Narrowing down the greatest love stories, of any era, may very well be a fool’s errand. After all, practically every movie has a romantic subplot of one kind or another. It doesn’t matter if it’s a horror movie, an action movie, a biopic or a conventional rom-com; it seems like Hollywood doesn’t even know how to tell a story that doesn’t have a little love in it. That means there’s a lot of competition for the best romantic movies of the 21st century. Whittling the list down to 25 was an agonizing process, like assembling a puzzle that came with way too many pieces. No matter how we assembled it something noteworthy got left out.

So before we get started, let’s offer up our sincerest apologies to the celebrated Gosling Triad; The Notebook, Crazy Stupid Love, and La La Land just barely missed the cut. The same goes for feel-good Disney flicks like Enchanted and WALL-E, superhero blockbusters like Wonder Woman and Spider-Man 2, and Oscar-winners like The Shape of Water and Lost in Translation. But what remains is a rich assortment of romances from a variety of perspectives. Each one of these films will make you swoon, laugh, or cry, and probably a combination of all three. If hard-pressed, yes, these are the best romance movies of the 21st century (so far).

30 'To All the Boys I've Loved Before' (2018)

Director: Susan Johnson

We couldn’t have a list of romance movies and ignore the teen subgenre. High-school-set romances can feel a bit repetitive and contrived after a while. Jock meets geeky girl, popular girl falls for the nerdy loser – we’ve seen it all before. However, Netflix's (and based on a novel by Jenny Han) To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, puts a different spin on the tired genre, focusing on the protagonist, and her relationship with her family as well as a love interest. Lara Jean Covey (Lana Condor), in order to conceal her crushes throughout the years, unleashes her emotions into a letter addressed to each crush. This is mainly to conceal her feelings towards Josh (Israel Broussard), her former best friend who is now dating her older sister, Margot (Janel Parrish).

When her younger sister sends out the letters, Lara Jean pretends to date another letter recipient, Peter (Noah Centineo). Lara hopes to throw Josh off and Peter wants to make his ex, Gen (Emilija Baranac), jealous. Yes, pretend-dating is a fairly overused trope in film, but there's something fresh about how To All the Boys approaches it. Johnson's film is as much about romantic love as it is about sisterly bonding and coming to terms with what love is really about. The two sequels are both fun but don't match up to the sweet original. – Emma Kiely

Watch on Netflix

29 'Only You' (2018)

Director: Harry Wootliff

A film that works to draw out the more realistic and somber truths of relationships, Only You follows Elena (Laia Costa) and Jake (Josh O’Connor) who meet one night while fighting over a taxi. As they fall in love, it seems that their relationship presents more challenges each day. Their 9-year age gap is something they can get past, but when they start trying for a baby, the journey of IVF, medication, and disappointment seems too overwhelming. The couple must then face the choice between each other and the life that they’ve always dreamed of.

It’s a rare thing when a film decides to look at what happens after the couple finally gets together. We don’t always get to watch as two people try to get through the day-to-day as a couple. O’Connor and Costa get right to the core of the film, making every scene rife with intimacy. It’s one of the more honest portrayals of love and relationships in movies, but still grants the viewer a happy ending – one that you can actually see happening in real life.

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28 'Love, Simon' (2018)

Director: Greg Berlanti

The problem with a lot of teen romances is that the heroes are, obviously, teenagers. They are young and they are inexperienced, and it’s sometimes difficult to root for their love stories to have picture-perfect endings because we know their lives will be long, and filled with heartaches and romances for decades to come. Greg Berlanti’s Love, Simon deftly evades these notions, because it’s a coming-of-age story first and foremost, and what counts is how the protagonist grows upon having his first love, not whether or not they end up together forever.

Nick Robinson stars as Simon, a gay teen who hasn’t come out yet, who forms a pen pal relationship with a mysterious fellow student, who also hasn’t revealed to his friends and family that he’s gay. The story forces Nick to make some tough choices, and he doesn’t always make the right one, but his journey to self-discovery gets his priorities in check, so he can come to terms with who he is and finally, possibly, have the romance he wants with someone he’s never met… except in his heart. And in his emails. A delightfully John Hughes-ian teen film with a sparkling ensemble cast.

