Hate romantic comedies? 32 movies to change your mind
Aug. 7, 2024When you’ve had enough of routine meet-cutes, these change things up a bit
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Is there any genre more comforting and more cliche than romantic comedy? For decades, filmmakers have pushed onto audiences hilarious stories of love and romance. While some are ready to say “I do,” just as many are ready to say “I don’t.” But some romantic comedies can appeal to everyone - even those who claim to hate them.
While many rom-coms famously adhere to recurring tropes and conventions, some clever films play around with the formula to zig-zagging from expectations. Because these movies appeal to just about anyone, they make great options for people who maybe feel a little bit loveless and cold-hearted. Other rom-coms are considered towering classics for a reason: They defy the tropes they inspired to tell something insightful about modern love.
Whether you personally hate romantic comedies and want something different, or you’re a rom-com fiend trying to get someone else into the genre, here are 32 great romantic comedies to get haters to change their minds.
Just Friends is far from the most offensive movie ever made. But this Ryan Reynolds-led rom-com is typical of the crass R-rated humor that permeated the mid-aughts, which is why it’s actually perfect for anyone sick of the clean sheen emblematic of the genre. Reynolds stars as Chris, a womanizing music executive in L.A. who returns home to New Jersey for the holidays and runs into his former high school crush Jamie (Amy Smart). No longer the overweight teenager he used to be, Chris hopes to win over Jamie, only to endure obnoxious obstacles in his way. While Just Friends squanders an enlightening message about the importance of being true to oneself, it’s still a laugh riot that makes the most of a then up-and-coming Ryan Reynolds.
31. Gorgeous (1999)
For anyone seeking a rom-com that reallykicks, check out Gorgeous. This underrated Jackie Chan movie stars the legendary action star as a millionaire businessman in Hong Kong who falls in love with Bu (Shu Qi), a beautiful girl from a small fishing village in Taiwan. There’s a whole other storyline involving Chan’s business rival who dispatches hired goons after him - it is a Jackie Chan movie, after all - but Gorgeous is first and foremost a romantic comedy, right down to its inclusion of a cliche gay best friend for Bu (played by none other than Tony Leung).
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Flipping romantic comedy conventions on its head, I Love You, Man follows a leading male who is all settled in his love life. It’s his friend life that needs help. Paul Rudd stars as newly engaged Peter whose fiance (Rashida Jones) reminds him that he doesn’t have anyone to be his best man. That all changes when Peter meets eccentric Sydney (Jason Segel). While the two begin to bond over Rush concerts and awkward nicknames, Peter finds that making friends is easy - it’s keeping them that is the real challenge. Less about romance than it is aboutbro-mance, I Love You, Man is the perfect comedy for platonic dudes.
If there has ever been ananti-romantic comedy, it’s The Break Up. Directed by Peyton Reed, the movie stars Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn as a couple who’ve decided to call it quits but struggle to move out of their shared condominium. In becoming loveless roommates, they begin to provoke each other in the hopes that the other caves in. In an era when romantic comedies safely played by the genre’s rules, The Break Up dared to challenge expectations with a feel-good ending that shows happily ever after doesn’t always mean happy together.
Written and directed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt at the height of his stardom, Don Jon is a delirious romantic comedy-drama about a 21st century “Don Juan” whose biggest red flag is his online porn addiction. When he comes across a drop-dead gorgeous woman (Scarlett Johansson), Don Jon is challenged to change his habits and improve his overall standing, including enrolling in community college which puts him in front of a middle-aged woman (Julianne Moore). While Don Jon doesn’t drill all the way into the media’s powerful influence that shapes our sexual psychologies, and usually for the worse, Don Jon entertains enough with a locked-in JGL masterfully playing every awful dude you’ve ever known.
Writer, director, and star Albert Brooks plays Daniel Miller, a man who dies on his 39th birthday and awaits permanent sentencing at a luxury resort for newly deceased souls. During the week-long review of his life on Earth, Daniel meets the beautiful and effervescent Julia (Meryl Streep). Realizing that he may be “doomed” to return to Earth and redo his wasted life, Daniel fights to stay with Julia instead, who is certain is his soulmate. Essentially a much happier version of The Good Place, Defending Your Life is a heavenly rom-com that spices up the tired genre that finds new life in the afterlife.
