25 of the most swoon-worthy romance movies of all time
By Amy Kaplan
Love Actually
Love Actually isn’t your typical romance — probably because of its sometimes-crass British humor, but you can’t deny getting butterflies in your tummy over more than one swoon-worthy moment. Unlike many of the other movies on the list, there isn’t just one love story — there are nine loosely-connected love stories which range from everything from romantic love, sibling love and even two men who realize their platonic love for each other via a lifetime of business interactions.
The holiday fan favorite follows Juliet, Peter, and Mark (Keira Knightley, Andrew Lincoln, and Chiwetel Ejiofor) through marriage, love, and jealousy. We see Harry and Karen (Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson) struggle through marriage troubles and possible infidelity. We see Sarah (Laura Linney) struggle with her longtime crush on Karl and balancing her demanding special needs brother Michael. We see Colin on his quest to find pretty much all of the American girls. There’s Billy Mack and Joe — an aging rock star and his manager. We follow John and Judy who are porn body doubles as they navigate the most adorable flirting while simulating sex. Probably my favorite storyline is Jamie (Colin Firth) and Aurélia who learn each other’s language in order to profess their love. Another fan-favorite storyline is David (Hugh Grant) and Natalie — the Prime minister and the “chubby” secretary and last but not least is the ADORABLE storyline of Daniel (Liam Neeson), Sam, and Joanna — a father and son who work together to help Sam profess his love to his grade school crush.
Fun Fact: Hugh Grant was not happy about the infamous scene where the Prime Minister danced, “he was hugely unhappy about it. We didn’t shoot it until the final day and it went so well that when we edited it, it had gone too well, and he was singing along with the words,” said director Richard Curtis.
Release date: Nov. 6, 2003