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27 'Once' (2007)

Director: John Carney

John Carney is famous the world over for making passionate, character-driven films full of awesome music, like Begin Again and Sing Street. But his masterpiece is still this infectiously low-key, lovely romance. Once stars Glen Hansard as a busker in Ireland, working in his father’s vacuum cleaner repair shop when he isn’t singing songs about his latest breakup in the street. When his music catches the ear of a Czech immigrant played by Markéta Irglová, they strike up a friendship based on mutual, musical appreciation.

Naturally, they fall in love, but sadly, there’s nothing they can do about that. All they can do is scrape together whatever money they can, write some songs, and cut a record. Carney understands that the real thrill of watching their tale play out lies in watching the art his characters make, not in the contrived machinations of a story pushing them this way and that. There’s an intoxicating realness to the simple yet heartfelt Once, revelry in the power of music to connect with other human beings, that shines through and makes it truly special.

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26 'Southside With You' (2016)

Director: Richard Tanne

Richard Tanne’s intimate and absorbing Southside With You would be one of the best romantic movies of the decade if its subjects were fictional. That it’s also based on the true story of Barack Obama and Michelle Robinson’s first date is but another intriguing selling point. Southside With You follows Robinson, played by Tika Sumpter, as a young lawyer and Obama’s supervisor, who agrees to meet the summer associate for a community meeting. She hesitantly agrees to meet up earlier, but has no interest in an office romance.

Southside With You takes place over the course of the afternoon and early evening as these two individuals with powerful personalities share their thoughts on life, on politics, on race, and find a connection building between them. It’s not love at first sight, and it’s not a passionate love affair. Southside is about two complex individuals with big ideas and serious dreams coming to realize, for the first time, that they could be more. Tanne’s film may not be able to fully escape a sense of mythologizing, and yet few romance movies in recent memory approach love and dating with the same confident maturity, regardless of the context.

Watch on Max

25 'Deadpool' (2016)

Director: Tim Miller

Quite a lot of superhero movies have a love story to tell amidst all the costumed crimefighting, but for some reason, it’s the one about a mass murderer who knows he’s in a movie that stands out. Deadpool stars Ryan Reynolds as a mercenary who finds the love of his life, Vanessa (Morena Baccarin), a hilarious, sensitive, intelligent, and sensual partner who makes his life worth living. So when he finds out he’s dying of cancer he flees to spare her the horror of watching him die, and he runs headlong into a secret government program that tortures him ruthlessly, in the hopes it will cure him and restore his life.

It is, of course, a devil’s bargain, and Deadpool emerges with superhuman healing powers but permanently marred skin, which only makes him more self-conscious about reuniting with his partner after so much of their relationship was physical. And at that point yes, there’s lots of action and violence and potty humor, but Deadpool would merely be a lark without a genuine, human story to ground it. And the story of a man whose insecurity nearly robs him of the relationship he wants, who ignores what his lover is telling him because he’s terrified that it’s not what she really needs, is far more thoughtful, accessible, and real than most of the other films in its genre.

Watch on Disney+

24 'Secretary' (2002)

Director: Steven Shainberg

Not everybody loves each other the same way, and yet, few romantic movies seem genuinely interested in truly exploring a lifestyle of sexual kink. At least we have Steven Shainberg’s Secretary. Maggie Gyllenhaal gives an electric performance as a young woman who discovers, through an unexpected BDSM relationship with her new boss, that she’s a submissive who yearns for just the right dom. James Spader plays her new lover, but even he doesn’t seem wholly comfortable with who he is and what he really wants.

Secretary is an unusual film about people with very specific needs who find each other. Their desires may be specific, but their fantasy is universal: they’re looking for someone who loves them for who they are, who can provide what they need, and with whom they can be mutually happy. That’s a dream that should not merely be reserved for the sensually milquetoast. The kinky deserve true love too, and Secretary is that rare love story that respects that everyone has unique needs and tells a lovely story that suggests there’s someone out there for everybody.