It looks like the kind of movie you’d find at the back of a cruddy VHS store - and indeed, Tammy and the T-Rex is not to be taken seriously. But for anyone looking for somethingreallydifferent out of their rom-coms, you can’t do better (or worse) than the midnight romp Tammy and the T-Rex. Denise Richards stars as a popular high school student whose boyfriend (Paul Walker, pre-Fast & Furious) is murdered and his brain implanted into an animatronic tyrannosaurus rex. Can young love truly defy all obstacles, or is it doomed to extinction? Find out in a movie that is pure dino-mite.
Growing up and revisiting your hometown is never easy. Even when you’re a slick assassin like Martin Blank. John Cusack stars in Grosse Pointe Blank as a hitman who returns to his hometown in Michigan for another hit job, the timing of which coincides with his tenth high school reunion. During a whirlwind weekend, Cusack’s professional killer starts to rethink his life while he reconnects with an old girlfriend (Minnie Driver) and evades a rival assassin (Dan Aykroyd). A razor-sharp Gen X movie that balances blistering action with rom-com fun, Grosse Point Blank hits the mark for anyone tired of other romantic comedies for feeling too safe.
Do romantic comedies with deadened dialogue make you hate the entire genre? Try a silent movie! Charlie Chaplin’s silent masterpiece City Lights is as enchanting as it was when it first opened in 1931. The film stars Chaplin in his popular role as The Tramp, who falls for a blind flower girl (Virginia Cherrill) while navigating a turbulent friendship with a drunken millionaire. It may not have any of the hallmarks we associate with rom-coms today - like hilarious meet-cutes, fun jobs at magazines, and pop music needle drops - but that’s actually why the anti-rom-com crowd ought to seek it out. City Lights dazzles as a timeless diamond that never goes out of style.
What if you had a sweet bachelor pad… that your boss used to hook up with your crush? It sounds like a nightmare, but Billy Wilder’s The Apartment is a joy. Released in 1960 with actors Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine, The Apartment follows a lowly insurance clerk named Bud (Lemmon) who invites senior executives to borrow his Upper West Side apartment for their extramarital affairs, all in the hope of climbing up the corporate ladder himself. Things get complicated when his own boss (Fred MacMurray) uses the apartment to sleep with Bud’s crush Fran (MacLaine). Is love really worth the cost of success? Billy Wilder explores this idea in his timeless rom-com that is still so brilliantly sharp even after all these years.
For real rom-com cynics, High Fidelity can speak to your calloused souls. Based on the 1995 novel by Nick Hornby, the movie stars John Cusack as Rob, a record store owner who revisits his past failed relationships to figure out where his love life went wrong. All throughout, Rob frames his life through his vast vinyl collection and eclectic music taste, with his employees regularly curating their personal “Top 5” lists (and usually unprompted). Without a traditionally happy ending and a top-tier soundtrack, High Fidelity will make everyone grill their personal shortcomings with headphones on.
Nearly a decade before he made Poor Things, writer/director Yorgos Lanthimos explored the deadly urgency of looking for love in his fatalist romantic dramedy The Lobster. Colin Farrell plays a newly divorced man who submits himself to a hotel where he must find a suitable mate in 45 days, or else he’ll turn into an animal of his choice. Things take a turn when Farrell’s character ends up in a community that lives in the woods and prohibits intimacy - which is ironic because that’s where he falls for a short-sighted woman (Rachel Weisz). The Lobster is a strange movie indeed, one bespoke to Lanthimos' uncanny artistry. But past its quirks, The Lobster endures as an enlightening movie about our collective desperation to find the perfect partner in the unlikeliest places.
The Wedding Singer isn’t just one of Adam Sandler’s best movies, it’s also an excellent romantic comedy that gets everyone on the floor, even the wallflowers. Set in the 1980s, Sandler plays a professional wedding singer who, after being left at the altar of his own wedding, begins to fall for a beautiful waitress (Drew Barrymore) and sets out to stop her from getting married. While the movie has all the expected crass humor of a typical Sandler film - this was the same decade where he gave us Happy Gilmore, Billy Madison, and Big Daddy - The Wedding Singer has a lot more range than it appears.
