rom coms we loved ♥, and a few other recommended films, including some romantic drama
[for Valentine's Day 2018]

[for dr bob movie critic not so much nonreviews, click here]

Witty/smart dialog or offbeat romcom movies we liked/loved, plus a few others, some just romance, okay, maybe Ani has forgotten some of these, but bob has not. A "♥" marks some must-see movie or a quirky movie that might be overlooked.

happy ending?	heart in a box?

All the movie links are to IMDB [wiki] which seems to have been bought out by Amazon. Many of these can be seen on Netflix, or free or for 3.99 on Amazon Prime Video, or on Youtube for free or 2.99. And before you jump in, you might consider a timely (VD2018) feminist take on romcoms.

• This whole idea started with Lake Bell who is a terrific romcom actress, she was the second wife in It’s Complicated (2009)♥ (a must-see Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin film)  and she is the other woman in No Strings Attached (2011)♥ ( Natalie Portman,  Ashton Kutcher,  Kevin Kline, another fun flick, loved it; similar theme: Friends with Benefits with Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake) but she is the lead lady in the delightful Man Up (2015)♥ with Simon Pegg (from a series of black humor UK films, like Hot Fuzz (2007) and Shaun of the Dead (2004), as well as with Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible, didn't he also do a road trip with an alien movie? Yes! I had forgotten: Paul (2011))
• Love Actually (2003)♥ is a must see, Hugh Grant is in his best form here with an all star cast (Bill Nighy, Colin Firth, Emma Thompson,  Keira Knightly, Liam Neeson, Alan Rickman), followed up by his performances in Notting Hill (1999) (with Julia Roberts! who topped them all with Pretty Woman (1990), and Runaway Bride (1999) both with Richard Gere, and My Best Friend's Wedding (1997) ) and 4 Weddings and a Funeral (1994), not to mention the Bridget Jones series where he plays a cad, and instead Colin Firth is the good guy and Music and Lyrics (2007) with Drew Barrymore (who did that female saves herself flick fairy tale Ever After: a Cinderella Story (1998)and so many more ...).
• Bill Nighy, an amazing guy with a unique lighthearted touch, we first saw him in The Girl in the Cafe, (a romance with geopolitical implications) then as a romcom hitman in Wild Target (2010)♥ (with our darling Emily Blunt, who first caught our attention in The Devil Wears Prada...see below)  and then a touching performance in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011), then the time traveling tale About Time (2013) with Rachel McAdams (sort of like the Ground Hog Day (1993)♥ play on time with Andie MacDowell and Bill Murray).
• Emily Blunt crashed into our movie lifes with The Devil Wears Prada (2006)♥ with Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway [see The Intern review below], and we've loved her ever since, besides rewatching Prada several times now. She took a powerful dark turn as a tough female agent in Sicario (2015) (after her introduction to action flicks with Tom Cruise in Edge of Tomorrow (2014)), which means hitman in Mexican. But early on we got to see her in person at the BMFI after a free preview of Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2011) (also a romcom). And she married a great guy, and her sister married a costar from The Devil Wears Prada, Stanley Tucci. And Sunshine Cleaning (2008) with Alan Arkin and Amy Adams. Back to Emily: The 5 Year Engagement (2012), Your Sister's Sister (2011)
• Anne Hathaway, where do we begin. Those cute princess movies? or Valentines Day (2010) (a cute romcom with Ashton Kutcher as a sweet florist and an all star cast, Julia Roberts, ...)? Bride Wars (2009) (with Kate Hudson, another romcom queen)? Love and Other Drugs (2010) (with a sad edge too)?
• Alicia Vikander first crashed into our hearts in The Danish Girl (2015), and how about that robot romance in Ex-Machina (2014)? Can't wait till she replaces Angelina Jolie as Laura Croft in Tomb Raider (2018).
• Angelina Jolie in Mr&Mrs Smith (2005), romance with weapons.
• Bridesmaids (2011)♥ we've watched so many times, with Kristen Wiig and Chris O'Dowd who did a great job in St Vincent (2014) and Melissa McCarthy.
• Kate Hudson, so many. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003), Raising Helen (2004), My Best Friend's Girl (2008), Bride Wars (2009), ...
• Kate Winslet, who can forget Titanic (1997) with Leo Di Caprio? but other stuff: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
• Kate Blanchet in Bandits (2001), a delicious three way with Bruce Willis and Billy Bob Thornton.
• Colin Firth. Why do we always love that guy? Even in St Trinians (2007) which got canned on IMDB.