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23 'Lovers Rock' (2020)

Director: Steve McQueen

The second film in Steve McQueen’s Small Axe cycle, a collection of films exploring the lives of West Indian immigrants in the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s, doesn’t so much tell a story as it seems to float, all on its own, throughout a brief and beautiful moment in time. Lovers Rock takes place at a small house party where young people gather, absorb beautiful reggae music, and are swept away by their emotions… just like the audience.

To watch Lovers Rock is to feel a rare kind of joy, the sensation that a movie has transported you to a specific place, and captured every single detail for you. The songs that fuel the soundtrack, the partygoers who know them all by heart, and a pair of young lovers who meet and share the exquisite glow of discovery amidst the jubilance and tumult that fueled their first moments. It’s ecstatic cinema, immersive and whole.

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22 'Bridget Jones's Diary' (2001)

Director: Sharon Maguire

There were a couple of great adaptations of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice in the early 2000s, but it’s this charming modern update that stands out the most. Bridget Jones’s Diary stars Renée Zellweger as Bridget, a woman caught in a love triangle between the dashing Daniel, played by Hugh Grant, and the seemingly disinterested Mr. Darcy, played by Colin Firth (who, in a bit of stunt casting, famously played Mr. Darcy in a straightforward Pride and Prejudice adaptation six years prior).

It’s Zellweger’s film – she earned an Academy Award nomination for her performance – but director Sharon Maguire has wonderfully furnished it for her. Bridget Jones’s Diary brings all the smoldering romance and biting commentary of Austen’s novel into the modern-day, finding the tale just as relevant as ever and contemporary romantic expectations just as ripe for cunning commentary as those of the 19th century.

Rent on Apple TV

21 'God's Own Country' (2017)

Director: Francis Lee

Set in rural Yorkshire, God's Own Country follows the relationship between a sullen young farmer, Johnny (Josh O'Connor), and Gheorghe (Alec Secăreanu), a Romanian immigrant who comes to help with the farm. Johnny spends his days estranged from his father, drinking to oblivion, and having secret sexual rendezvous with other men, as he is still not out. He feels left behind as his friends go on to university, escaping their small, isolated town. It seems as though Johnny has acquiesced to the fact that he'll live a sad, lonely life, but Gheorghe's arrival changes everything.

From resentment, to slow sexual tension to finally, a burst of passion that sees the men unable to keep their hands off each other, Johnny and Gheorghe's road to love is a windy one, but that's what makes it all the more rewarding when fans see the two finally embrace their feelings for each other. God's Own Country depicts the journey of self-discovery that one needs to embark on to feel like they deserve the love they want. This film is a reminder that all types of love are found in all places, with the queer hidden gem being a beautiful, heartbreaking, and magnetic story of self-worth and love against a backdrop that is not usually seen in romance movies. – Emma Kiely

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20 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' (2000)

Director: Ang Lee

Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon isn’t, as many films are, an action movie with a love story in it. It’s a love story with an action movie in it. What’s more, it’s one hell of a love story, and one hell of an amazing action movie. Michelle Yeoh and Chow Yun-fat star as martial artists who are in love but, through a stroke of fate, cannot allow themselves to be together. When they encounter a young martial artist, played by Zhang Ziyi, who refuses to abide by the rules that kept them apart, it sparks a heated conflict with lots and lots of amazing sword fights.

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon plays like a Merchant Ivory film, the kind where everybody holds their emotions back except for young people who, inevitably, create chaos by following their hearts. That those emotions are unleashed in astounding fight choreography by the legendary Yuen Wo Ping only elevates Lee’s film further. It’s a glorious ballet of love and war. The mixture of pure romance and high-stakes action makes the film enthralling and enticing, thanks to how effectively it captures both sides of this delicate balance of genres.

