CineConnections® Alternative Top 10 Romantic Films
Who doesn’t love making lists?
It’s no secret that the not-so-secret sauce behind CineConnections®, besides bringing film lovers together, is our trademarked algorithm that leverages the lists of your favorite films, performers and directors to help match you with people who share similar (or not so similar!) favorites. It also provides our subscribers with some great keyword search possibilities. And, as anyone who followed the recent NY Times survey of readers’ choices for the best films of the 21st century knows, making lists and comparing them with others is a borderline addictive activity.
As a dating app for movie fans, it stands to reason we would also love lists of the best romantic films of all time. One recent example from the industry-standard journal Variety is as notable for its radical inclusiveness — any list that includes F.W. Murnau’s silent masterpiece Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) and Pretty Woman (1990) is pitching itself a pretty big tent — as for its omissions. Many other best romantic movies lists can be found on member pages at sites like IMDb and Letterboxd, and an organization like the American Film Institute offers its own survey of top love stories that, yes, includes Love Story (1970) (plus its own equally disparate choices, ranging from D.W. Griffith’s Way Down East (1920) to Grease (1978)).
But, as we think CineConnections® offers something significantly different from any other dating apps, it stands to reason we’d also come up with an out-of-the-ordinary Top 10. Here is our unconventional list of best romantic films, presented in reverse order:
10. Solaris (1972)
AKA “Loving the Alien”? Andrei Tarkovsky’s adaptation of the Stanislaw Lem novel and retort to Kubrick’s 2001 (1968), Solaris is also a parable about love lost and regained, guilt, commitment and the possibility of love beyond the species.
9. Betty Blue (37°2 le matin) (1986)
From its unforgettable opening scene through every wild twist and turn of its singular plot, Jean-Jacques Beineix’ best film is a consummate cinematic realization of l’amour fou. We have long thought and continue to think that Béatrice Dalle should star in everything.
8. Faces (1968)
The legendary Amerindie icon actor/writer/director John Cassavetes’ work never topped this heartbreaking, heartfelt examination of desperation among middle-aged (and younger) Americans, along with the things we do for love, and the things we do when we don’t get it. Shattering and as real as American cinema gets.
7. Mauvais Sang (1986)
Is there anything more romantic than unrequited love? Denis Lavant and Juliette Binoche’s unconsummated affection runs like an electric undercurrent in Leos Carax’ magnificent, delirious crime drama by way of 80’s AIDS parable.
6. In the Mood for Love (2000)
Speaking of unrequited love, Wong Kar-Wai’s indelible testament to love that dare not speak its name is as exceptional and rapturously gorgeous as its mesmerizing stars, Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung.
5. Ganja and Hess (1973)
The late, great Bill Gunn‘s moody, provocative reflection on vampirism, multicultural dislocation and a love that can live forever (or can it?). This is also a complex psychodrama, not to mention an iconic achievement in Black cinema, starring the impossibly charismatic, beautiful “blood couple”: Night of the Living Dead‘s Duane Jones and Marlene Clark.
4. Trouble Every Day (2001)
Speaking of vampires (plus the great Béatrice Dalle), this quite disturbing horror film by one of the greatest living directors, Claire Denis, is also a meditation on total commitment, even if the person you love loves to eat people (whoops, spoiler alert). Special note to Tricia Vessey: cinema wants you back!
3. Only Lovers Left Alive (2013)
Did somebody say “vampires”? This instant classic from the essential American independent auteur Jim Jarmusch features yet another glamorous couple in perhaps the least vampiric of any relationship. A melancholy benediction to long-distance — and long-term — loves as lonely and haunted as an abandoned stretch of Detroit, wedded to a sociocultural ardor that seems, more and more, to hail from another place and time.
2. Last Night (1998)
A film whose cult is still waiting to emerge, Canadian writer/director/actor Don McKellar’s inimitable, modest masterpiece chronicles our planet’s impending end at the stroke midnight. A fierce, uncomprimising Sandra Oh wants to end it all on her own terms, while a cavalcade of fellow Canadians (including Geneviève Bujold and director David Cronenberg) subtly critique their nation’s penchant for unassuming kindliness in the face of apocalypse soon. Hang in there for the closing shot, simultaneously one of the most heartrending and hopeful in all of cinema (seriously).
1. Breathless (À bout de souffle) (1960)
Frankly, we’re speechless: this legendary independent production that launched the career of cinema’s greatest provocateur Jean-Luc Godard appears in almost none of the top romantic film surveys we surveyed. Briefly, WTF?? (ou peut-être voulons-nous dire : « Pdm !! »). Peut-être we’re still under the sway of Richard Linklater‘s recent, charming and generally faithful recreation of Breathless‘ production, Nouvelle Vague, but it’s hard to imagine a more euphoric expression of young love, both in and as a result of cinema, nor a more ravishing couple than Belmondo and Seberg.
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