Chocolates and flowers line the aisles of every store in town. Pink and red heart decorations are littered everywhere, leaving some feeling like love is in the air, and others feeling isolated. It’s February folks, and that means the season of love is upon us. Whether that means cuddling up with your partner, or taking time to love yourself, I’ve rated seven romantic movies that you can watch while you celebrate this Valentine’s Day.
To keep things fresh, I’ve stuck only to movies that came out last year, and I have included a summary with commentary, the advisory rating, the trope type and a final rating out of 10.
Love At First Sight
Still processing her parents’ recent divorce, Hadley Sullivan braces herself to board a flight to England to be a bridesmaid in her father’s second wedding.
What are the odds that she’ll run into someone at the airport who will restore her faith in love?
This movie takes an interesting spin on the traditional romance movie, pushing the audience to think about love not as an emotion, but as a choice. It pairs together themes of death and saying goodbye, and love and new beginnings.
Emphasizing statistics to show that the odds were never in their favor, this movie will leave you thinking that their love couldn’t have been anything but fate.
Advisory rating: PG-13
Trope type: fated love
Overall: 7/10
Beautiful Disaster
In an effort to escape a life of high risks and low rewards, Abby Abernathy leaves her old life behind her, running away to live on a college campus in her best friend’s dorm.
Despite the change of scene, it doesn’t take long for Abby’s life to take another turn towards danger and excitement, when she falls for a guy she meets at an underground fight club.
Refusing to admit that she likes him, our love interest Travis Maddox decides to spice things up with a bet. If he loses his next fight, he won’t pursue the ladies for a month, but if he wins the fight, Abby has to stay at his place for the same amount of time.
Will the risks be worth the rewards?
This movie is not for the faint of heart. From Travis’ refusal to accept rejection, to Abby’s inability to open up or be honest about her feelings, this couple has a relationship dynamic with an unhealthiness threshold that exists solely on AO3.
Some of the scenes in this movie could make even the crude, innuendo friend of the group feel violated.
Trigger warnings: violence, abusive relationships and the romanticization of them
Advisory rating: R
Trope type: good girls falling for bad boys
Overall: 0/10
Red, White and Royal Blue
There’s always that one person at a party who doesn’t want any of the cake because they’ve been trying to eat healthy, but the cake in this story has more to ruin than just someone’s diet. At least, that’s how it seems at first.
When a small tussle leads to a 12-tier cake falling scandalously on top of the president’s son Alex, and the prince of England Henry, the longstanding rivals are forced by their families to play nice for the press.
Can these two get over their differences- on more than just a national level- and find that they have more in common than they thought?
Between the clever dialogue and the humorous situations the pair end up in, this movie will have you crying laughing.
Advisory rating: R
Trope type: enemies to lovers
Overall: 10/10
Love in the Villa
Life has a way of defying your expectations. Sometimes when you think you’re getting a romantic trip to Verona so your boyfriend of four years can propose, when really you’re getting dumped the week before the trip.
But when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. And for Julie Hutton, that meant going on that romantic getaway solo.
Once again, though, life has other things in mind. When she goes to unpack in the villa she rented, she barges in on a guy who had rented the same villa for the same span of time on a different app.
Sarcastically-humored and lighthearted, this quirky movie is perfect for when you want to watch something funny without crossing over into romantic comedy territory.
Beautiful shots of Italy pair nicely with plot twist after strange encounter, rendering your attention captured in entertainment’s perfect storm.
Advisory rating: TV-14
Trope type: accidental love
Overall: 9/10
Persuasion
Anne Elliott was persuaded to leave the love of her life behind when her family abruptly decided to move.
Stuck at home in a new town with her narcissistic father, Anne wonders what her life would have been like had she accepted Wentworth’s proposal.
That is until the Napoleonic Wars come to an end, and Wentworth returns home with significantly higher status and rank.
The two must discover if they can rekindle their love after all this time, or if they have truly cut things off for good.
The historic feel of this movie takes a little adjusting but once you start to feel placed in the scene, it pulls you in.
Although set in the 19th century, this movie feels timeless, with realistic dialogue and uniquely relatable characters.
It pushes the reader to question if love truly has second chances or if love can simply happen at the wrong time.
Advisory rating: PG
Trope type: rekindling romance
Overall: 7/10