Rent on Amazon

19 'Sleeping With Other People' (2015)

Director: Leslye Headland

There haven’t been a lot of great, naughty rom-coms in the 21st century, but Leslye Headland’s Sleeping With Other People would have stood out even if the competition were stiff. Jason Sudeikis and Alison Brie star as Jake and Lainey, two sexually overactive people who realize that their drives are ruining their lives. So they vow not to sleep with each other no matter how aroused they get. And they get very, very aroused.

Sudeikis and Brie keep the sexual chemistry at a low boil for all of Sleeping With Other People, and yes, we know where this is going and yes, it’s only a matter of time. But Headland’s spry screenplay and winning sense of humor work wonders, and she constantly mines the strong set-up and delightful characters for laugh-out-loud jokes and genuine romance. Especially when compared to other 'friends with benefits' movies of the era, Sleeping With Other People tackles the story with enough emotional maturity mixed with comedy to make it a compelling watch.

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18 'The Holiday' (2006)

Director: Nancy Meyers

The films of Nancy Meyers tend to portray the lives of the bourgeoisie in fairy tale terms and never was it more successful than in The Holiday. Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet play women who, searching for a change of pace after failed relationships, decide to switch houses. Winslet ventures into Southern California, moving into a palatial mansion next to a charming Golden Age of Hollywood screenwriter, and starts to fall for a film composer played by a pitch-perfect Jack Black. Meanwhile, Diaz moves into Winslet’s cozy, super-expensive cottage and romances the dapper Jude Law, who turns out to be Winslet’s brother.

The perfection on display in The Holiday would be suspect if the title didn’t perfectly frame it: this is an exceptional vacation from everyday life. The problems are emotionally intense but solvable, and the characters have the freedom to worry about their foibles without serious concerns to distract them; stupid little things like bills, for example. And the whole cast is just so unimaginably delightful that you cannot begrudge them this happiness. You can only revel in it, fall a little in love, and then begrudgingly go back to real life. Like those stupid bills.

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17 'They Came Together' (2014)

Director: David Wain

There’s a specific brand of romantic comedy that doesn’t get made much anymore but was a box office powerhouse in the 1990s. Fans of films like You’ve Got Mail, While You Were Sleeping, and Notting Hill can recognize every gloriously hackneyed storytelling convention from a mile away, and if they have any sense of humor whatsoever about that, David Wain’s brilliant parody They Came Together is just about the perfect comedy.

Paul Rudd and Amy Poehler star as people who are so different they couldn’t possibly get together, who discover they have something in common when they realize they share a unique passion for “fiction books.” But will their love survive phony plot points, twee digressions, and wacky supporting cast members? Will it almost be like New York City is a character in the film? You know the answers, but that just makes it more hilarious for Wain and his wacky cast to go through those motions in the weirdest, most self-aware ways imaginable.

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16 'A Star is Born' (2018)

Director: Bradley Cooper

By the time Bradley Cooper got around to remaking A Star is Born, it was already the fourth adaptation of the story. (Possibly even the fifth, you consider that the original 1937 film is suspiciously similar to 1932’s What Price Hollywood?) Once again it’s the story of an aspiring artist taken under the wing of a has-been with alcoholism, who uses his clout to lift her to stardom, only to fall in love with him as he sinks into addiction and scandal. And once again, the danged story really works.

A Star is Born is a love letter to the entertainment industry just as much as it is a vicious screed against it, portraying the whole environment as an exploitative den of selfish behavior and lifelong human sacrifice. Cooper’s rendition, in which he co-stars along with a stellar Lady Gaga, keeps that contrast front and center, but never loses track of the fact that if the love story doesn’t work, nothing does. Cooper and Gaga have four-alarm fire chemistry with each other, and the Oscar-winning music that accompanies their rise and fall tells their story beautifully too.

Rent on Amazon

15 'Love & Basketball' (2000)

Director: Gina Prince-Bythewood

Gina Prince-Bythewood’s directorial debut is more gloriously assured than the films of many industry veterans and remains one of the high water marks for romance movies over the last 20 years. Sanaa Lathan and Omar Epps star as Quincy and Monica, next-door neighbors since childhood who both dream of playing professional basketball. Over the course of their lives, they fall in and out of love, they get swept up in their ambitions and their family struggles, and eventually, they always find their way back to each other.

