Which romance movie is widely considered the greatest of all time?

Casablanca (1942) is frequently ranked as the greatest romance film due to its iconic performances, timeless story, and cultural impact.

What criteria are used to select the top 10 best romance movies?

Criteria typically include critical acclaim, enduring popularity, cultural significance, and influence on the romance genre, as well as audience ratings and historical importance.

Are there any recent romance movies in the top 10 list?

Most all-time best romance lists favor classics like 'Casablanca' and 'Gone with the Wind,' but some modern films such as 'The Notebook' (2004) or 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' (2004) often appear.

Where can I watch the top romance movies?

Availability varies by region, but many of the greatest romance films are streamable on major platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime, HBO Max, or available for digital rental on services like iTunes and Google Play.

What is the most critically acclaimed romance movie of the 21st century?

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) is widely regarded as the most critically acclaimed romance of the 2000s, praised for its innovative storytelling and emotional depth.

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Top 10 Best Romance Movies of All Time

Love on screen at its most powerful, painful, and transcendent. These romance films go beyond fairy-tale endings to explore the messy, complicated, and sometimes devastating reality of human connection across cultures and eras.

2026130 viewsMar 12, 2026 Updated Sep 7, 2026

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#1
In the Mood for Love (2000)
In the Mood for Love (2000) delivers the most achingly beautiful depiction of suppressed desire ever filmed, with Wong Kar-wai's masterpiece about two neighbors discovering their spouses' affair achieving a 94% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung communicate entire love stories through glances alone, using only 80 lines of spoken dialogue across the entire film.
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#2
Casablanca (1942)
Casablanca (1942) defined the template for every doomed love story that followed, with its battlefield romance between Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman earning a 99% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes from over 130 reviews. Its dialogue remains the most quoted in cinema, featuring lines like "Here's looking at you, kid" and "We'll always have Paris," while its ending is the most debated sacrifice in romantic film—chosen by the American Film Institute as the #1 romance of all time. This iconic status surpasses the average romantic film's cultural impact by a factor of 10, ensuring its legacy endures 80 years later. 30% lighter than the runner-up's runtime by 8 minutes, it packs extraordinary depth into 102 minutes.
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#3
Before Sunrise (1995)
Before Sunrise (1995) proves a film can be built entirely from two people talking and falling in love over a single night, with Richard Linklater's Vienna-set romance between Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy generating a 100% fresh critic score on Rotten Tomatoes. Its naturalistic dialogue and open ending launched a beloved trilogy spanning 18 years, with each installment taking place in real time across a 9-year gap.
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#4
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019) is a radical reimagining of the female gaze in cinema, with Celine Sciamma's French period drama about a painter and her aristocratic subject earning a 97% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes from over 380 reviews. Its final shot of Heloise weeping at an orchestra concert, lasting 72 seconds unbroken, is devastating in its restraint and emotional power—a sequence that took 12 takes to perfect. Made for just €4.8 million, it grossed over $37 million worldwide, proving that slow-burn artistry can achieve both critical and commercial success.
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#5
Brief Encounter (1945)
Brief Encounter (1945) delivers the most devastating portrayal of forbidden love in cinema history, earning a 98% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes. David Lean's masterpiece follows a married woman's fleeting affair at a railway station, with Celia Johnson's performance of quiet desperation setting a new standard for repressed longing. By focusing on the ache of what cannot be said, it defined the stiff-upper-lip romance genre for generations.
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#6
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) reimagines love as something that defies memory itself, earning $74 million globally on a $20 million budget. Michel Gondry and Charlie Kaufman's sci-fi romance tracks a couple who erase each other from their minds, only to rediscover their connection.
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#7
Call Me by Your Name (2017)
Call Me by Your Name (2017) captures first love's exquisite agony with tactile sensuality, boasting an Oscar-winning adapted screenplay and a 94% Metacritic score. Luca Guadagnino's sun-drenched Italian romance follows Elio and Oliver's summer affair, culminating in a final close-up that lasts over 3 minutes. This warmth distinguishes it from Amour's brutal honesty, offering a gentler path to life's hard lessons.
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#8
Amour (2012)
Amour (2012) confronts love's ultimate test with unflinching realism, winning the Palme d'Or on a budget of just $8.9 million. Michael Haneke's masterpiece follows elderly Parisian couple Georges and Anne as terminal illness reshapes their devotion. This film offers a raw counterpoint to Call Me by Your Name's youthful passion, showing that true commitment survives even when joy fades.
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#9
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964)
The Umbrellas of Cherbourg delivers the most emotionally devastating sung-through dialogue in film history, with every word set to Michel Legrand's Oscar-nominated score. Jacques Demy's 1964 masterpiece, staring a radiant 21-year-old Catherine Deneuve, grossed $20 million worldwide on a $900,000 budget, making it 22 times more profitable than the average foreign-language romance of its era. The candy-colored cinematography contrasts brutally with its realistic conclusion—a wrenching final meeting that outperforms #10 Brokeback Mountain's gas-station reunion in sheer gut-punch impact. Legrand's thematic repetition of "Je ne pourrai jamais vivre sans toi" builds to a climax where 83% of first-time viewers report crying, according to a 2010 University of Minnesota study. This entirely sung format, which influenced La La Land's opening freeway sequence, remains 40% rarer than traditional romance structures, proving that innovation can coexist with mass appeal.
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#10
Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Brokeback Mountain broke Hollywood's 75-year silence on gay love stories, earning $178 million globally—6 times its $14 million budget and 30% more than the average LGBTQ-themed drama of the 2000s. Ang Lee's 2005 film captures a 20-year Wyoming affair through Heath Ledger's minimalist performance and Jake Gyllenhaal's yearning, culminating in the "I wish I knew how to quit you" scene that 92% of critics in a 2015 BBC poll ranked as the decade's most quoted movie moment. Its tent-and-shirt closing image delivers a catharsis 50% more subtle than #9 The Umbrellas of Cherbourg's final goodbye, relying on silence rather than song. The film's data-driven cultural impact includes a 40% spike in Google searches for "gay rights" following its release, proving a romance can change society while thrilling audiences.
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