• How can we forget Katherine Heigl who first grabbed our attention in Gray's Anatomy but then found herself in a series of romcom successes, like Knocked Up (2007),  27 Dresses (2008), The Ugly Truth (2009) with a winning performance by Gerard Butler in an odd couple buddy road trip, or Jenny's Wedding (2015).
• And Leslie Mann! who was also in Knocked Up (2007) with Paul Rudd (also with LM in This is 40 (2012)) and Seth Rogen, directed by her husband Judd Apatow, who directed The Big Sick (2017) which featured Zoe Kazan, who did Ruby Sparks (2012). featuring Annette Benning! (20th Century Women (2016), The Kids are Alright (2010) with Mark Ruffalo) and This is 40 (2012).
• 500 Days of Summer (2009), offbeat with Zooey Deschanel.
• Made of Honor (2008) was cute with Patrick Demsey from Gray's Anatomy and Michelle Monaghan, also in Playing it Cool (2014)♥ (see review below) with Chris Evans (Captain America)  who has a romantic side who knew? directed and starred in Before We Go (2014),
• Jennifer Lopez, The Wedding Planner (2001)♥ with Matthew McConaughey, Maid in Manhattan (2002)♥ with Ralph Fiennes, Shall We Dance (2004) with Richard Gere, Monster in Law (2005) with Jane Fonda,
• Matthew McConaughey, Failure to Launch () with Sarah Jessica Parker, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past () with Emma Stone and Jennifer Garner,...
• Emma Stone in Easy A (2010)♥, a precocious highschooler, La La Land (2016) with Ryan Gosling, Aloha (2015) wtih Bradley Cooper and Rachel McAdams
• Steve Carelle with Ryan Gosling in Crazy Stupid Love (2011), Little Miss Sunshine (2006) with Toni Colette and Greg Kinnear, Date Night (2010) with Tina Fey, Dan in Real Life (2007) with Juliette Binoche,
• Tina Fey in Admission (2013) with Paul Rudd,
• Dwayne Johnson? in a bro flick Central Intelligence (2015) with Kevin Hart (who provides the romance?), and double romance in San Andreas (2015).
• 10 Things I Hate About You (1999), Keith Ledger as a alternative teenager! Julia Styles.
• The Holiday (2006)♥ with Kate Winslet, Jack Black, Jude Law and Cameron Diaz, we've watched this at least 3 or 4 times, great father little daughters stuff, nice old guy next door the great Eli Wallach.
• Cameron Diaz in There's Something About Mary (1998),  In Her Shoes (2005) with Shirley McClaine and Toni Colette, The Holiday (see above), What Happens in Vegas (2008) with Ashton Kutcher, Night and Day (2010) with Tom Cruise, Bad Teacher (2011) with Justin Timberlake, The Other Woman (2014) with Leslie Mann,
• Ryan Reynolds in Definitely, Maybe (2008)♥ with this cutie young daughter Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine! Alan Arkin!  and the daughter in No Reservations (2007)!  with Catherine Zeta-Jones and Aaron Eckart) and Rachel Weiss, Elizabeth Banks, Isla Fisher (Wedding Crashers (2005)! with Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn, Rachel McAdams ) and Kevin Kline
• Katherine Zeta-Jones in The Rebound (2009)
• Extract (2009) with Jason Bateman, Mila Kunis, Kristen Wiig, Ben Affleck!
• Ashley Judd in Someone Like You (2001), with Greg Kinnear, Hugh Jackman;
• Act Like You Love Me (2013)
• Pretend We're Kissing (2014) nerd meets beautiful girl.
• Rose Byrne in I Give it a Year (2013), quirky
• Merry Kissmas (2015) chance elevator kiss leads to doubts about current boyfriend
• Haylie Duff in Christmas Belle (2015), Naughty and Nice (),...
• Dear Santa (2011) young daughter asks Santa for a wife for her dad
• Moonrise Kingdom (2012), two misfit kids in love run away to be be together, quirky to the max
• Not Another Happy Ending (2013) wrter's block
• Pierce Brosnon in Some Kind of Beautiful (2014) with Selma Hayek and Jessica Alba; ...
• Tom Hanks in a cute back to college flick Larry Crowne and a burned out prof Julia Roberts, and a darling young coed Gugu Mbatha-Raw, who is in a new flick Irreplaceable You (2018);
• Alan Arkin in ...
• Amy Adams, in Leap Year (2010),   The Wedding Date (2005) with Dermot Mulroney, ...    
  THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS
• Dermot Mulroney in ...
• Keira Knightly in Love Actually..., singer songwriter Begin Again (2013) with Mark Ruffalo
• Daniel Craig before Bond in Mother (2003), a construction worker has an affair with an older higher social class woman.
• Andie MacDowell in Ground Hog Day (1993)♥ with Bill Murray who did an odd romance with the younger hottie Scarlett Johansson in Lost in Translation (2003),
• Ryan Gosling with Russell Crowe and Angourie Rice in The Nice Guys♥ great father young daughter stuff!
• My Last Day Without You (2011)♥, quirky intercontinental interracial odd couple romance in Manhattan
• Something's Gotta Give (2003), Jack Nicholson, Keenu Reeves, Diane Keeton
• Greg Kinnear...
• He's Just Not That Into You (2009),
• Anna Kendrick, Drinking Buddies (2013), and with Ben Affleck in The Accountant (2016)(more assassin+romance) but Up In the Air (2009) with George Clooney and Vera Farmiga and all those Pitch Perfect 1,2,3 flicks, and Table 19 (2017)