Love & Basketball never plays like a romance built on contrivance or manufactured melodrama. It’s full of thoughtfully drawn, rich characters who attract and repel each other naturally, making good and bad choices, and never once ringing false. Lathan and Epps feel just right together; their chemistry is phenomenal throughout, whether they’re on or off the court. Gina Prince-Bythewood’s film never rings a false note.

Watch on Paramount+

14 'Crazy Rich Asians' (2018)

Director: Jon M. Chu

Jon M. Chu’s charming and funny adaptation of Kevin Kwan’s novel stars Constance Wu as Rachel, a Chinese-American professor who travels to meet her boyfriend’s family in Singapore, only to discover they’re astonishingly wealthy. And so begins a familiar tale of class conflict, as a young woman from a working-class upbringing suddenly gets immersed in fabulous privilege and glorious excess. Not to mention the constant leers of disapproval.

Crazy Rich Asians is an old-fashioned throwback to Hollywood romance movies, larger than life, riddled with memorable character actors, and adherent to a feel-good formula. But it’s more than that, it’s a distinctive and transportive romantic comedy with performances that would elevate any material, and an appreciation for a culture that mainstream Hollywood rarely even attempts to explore. It’s one of the best rom-coms of the last 20 years.

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13 'Amélie' (2001)

Director: Jean-Pierre Jeunet

Lots of romantic movies aim for “quirky” and wind up somewhere in the vicinity of “cloying” by accident. Not so with Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s charmingly weird Amélie, starring Audrey Toutou as a seemingly timid waitress who has a hidden streak of wild imagination. She gets it into her head to improve the lives of everybody around her, and she insists on doing it in whimsical ways like sending their garden gnomes on holiday without them or tricking her friends into delightful romances.

Along the way, she winds up finding true love herself, and it’s easy to imagine why. Jeunet’s film is pure love itself, a passionate ode to eccentricity, taking place in a cinematic realm where the kooky can thrive. Toutou captures our imaginations through her impish fascination with the people around her, and through her eyes, we appreciate all the wonders of the world. It makes for one of the most visually distinct and enthralling viewing experiences possible in a romance film, making use of the full capabilities of modern digital filmmaking.

Rent on Amazon

12 'Love Actually' (2003)

Director: Richard Curtis

Richard Curtis’s Love Actually seemed to come and go, and then come back again as a perennial yuletide classic. It’s easy to see why Love Actually didn’t find an audience right away: it’s astoundingly schmaltzy. It’s also easy to see why the film eventually became a holiday cult favorite: it’s astoundingly schmaltzy.

Love Actually tells a variety of short romantic stories, loosely connected, if only by geography. People fall in love, people fall out of love, and people make hit Christmas music. Each story in Love Actually is pretty thin on its own but Curtis’s film intercuts between them so sharply that the film practically becomes a deadly weapon. If you can’t stand one tale, another is bound to charm you. And if you happen to like them all, they take on a genuine grandeur as a whole. (And if you don’t like any of these tales, you may very well be a Grinch.)

Rent on Amazon

11 'Carol' (2015)

Director: Todd Haynes

Patricia Highsmith’s groundbreaking novel The Price of Salt was transformed into one of the most stunning romances in decades. Carol, directed and adapted by Todd Haynes, stars Rooney Mara as a clerk at a department store who meets, quite by chance, a rich socialite played by Cate Blanchett. Their relationship grows into a romance but social mores and the effect a scandal could have on a divorce threatens to tear them apart.

Few films are as stunningly photographed and elegantly designed as Carol. It’s a film that understands the effect of affect, where style becomes substance and substance is, itself, a certain manner of style. Haynes’ film cuts through its own aesthetic and sinks into the difficult decisions and stymied inner lives of its heroines. Their story is profound and beautiful, and the harsh realities of conventional and conservative society can only hold them back for so long.

Watch on Netflix