Romance
"Alice's Festival Of Romance"
Romantic films often explore the essential themes of love at first sight, young (and older) love, unrequited love, obsessive love, sentimental love, spiritual love, forbidden love, sexual and passionate love, sacrificial love, explosive and destructive love, and tragic love. Romantic films serve as great escapes and fantasies for viewers, especially if the two people finally overcome their difficulties, declare their love, and experience life "happily ever after" - implied by a reunion and final kiss.
Here "Alice's Festival of Romance" has been assembled below as an aphabetical list. Should more precise scrolling be required, one should go to the specific genre, ie "Classic Romance", "Comedy Romance" , "Drama Romance" or even "Queer Cinema"
Right: Julianne Moore and Dennis Quaid star in Todd Haynes'
"Far From Heaven"
Pillow Talk (1959)
7.5/10
Director: Michael Gordon
Starring: Doris Day, Rock Hudson, Tony Randall, Thelma Ritter
Rock Hudson and Doris Day are at their best in their first romantic comedy together. Doris is an uptight interior decorator forced to share a party li... Read more
50 First Dates (2004)
6.8/10
Director: Peter Segal
Starring: Adam Sandler, Drew Barrymore, Rob Schneider, Sean Astin, Dan Aykroyd
Funny and sweet romantic comedy finds Henry Roth (Adam Sandler), a womanizing, Hawaii-based marine biologist, thinking he's met the love of his life i... Read more
Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (2004)
6/10
Director: Beeban Kidron
Starring: Renee Zellweger, Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, Jim Broadbent, Gemma Jones
Renee Zellweger reprises her role as the romantically challenged heroine in this adaptation of Helen Fielding's frothy follow-up. Four weeks after the... Read more
Phoenix (2014)
7.3/10
Director: Christian Petzold
Starring: Nina Hoss, Ronald Zehrfeld, Nina Kunzendorf
This evocative and haunting drama, set in rubble-strewn Berlin in 1945, is like no other film about postWorld War II Jewish-German identity. After su... Read more
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2011)
6.8/10
Director: Lasse Hallstrom
Starring: Ewan McGregor, Kristin Scott Thomas, Emily Blunt, Tom Mison, Amr Waked
When Britain's leading fisheries expert (Ewan McGregor) is approached by a consultant to help realize a sheikh's vision of bringing the sport of fly-f... Read more
Circle of Friends (1995)
6.6/10
Director: Pat O'Connor
Starring: Chris O'Donnell, Minnie Driver, Alan Cumming
Minnie Driver gives an outstanding performance as a college-age Irish woman-circa 1957-coming to grips with earthly love and Catholic fidelity in this... Read more
An Officer and a Gentleman (1982)
7/10
Director: Taylor Hackford
Starring: Richard Gere, Debra Winger, Louis Gossett Jr
Three outstanding performances by Richard Gere, Debra Winger and Lou Gossett Jr highlight this romantic drama about a naval officer who begins an affa... Read more
Memoirs of a Geisha (2005)
7.4/10
Director: Rob Marshall
Starring: Zhang Ziyi, Ken Watanabe, Michelle Yeoh, Koji Yakusho, Youki Kudoh, Gong Li
Adapted from Arthur Golden's best-selling novel, nine-year-old Chiyo is sold into servitude at a geisha house in 1930s Kyoto. However the head geisha... Read more
Agatha and the Storm (2004)
Director: Silvio Soldini
Starring: Licia Maglietta, Giuseppe Battiston, Claudio Santamaria
As proprietor of a bookshop in Genoa, the warm and intelligent Agatha dispenses literary wisdom to her adoring customers. When a younger man heeds her... Read more
The 40 Year Old Virgin (2005)
7.1/10
Director: Judd Apatow
Starring: Steve Carell, Catherine Keener, Paul Rudd, Seth Rogen, Elizabeth Banks, Leslie M...
Steve Carrell is Andy Stitzer, a cheerful, middle-aged geek who, as the title suggests, has yet to take the sexual plunge. When his friends find out... Read more