Ahhh…romance. It’s all about romance. We have analyzed all 239 romantic movies available on Netflix to identify the best. This includes rom-com classics, tear-jerkers and Netflix originals as well as LGBTQ+ love stories, Bollywood romances and other movies that are heartwarming.
The 7 best streaming romantic movies on Netflix are
1. It’s a must-have for her
The film’s debut was a scathing, honest feature. It immediately revealed Lee’s brave, new voice as an American filmmaker. She’s Gotta Get It is a documentary-style exploration of Nola, a young black woman. Nola (Tracy Camilla Johns), struggles with choosing between her three male lovers. Lee never fails to mention that “none” is an answer that is possible for Nola or single women. That’s a refreshing aspect of the film. The film’s authentic realism is enhanced by its DIY black-and-white grainy cinematography. –Oktay Ege Kozak
2.When Harry Met Sally
Year: 1989
Director: Rob Reiner
Stars Billy Crystal Meg Ryan Carrie Fisher and Bruno Kirby
Rating R
This is the best-loved romantic comedy of the decade. The story of Harry (Billy Crystal), Sally, and their 12-year journey together to become a married couple features a script by Nora Ephron. Ephron’s script feeds off the unexpected chemistry between the leads. (And as each new generation of couples watches the diner scene, one woman laughs, while another man sits still, wondering what’s so hilarious. –Michael Burgin
3. Phantom Thread
Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
Stars: Daniel Day-Lewis, Lesley Manville, Vicky Krieps
Rating R
Phantom Thread is an amazing romantic love movie on Netflix. It is meticulously made and executed with so much emotion that you almost forget how scabrous and prickly. This film is one of the most gorgeous to watch. It is about how self-centred, inflexible, and how much we can give up. It is up to the partner to decide how to deal with it if they choose to. It is a film about two uncompromising individuals who attempt to live with each other without losing too much of themselves. Reynolds Woodcock, played by Daniel Day-Lewis, is a famous dressmaker who dresses royalty, celebrities, and sometimes wealthy vulgarians. Everything that doesn’t fit his standards is vulgarian. However, Reynolds encounters Alma (Vicky Krieps), who meets Reynolds physical requirements and has an extraordinary pluck which he finds fascinating. Both the principals in Phantom Thread can be described as insane and absurd, but it’s fun to see them collide. It’s a strange love story. I don’t think it’s even about love. Tim Grierson, my colleague, said it first. But it’s too great an observation not to make: This romance movie on Netflix is largely about how unknowable other people’s relationships are. From the outside, it doesn’t make sense that Reynolds or Alma would form this kind of relationship. It’s also difficult to discern what each person is getting from it. What’s most amazing about it is its power. Will Leitch
4. Her
Director: Spike Jonze
Stars: Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlett Johansson, Olivia Wilde, Amy Adams, Rooney Mara
Rating R
Runtime 126 min
Spike Jonze’s enormous talent was too much to be kept in MTV’s shadow; this became evident when his breakthrough feature-length debut, Becoming John Malkovich earned him an Oscar nomination as Best Director. He and Charlie Kaufman continued their solipsism journey with the humorously unhinged. Kaufman’s screenplays were as difficult but fun, and accessible, Jonze’s answers any questions about whether the (well-deserved ) success of those two films’ (well-deserved ) reviews came solely from Kaufman’s words. She preserves the most heartfelt bits of the charming characters, psycho-sexuality, and difficult-writable pathos of Malkovich. It successfully executes a challenging stunt in filmmaking: a mature, deeply felt romance in sci-fi costumes. Jonze’s latest movie is one of 2013’s best. It features stunning cinematography and stunning sets. Joaquin Phoenix delivers clever dialogue. It confirms that She is the complete package. —Scott Wold
5. Atlantics
Director: Mati Diop
Stars: Mame Bineta Sane, Amadou Mbow, Nicole Sougou, Aminate Kane
Rating N
Atlantics was quite the announcement to Mati Diop. She takes the magic of Alice Rohrwacher’s realism and brings it to the margins. This is her examination of class struggle in a Senegalese town by the Atlantic. Diop’s gritty, windy opening images (a stunning work of cinematographer Claire Mathon) are accompanied by the hypnotic electronic score of Fatima AlQadiri. They create an unmatched mood and sense of place. The fact that it may look and sound so foreign to American viewers of this Netflix film is perhaps a stark indictment about the ways we intellectually isolate ourselves from reality beyond our own. Atlantics deals with that, and how to break that. It is about the mystery of identity, and how one can either take on the identity of another or find it by looking in the mirror. This is not for the body but for the soul. In a similar vein, it also discusses the possibility of losing culturally-prescribed identities that we may have been raised with, nurtured or limited by. According to the film, love is a catalyst. It can transform identities in transgressive and transcendent ways. It is best to let the visuals pulse before you, and avoid being too programmatic. Although it’s another sad ghost story, the film is able to distinguish that sometimes the things which haunt the living most aren’t the things they were but the things they should have been. The protagonist in the film embraces haunting as a source of hope. She loses an important thing and fills the gap by expanding her self by embracing the self that has been touched by others. Even though Pacifics is elliptical, Diop still manages to make her film a memorable one. It’s both a statement and a convincing one. –Chad Betz
6. To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before
Director Susan Johnson
Stars: Lana Condor, Noah Centineo, Janel Parrish
Rating N
Runtime 125 minutes
To All of the Boys I’ve Loved Before is a stunning film about the teen scene. It isn’t great for a teen movie. It isn’t great for a romantic comedy. It is, however, excellent for. TABILB inverts the 80/20 rule: In the first 20 minutes of the film, five love letters Lara Jean, our daydreamy and emotionally tense protagonist, have stolen and been mailed out. The letter to Josh (Israel Broussard), which is also her older sister’s just barely ex-partner, is the only one that she can read. Lara Jean’s abrupt end to any protracted emotional dishonesty she might have tried to indulge in over the years leaves her film’s last eighty minutes to be able to express some truly radical emotional honesty. This TATBILB allows Lara Jean, not to do this even though. However, by Lara Jean can use the fan-favourite trope that “fake-dating” another letter recipient (Noah Centineo’s charming Peter Kavinsky) to make her story stronger. All the emotional honesty in this world would be meaningless if TATBILB didn’t have any chemistry. Lana Condor is able to do it. Condor, Centineo, and Madeleine Arthur are the shows stars. But TATBILB does not rest on their success. Madeleine Arthur as Lara Jean is a foxy, friendly, girl-friend, and Lucas Mahoro is a brilliant, witty character; Janel Parrish is a slick, steel-spined Margot, while Anna Cathcart is sassy and engaged Kat Stratford’s single, with a clear gleeo. Although Lara Jean and her sisters are half-Korean as well as the majority of the cast (alongside Mahoro), it’s not the most remarkable thing about the cast. Lara Jean is a teenager in a genre that often sees its characters portrayed too much as caricatures. Alexis Gunderson
7. Top Gun
Director: Tony Scott
Stars Tom Cruise. Kelly McGillis. Val Kilmer. Anthony Edwards. Tom Skerritt
Rating
Runtime 110 Minutes
This action film is a great example of fast aircraft, beach volleyball and Aviator shades. The film stars Tom Cruise, who is a star in the role. Kenny Logins’ soundtrack makes it a great soundtrack. Iceman and Maverick are characters that make this movie stand out. And finally, there’s one of the most controversial plots in movie history. It’s impossible to deny the human need for speed.