All our halcyon teenage summers are immortalized in Greg Mottola’s late-aughts classic Adventureland. Jesse Eisenberg stars as a fresh college grad whose summer plans to backpack through Europe are derailed and he’s left working at a rinky-dink amusement park. He soon falls for mysterious Em (Kristen Stewart), another park employee, all while putting up with rude customers, being mindful of his own friends' feelings, and saving up enough to start his real life. Hilarious without any ounce of obnoxiousness, Adventureland is a perfect young adult romance that basks in the warm auburn hues of bygone summers.
It’s the ultimate romantic fantasy: An average Joe falls in love with a glamorous movie star, each being their genuine self. In 1999, director Roger Michell put that fanciful dream to the screen with his wonderful rom-com Notting Hill. Hugh Grant stars as a London bookstore owner whose shop is visited by Hollywood movie star Anna Scott (Julia Roberts, essentially playing herself). The two date and fall in love, all while navigating the mazes of Anna Scott’s impossible life. While Notting Hill is a quintessential rom-com on paper, its tried and true story of love overcoming all odds ensures that even the most jaded may find themselves dreaming too.
Richard Linklater’s crowd-pleasing rom-com flexes its mighty muscles with Glen Powell and Adria Arjona, two drop-dead beautiful movie stars with mega-watt appeal who fall in love amid a complicated game of deception and identity. Powell plays a humble university professor who stumbles into a second job posing as a hitman for the New Orleans police. When he meets beautiful Madison (Arjona), who is in the market for a contract killer to eliminate her abusive husband, Powell’s Gary toes the line between love and the law. Hilarious and heartfelt, Hit Man hits its targets with precision.
Still healing from a breakup and dealing with the tedium of his night shift supermarket job, Ben (Sean Biggerstaff) discovers the power to freeze time and relish in the beauty of still life - and especially the female form. But while this discovery helps Ben heal from his ex-girlfriend, he begins to forge a deeper connection with quirky coworker Sharon (Emilia Fox). With philosophical musings on time and beauty, Cashback is far more introspective and thoughtful than other standard-issue romantic comedies.
Chan Wook-park’s new millennium noir classics Oldboy and Lady Vengeance took the writer/director to pitch black depths. So it’s no surprise he came up for air with his surreal sci-fi rom-com I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OK. Cha Young-goon (Im Soo-jung) believes she is a cyborg and is admitted to a mental institution, where she meets and falls for Il-soon (Rain), a man who believes he can steal people’s souls. The two patients forge an unusual bond and help each other sort through their delusions. A strange cinematic mixture that calls to mind Yorgos Lanthimos' The Lobster with One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OK is certainly something different for anyone fatigued by the artificiality of traditional rom-coms.
What the R-rated Deadpool is to superhero movies, They Came Together is to the Hollywood rom-com. They Came Together stars Paul Rudd and Amy Poehler as a couple who recount their entire relationship to friends at dinner - a situation that quickly starts to look less like a pleasant night out and more like a hostage situation. An affectionate but brutal roast of the genre, They Came Together is like an SNL skit in feature-length form, brutally setting the romantic comedy ablaze while adoring the embers.
Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti make a romantic comedy feel like an existential prison in the hilarious time loop romance Palm Springs. From director Max Barbakow, Andy Samberg stars as a guest at a sunny California wedding who has resigned to his fate of living the same day over and over. But when a bridesmaid hookup goes awry, he inadvertently drags the bride’s sister (Milioti) into his situation. Determined to stop living her worst day on repeat, the two team up to break the cycle. Powered by the pure energy of Samberg and Milioti, Palm Springs is all about how hilarious it can be to “spend forever” with the right person.
At the height of zombie-mania, when shows like The Walking Dead was a TV ratings juggernaut, there came Jonathan Levine’s Warm Bodies. A delicious romantic comedy contained in the fleshy carcass of a zombie horror, the movie follows a self-aware zombie named “R” (Nicholas Hoult) who finds himself drawn to a human survivor (Teresa Palmer) after eating her boyfriend. If typical rom-coms feel too bloodless and decayed for your taste, let Warm Bodies make you feel alive again.
Eric Francisco is a freelance entertainment journalist and graduate of Rutgers University. If a movie or TV show has superheroes, spaceships, kung fu, or John Cena, he’s your guy to make sense of it. A former senior writer at Inverse, his byline has also appeared at Vulture, The Daily Beast, Observer, and The Mary Sue. You can find him screaming at Devils hockey games or dodging enemy fire in Call of Duty: Warzone.
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