but again this seems to be an area where most guys are hopelessly out of their depth. Romantic movies go under another name; a name that is almost sneered by some men, but they are really missing the point – ‘Chick Flicks’. These movies are what sets a woman’s heart a-fluttering and her expectations soaring. Mere men know they can never live up to the uber-romantic ‘Prince Charming’ that is Richard Gere in Pretty Woman, much less the un-dying faithfulness of Patrick Swayze in Ghost, but all is not lost. The most important thing here guys, is that you turn up! Be there! Share the experience! You may not be Mr Perfect, swooping in on your white charger to save the damsel in distress, before riding off with her into the sunset, but you are the one that is there to share the sunset with her – Mr Perfect has ridden off with someone else! You don’t have to be Mr Right all the time, but if you can be Mr Right-Here when she needs you, then you are way ahead of some celluloid creation of a Hollywood producers’ over-fertile imagination.

And here’s the point, as with a lot of the stuff we post here on Romancing Your Mate, we’re not trying to shame you into some ‘McDreamy’ mold just to make you acceptable to your lady. No, in fact, your lady has already accepted you or she wouldn’t be there, but what we’re offering here is ideas, food for thought, creative building blocks on which you can build a stronger, more romantic and more enjoyable relationship – for both of you.

Below we’ve added a list of 100 romantic movies, by no means a comprehensive list and certainly open for debate about the ranking, but it’s a starting point. Rent one a week from the local video shop, make it a date, let her know you’ll be picking something romantic to watch and maybe bringing home a nice bottle of wine to share and suggest that she might like to put together some nibbles to munch on together. I’m sure she’ll be impressed if you bring home something from the list below. Have fun.

1. “Casablanca” – 1942
2. “Gone with the Wind” – 1939
3. “West Side Story” – 1961
4. “Roman Holiday” – 1953
5. “An Affair to Remember” – 1957
6. “The Way We Were” – 1973
7. “Doctor Zhivago” – 1965
8. “It’s a Wonderful Life” – 1946
9. “Love Story” – 1970
10. “City Lights” – 1931
11. “Annie Hall” – 1977
12. “My Fair Lady” – 1964
13. “Out of Africa” – 1985
14. “The African Queen” – 1951
15. “Wuthering Heights” – 1939
16. “Singing’ in the Rain” – 1952
17. “Moonstruck” – 1987
18. “Vertigo” – 1958
19. “Ghost” – 1990

20. “From Here to Eternity” – 1953
21. “Pretty Woman” – 1990
22. “On Golden Pond” – 1981
23. “Now, Voyager” – 1942
24. “King Kong” – 1933
25. “When Harry Met Sally” – 1989
26. “The Lady Eve” – 1941
27. “The Sound of Music” – 1965
28. “The Shop Around the Corner” – 1940
29. “An Officer and a Gentleman” – 1982
30. “Swing Time” – 1936
31. “The King and I” – 1956 (the more recent production with Jodie Foster is also quite good)
32. “Dark Victory” – 1939
33. “Camille” – 1937
34. “Beauty and the Beast” – 1991
35. “Gigi” – 1958 (not to be confused with ‘Gigli’, which was a terrible movie and not to be shared with your lady under any circumstances!)
36. “Random Harvest” – 1942
37. “Titanic” – 1997
38. “It Happened One Night” – 1934
39. “An American in Paris” – 1951
40. “Ninotchka” – 1939
41. “Funny Girl” – 1968
42. “Anna Karenina” – 1935
43. “A Star is Born” – 1954
44. “The Philadelphia Story” – 1940
45. “Sleepless in Seattle” – 1993 (or in fact any of the Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan rom-coms of the era)
46. “To Catch a Thief” – 1955
47. “Splendor in the Grass” – 1961
48. “Last Tango in Paris” – 1972
49. “The Postman Always Rings Twice” – 1946
50. “Shakespeare in Love” – 1998
51. “Bringing Up Baby” – 1938
52. “The Graduate” – 1967
53. “A Place in the Sun” – 1951
54. “Sabrina” – 1954
55. “Reds” – 1981
56. “The English Patient” – 1996
57. “Two for the Road” – 1967
58. “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” – 1967
59. “Picnic” – 1955
60. “To Have and Have Not” – 1944
61. “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” – 1961
62. “The Apartment” – 1960
63. “Sunrise” – 1927
64. “Marty” – 1955
65. “Bonnie and Clyde” – 1967
66. “Manhattan” – 1979
67. “A Streetcar Named Desire” – 1951
68. “What’s Up, Doc?” – 1972
69. “Harold and Maude” – 1971
70. “Sense and Sensibility” – 1995
71. “Way Down East” – 1920
72. “Roxanne” – 1987
73. “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir” – 1947
74. “Woman of the Year” – 1942
75. “The American President” – 1995
76. “The Quiet Man” – 1952
77. “The Awful Truth” – 1937
78. “Coming Home” – 1978
79. “Jezebel” – 1939
80. “The Sheik” – 1921
81. “The Goodbye Girl” – 1977
82. “Witness” – 1985
83. “Morocco” – 1930
84. “Double Indemnity” – 1944
85. “Love is a Many-Splendored Thing” – 1955
86. “Notorious” – 1946
87. “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” – 1988
88. “The Princess Bride” – 1987
89. “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” – 1966
90. “The Bridges of Madison County” – 1995
91. “Working Girl” – 1988
92. “Porgy and Bess” – 1959
93. “Dirty Dancing” – 1987
94. “Body Heat” – 1981
95. “Lady and the Tramp” – 1955 (organise a plate of spaghetti and meatballs to eat together with this movie!)
96. “Barefoot in the Park” – 1967
97. “Grease” – 1978
98. “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” – 1939 (it’s much more romantic than the more recent Disney cartoon version)
99. “Pillow Talk” – 1959

100. “Jerry Maguire” – 1996