Everyone loves a love story. Whether it’s aspirational, reflective, or even a documentary (yes! that too!), there’s something nice about seeing two kids make it work in this crazy world. And when the selections are right there for you to watch on Netflix, then it’s all the better. No need to sift through all the streaming sites, looking for what to rent and what is going to be free for you. This list cuts the fat and gives you exactly what you want: a one-button press solution to warm your cold, cold heart.
Of course, there are some odes to the Rom Com queen herself, Julia Roberts. There are also some fun heisty movies, some serious turns, and a couple of coming of age films that will ultimately make you grateful that you’re dating as an adult and not a teenager. Exhausting, to say the least.
So get some chocolates or wine or whatever makes you feel in the mood for romance and pick your poison. Just leave a little bit behind so that when your lover finds your body, you can leave this world together, Romeo and Juliet style. Ah, young love. May it live for a while.
Mystic Pizza
Listen. Julia Roberts is queen of rom coms. There is simply no other competition. And we have Mystic Pizza to thank for that. Based off a real pizzeria in Mystic, Connecticut, the film follows three teenage girls whose lives take all types of turns in pursuit of growing up, getting out, and finding love.
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Runaway Bride
To echo all the sentiments above, it’s Julia. You can’t go wrong. But a decade or so after Mystic Pizza, she became Maggie Carpenter: a woman who is lucky enough in love… just not so lucky that she’s able to seal the deal with a marriage. After a big city reporter outs her story for his salacious column, he gets fired and sets out to officially meet the woman who has evaded not one, two, or three proposals… but four.
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50 First Dates
What if the woman of your dreams was kind and beautiful and funny… but forgot who you were every morning that she woke up. Yikes. Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler star in this romantic comedy about a couple who experience just that. But don’t think it’s serious. This is 2000s Sandler, after all.
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About Time
Get it—it’s a movie about time, but it’s also about time. Ok, we’ll let the joke tell itself. Domhall Gleeson and Rachel McAdams star in this time travel romance about a man who discovers men in his family can travel through time. He attempts to go back to solidify the relationship with a woman he loves, but he soon finds out… love is not something to be toyed with.
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Always Be My Maybe
Hey. No shame. Everyone has a hometown fling that crosses your mind every once in a while, but the issue in Always Be My Maybe is that the fling is rekindled 15 years after high school. Ali Wong and Randall Park star in the charming film that explores if two people, from now-seemingly different worlds, can actually reignite a flame that’s been burning on the low for over a decade.
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The Love Birds
Issa Rae and Kumail Nanjiani are a perfect duo in the accidental heist movie, The Love Birds. After a couple on the town for the night end up in a precarious, if not super dangerous, position, they must work together to stay alive and clear their names for a murder they didn’t commit
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Killers
Katherine Heigl and Ashton Kutcher front this comedy about a couple who seem plenty fine with the somewhat mundane married life they’ve carved out for themselves. That is, until she finds out he was a hitman in a past life. Details like that do tend to throw a wrench into an otherwise healthy relationship.
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Bonnie & Clyde
You know what? You say Bonnie and Clyde is a heist movie about real life criminals, and yes. You’re right. But there’s also some twisted-ass romance in there, too. Faye Dunaway and Warren Betty are stunning in Bonnie & Clyde, which also happens to be one of the best films of the 20th century.
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Loving
Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga play the Loving couple—a real duo who reckoned with America’s antiquated notion of who should be allowed to marry whom. The interracial marriage they persued in 1958 paved the way for interracial couples to come.
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The Prom
Originally a Broadway musical, The Prom tells the story of a lesbian girl who is not allowed to attend prom with her girlfriend because we’re still in a time, somehow, where this is a debate. That story catches the attention of Broadway stars who head to her small town to upend everything the townspeople believe, but they end up shifting their own perspective in the process.
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A Secret Love
Why not throw a documentary into the mix? A Secret Love is a precious film about two women who had a decades-long romance, keeping it close to the chest. Years later, they came out to everyone in their lives, though coming out in the later chapters of your life comes with its own set of crosses to bear.
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Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
This irreverent and energetic movie stars Michael Cera as a slacker musician who hits the romantic jackpot when he meets his new girlfriend Ramona Flowers—but must defeat her seven evil exes in manic, video game-inspired fashion.
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Set It Up
Two corporate assistants (Zoey Deutch and Glen Powell) are tired of their domineering bosses (Lucy Liu and Taye Diggs), so they scheme to hook them up in order to lighten their workload (and, naturally, also happen to fall for each other, too).
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Sex and the City 2
The sequel to the first Sex and the City movie follows the story of Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), Samantha (Kim Cattrall), Charlotte (Kristin Davis), and Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) as they take a vacation to Abu Dhabi. Romance is in the air when Carrie runs into her ex, Aidan, and they realize the spark isn’t gone.
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She’s Gotta Have It
Spike Lee’s first feature film is an indie black-and-white romantic comedy starring Tracy Camilla Johns as a young woman in Brooklyn who juggles three potential boyfriends.
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The Incredible Jessica James
2 Dope Queens’ Jessica Williams proves her leading lady status as a struggling New York playwright who, following a breakup, bounces back by dating a recently single older guy (played by Chris Dowd).
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The Kissing Booth
Elle Evans (Joey King) might not be the most popular girl in school, but her social status definitely rises when she volunteers to run the kissing booth at the school carnival—a scheme to lock lips with her crush, who just happens to be her best friend’s brother.
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The Theory of Everything
This is based on the love story of the late Stephen Hawking (Eddie Redmayne) and his first wife, Jane Hawking (Felicity Jones).
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To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before
Lara Jean Covey is your typical lovelorn teenage girl, drafting love letters to her former crushes for her eyes only. But when the letters wind up being mailed to the former objects of her affection, her life is thrown into chaos as the boys confront her about her former feelings.
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What’s Eating Gilbert Grape
Gilbert Grape (Johnny Depp) has a lot on his plate. He has to care for his younger brother, Arnie (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his mother; his father died by suicide when Gilbert was young. On top of that, he has an affair with a married woman named Betty (Mary Steenburgen). When that ends, he builds a romance with a young woman named Becky (Juliette Lewis) who brings happiness to Gilbert’s challenging life.
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Justin Kirkland
Justin Kirkland is a writer for Esquire, where he focuses on entertainment, television, and pop culture.
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