Love hurts. Love scars. Love can make you giddy with laughter or hot under the collar and tight in the pants. It can make you sing and dance or shoot to kill. However it’s expressed, love is perhaps the most elemental emotion a human being can feel. So it makes sense that filmmakers turn to it for inspiration more than any other. A great cinematic romance drills straight into the heart of the audience. Even if you’ve never, say, robbed a bank with your loved one, or stood by your sweetheart as they transformed into a hideous monster, the best romantic films make you understand and sympathise with the decisions of those under love’s spell. Because one way or another, we’ve all been there.
Falling in love is easy, but choosing the greatest films about love is a puzzle. That’s why, to help us curate this list, we chatted to more than 100 filmmakers, actors and writers, including those from Time Out. Believe us when we say these are folks familiar with the language of amor. Who knows more about making hearts swell than Nicholas Sparks, author of The Notebook? Or Notting Hill screenwriter Richard Curtis? Shoot, we even asked the ultimate romantic, Miss Piggy. Whether you prefer comedies or dramas, horror or sci-fi, we’re sure you’ll find the following list of the 100 greatest romantic movies ever speaks to your own heart as well.
Written by Cath Clarke, Dave Calhoun, Tom Huddleston, Catherine Bray, Trevor Johnston, Andy P Kryza, Guy Lodge, Phil de Semlyen, Alim Kheraj & Matthew Singer
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