My Top 10 Romantic Films

Valentine's day is just around the corner. And if you're like me, I'm queuing up romantic films to watch—as well as stocking up on candies for sale. So here is a list of my top 10 romance film, so far, that could perhaps help you in picking films for your Valentine's day film festival. This of course is continuing from my blog that counted from 20-11. So let's commence to my picks.

Love Actually is a feel good romantic comedy about the myriad facets of love through a variety of vignettes. There's pretty much similar storylines for the 19 films I listed that is in this film; it's that expansive. Maybe I'm just biased towards it because they feature Mariah Carey's holiday classic and Joni Mitchell. But really, there are tender moments here that give me butterflies and jollies. Lovely entertainment about love through and through.

I love me some camp. And Down with Love movie delivers as an homage to romantic comedy with a campy twist. I didn't put When Harry Met Sally... in this list because I didn't really enjoy it and if we are talking about women-are-from-Venus-and-men-are-from-Mars type of romance film, I was more entertained by this.

A female author threatens the status quo by empowering women to be their own apart from men. A playboy columnist goes undercover to expose the author to actually want to be, despite what she is preaching, married. A cat-and-mouse game ensues between the two. And we are, regardless of the cliché and camp, entertained; at least I was.

I was torn between this, A Very Long Engagement, and The English Patient. The insignificance of love when its players are thrust into the hellfires of war is a strong sentiment in all three movies but Atonement is the most tragic because the romance was never really fully realized. A well acted and tightly directed movie that tugs at any heart.

Despite your feelings towards the LGBTQ community, that is mostly unimportant. The core of Brokeback Mountain is the love between two men and the struggle they faced in a conservative American west. Let me rephrase this: the core of this film is about two people who loved each other despite social struggles. It's a moving film, I find, and a great romantic tragedy about the complexities love face when it goes against society.

This film is endlessly entertaining; I can watch it again and again. A gold digger unwittingly hooks up with a waiter, hoping to wed a millionaire. He falls in love with her and pursues her, even if it means, due to her champagne taste, being broke and beating her at her own game. Priceless is a great romantic comedy with amazing actors. Sometimes, some things are just priceless—referring of course to love.

I suppose I can say classic to this one. Whether you find this film boring or not, Titanic contains a typical but magnificently rendered epic love story using a tragic historical event as its backdrop. I always think though, if they did have a happy ending, if that fast and hard-hitting love they shared in that relatively short boat ride would last in their old age. But I suppose that is the tragedy of human loss.

I didn't want to put typical Disney romantic films. I find Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Snow White to not really meditate on love; these are more of 'I faced hardships and a man saved me and now I am happy without really having grown and tended a relationship' type of films. Beauty and the Beast is really a romance film to me, but I also didn't care much for it. Enchanted is the one that captivated me. It begins with the sentiment of 'suddenly happily ever after' but then follows up in the 'real world' and how that kind of concept fares there.

The musical numbers are magical and are great contrasts to the modernity of impersonal New York. Magical and real at once, Enchanted is a great film that expresses a happily ever after is attainable in real life, if you are realistic and level-headed. To each his/her own, of course.

Like the book referenced in this film, You've Got Mail is a sort of Pride and Prejudice, with a little When Harry Met Sally... and a business and technological twist. Basically bookstore business rivals, the two unwittingly are also e-mailing buddies. It might be farfetched, but that's the appeal; your business rival is actually the one you fall in love with.

I've watched this plenty times. Watching it now though makes the film more interesting with the rise of social sites—it becomes somewhat a study of anonimity, duality, and relationships online and offline. It is dated in parts (I mean my generation was the last to experience dial-up and have fond memories of the voice-over once you're connected to AOL: You've got mail!) but it is still an entertaining quirky film nonetheless. Oh, I'm also a sucker for palpable chemistry and great endings.

This animated feature never fails to make me cry. The first fifteen minutes is such a great and touching love story—it is innocent, pure, and, above all, lasting. This film's love story was fully realized and it rewards the audience with the bittersweet reality that Tennyson famously bellows, "All things will die."

The journey in Up is one that fulfills one last promise in order to achieve closure from the grief of losing your life long partner. Although real life couples have arguments and things may seem less than perfect at times, a survey of love is to bypass all that and discover two people who honestly care about each other enough to want to grow old together. This is the definitive film that expresses this sentiment.

If I were to pick one Wong Kar-wai romance film, I have to pick this one. Although Chungking Express is a dynamic and quirky romantic film and Happy Together is a study of an unhealthy cyclical relationship, In the Mood for Love broods in its longing—it is both fulfilling and unfulfilled at the same time (and one of the easiest to follow from WKW). I feel that this film is the distillation of everything I love about films and love stories. It is stylish and it is heartbreaking—not one moment, shot, or detail is a waste; everything coalesces to transcend the film's story.

Married neighbors form a tense relationship after realizing their spouses had been cheating on them with each other. To cope with their spouses' infidelities, they re-enact what may have happened between the two and begin spending a lot of time with each other. As they develop feelings for each other, they decide to never to follow their spouses in their indiscretions. With this agreement they continue their friendship towards an obvious conclusion.

Though some would accuse the film of being too 'moody' and 'stylish', I always approached this like how Annie Hall was presented: we are watching a memory, a very poetic memory, filled with an atmosphere of longing in a rigid and claustrophobic conservative society. And sometimes, things don't happen as you'd hope and eventually "that era [will have] passed [and n]othing that belongs to it exists anymore." It's a perfect film, I think.

I hope you check out and enjoy some of my favorite romantic films that meditate on love and its various aspects and forms. I think I'll be watching a few today. I hope you enjoy your Valentine's day! And if you're curious about the lower half of my countdown (20-11), check it out on my blog. Below are links to watch 7 out of 10 of the films listed through Amazon Instant Video; Titanic and Down with Love aren't available while In the Mood for Love is currently available for streaming on Netflix.

Please do recommend some romantic films that I should check out. And let me know what your favorite romantic films are!