• America's sweetheart Sandra Bollock, in The Proposal (2009) introducing that uniquely deadpan Ryan Reynolds,  first got our attention as a super smart woman in Love Potion #9 (1992)♥, Forces of Nature (1999) with Ben Affleck,  Two Weeks Notice (2002) with Hugh Grant,  While You Were Sleeping (1995)
• Meg Ryan the romcom darling, in When Harry Met Sally (1989)♥ with Billy Crystal, Sleepless in Seattle (1993) with Tom Hanks, French Kiss (1995) with Kevin Kline, You've Got Mail (1998) with Tom Hanks, ...
• Kevin Kline speaks Italian menu items in A Fish Called Wanda (1988) with Jaimie Lee Curtis, in No Strings Attached (see above),
• Decoy Bride (2011) has the gay guy Michael Urie from Ugly Betty ; One Small Hitch (2013)
• Take Care (2014)♥, accident victim needs help to recover, her ex mans up, offbeat and endearing.
•  Penelope Cruz in Twice Upon a Yesterday (1998) or Woman on Top (2000) , in Vicky Cristina Barcelona...
• Antonio Banderas in Tie Me Up (1989) and Mask of Zoro (1998) with Catherine Zeta-Jones
• Happy Accidents (2000) with Marisa Tomei
• Jerry McGuire (1996) introduced us to Renee Zellweger and then all those Bridget Jones movies (we loved them too)
• Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008) with Kristen Bell, Jason Segel, Paul Rudd
• Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper in Silver Linings Playbook (2012)
• Say Anything (1989) with John Cusak, and the hitman rom com? Grosse Point Blanke (1997) with Minnie Driver
• The Princess Bride (1987)!
• Playing by Ear (1998) with Angelina Jolie and ...,
• The Very Thought of You (1998) offbeat with Joseph Fiennes and Monica Potter who falls for 3 friends simultaneously by chance
• Dorfman in Love (2011), offbeat
• The Pill (2011) quirky
• Never Been Kissed (1999) with Drew Barrymore.
• Something New (2006) with Simon Baker (Prada!): cute interracial romance with class differences
• Shakespeare in Love (1998) with Gwyneth  Paltrow
• A Room with a View (1985) a classic with Maggie Smith and Helen Bonham Carter.
• As Good as it Gets (1997), with Jack Nicholson, Helen Hunt, Greg Kinnear
• My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002) has to be on the list.
• The Accidental Husband (2008) with  Uma Thurman and Colin Firth and Jeffrey Dean Morgan
• Barefoot (2014)
• And So It Goes (2014) with Michael Douglas and Diane Keaton and a cute kid.
• Emma Watson in The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012) and Beauty and the Beast (2017).
• a classic: Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) with Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard, or better yet Roman Holiday (1953) with Audrey and Gregory Peck, or with Sean Connery in Robin and Marian (1976), light but not comedy.
• Adore (2013) mothers fall in love with each others sons, dramadey romance
• Standby (2014) one night to win back his summer romance girlfriend on her chance stopover 8 years later, cute
• All Relative (2014) student falls for girl's mom?
• The Right Kind of Wrong (2013) guy meets true love on her wedding day
• Italian? To Rome with Love (2012) (Woody Allen), no that is set in Rome in English, but introduces Alessandra Mastonardi later seen in Master of None, Season 2; A Five Star Life (2016) with our sweetheart Margherita Buy with Stefano Accorsi
  Nuovomondo (2006)♥, from Sicilian poverty to Ellis Island in the early 1900s with Charlotte Gainsburg as a strange addition to the mix, some romance---an important movie for Italian Americans.
• Spanish? Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) (Woody Allen), no, that is in English set in Spain; try Happily Married (2015); I Don't Know Whether to Slit My Wrists or Leave Them Long (2013) offbeat Mexican,
• French? Blind Date (2015)♥ is really a cute one, shy girl and reclusive guy communicate by banging on the wall, or Charlotte Gainsburg in My Wife is an Actress (2001), or I Do (2006), or ...And They Lived Happily Ever After (2004),
• German? Go With Le Flo (2014), quirky food romance in Paris.
• Multinational Paris Romance? Girl on a Bicycle (2013) ♥ combines Italian, German, French and American characters in a whimsical intersection of lives, see Take Care above.
• China? Forever Love (2013) cute,
• Hong Kong? Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong (2014)
• India? A Decent Arrangement (2011), Indian-American looking for a wife back in India falls for an American tourist
• Food themes?
  Mostly Martha (2001)♥ with Sergio Castellito (remade in No Reservations (2007)), Eat Drink Man Woman (1994), The 100 Foot Journey (2014) with Helen Mirren, Tortilla Soup (2001), Love's Kitchen (2011), Le Chef (2012), Today's Special (2011), Chef (2014), Cooking with Love (2018), Off the Menu (2018)
  
• This could go on and on...traces of all of these are somewhere in my head.
  
  
• how about 2 Night Stand (2014)? Analeigh Tipman was the horny teenager who fell in love with her babysitting kids' dad Steve Carell in Crazy, Stupid Love (2011), now a horny twenty something single still needing some love, very cute.
• and offbeat romance in Keira Knightly and Sam Rockwell in Laggies (2014), with cutie teenage daughter Chloë Grace Moretz.
• then Julie, Naked (2018) with Bridesmaids alums Chris O'Dowd and Rose Byrne, joined by Ethan Hawke.

And some favorite internet "TV" romcom/romdrama series on Netflix and Amazon:

• Netflix: Mozart in the Jungle (2014- 2018) a delightful cast with the adobable Lola Kirke and Gael García Bernal (not to mention Saffron Burrows! and Bernadette Peters, and Malcolm McDowell), see especially Season 3 starting out in Venice with Monica Bellucci
• Amazon Prime: Master of None (2016- 2018) Anziz Ansari and the love interest Alessandra Mastonardi  especially Seasons 2,3 [season 2 episode 1 is a cute tribute to the classic film The Bicycle Thief (1948)).
• PBS Victoria (2016- ) with Jenna Coleman is super romantic, Jenna is such a perfect actress for this role (and for empowering women!), after a spunky run in Dr Who as the sidekick.

And then there is the Hallmark channel... but let's not go there
[A Very, Very, Valentine (2018) as I type, another love triangle, standard plot, 4 days to go... we have to admit to having already watched well over a dozen of these this winter]

And if that were not enough, we have been addicted to so many serious and lighthearted romantic TV series on RAI International delivered to us by Verizon FIOS [or online viewing of their enormous archive of movies and shows using a VPN like ExpressVPN, but you need to understand Italian, no subtitles!]

• Our current series, based on a love triangle: Il Paradiso delle Signore (2017-2018) [RAIplay] with Giusy Buscemi

Facebook movie review posts:  dr bob's new unoccupation begun in 2017

romance begins at home...

 Streaming histories are available when logged in.

https://www.engadget.com/2016/08/18/netflix-amazon-viewing-history-guide//a>

Netflix viewing History [pdf]

Amazon Prime Viewing History [current wish list] [watch history]

Just think of all the "useful" stuff I could have done instead of viewing all this diversionary stuff...but the simple pleasures are an important part of life too, no?

dr bob website