While romance movies can often make love seem unachievable and oftentimes cliché, most of the time they can be the perfect reassurance that there’s someone out there for everyone. At least that’s what these new Prime Video movies with over 90% on Rotten Tomatoes seem to be telling us.
Most of the highest-rated titles new to Prime Video in February 2025 come from the romance genre, spanning decades of stories as early as the 1960s exploring the peaks, pits, and complicated nature of the thing we call love. And as we’re only one week away from Valentine’s Day, these movies are landing on one of the best streaming services just in time for you to start planning that romantic dinner and movie night in.
Past Lives (2023)
- RT score: 95%
- Age rating: PG-13
- Length: 106 minutes
- Director: Celine Song
- Arriving on: February 2
Inspired by the life events of its director, Past Lives is a semi-autobiographical account of Song’s experiences with love and friendship – an incredibly vulnerable approach to her feature directorial debut. After her family emigrates from South Korea to the US, Nora’s (Greta Lee) life is flipped upside when she’s torn from her childhood best friend Hae Sung (Teo Yoo). The two are reunited in New York City 24 years later, confronting their past relationship and acknowledging the distance that’s grown between them.
If conventional romance stories are too old-fashioned and out-dated for you, Past Lives is a great example of a modern romance story. Blending tradition with a modern approach to romance storytelling, Song’s contemporary love story shows that letting someone you love go is the most heart-breaking, yet strongest thing one could do.
Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994)
- RT score: 92%
- Age rating: R
- Length: 116 minutes
- Director: Mike Newell
- Arriving on: February 1
When Hugh Grant wasn’t frolicking after Julia Roberts in Notting Hill (1999), which is one of my favorite romantic comedies of all time, he was chasing after Andie MacDowell in Four Weddings and a Funeral, which, shockingly, I have yet to tick off my Prime Video watchlist (it’s also on Tubi as one of five great free movies to stream this week).
A movie that helped define ’90s romantic comedies, Four Weddings and a Funeral is proof that even the most independent bachelors who dismiss the notion of being in a committed relationship can succumb to the unpredictable nature of love. Charles (Grant) doesn’t have the best of luck when it comes to romance, as do the rest of his friendship group, but when he meets an American woman Carrie (MacDowell) at a wedding he realizes that he may have met the one. When Carrie goes back to the states unexpectedly and ends what could have been the start of a relationship, the two continue to cross paths leading Charles to believe that maybe they’re meant for each other after all.
Leaving Las Vegas (1995)
- RT score: 91%
- Age rating: R
- Length: 111 minutes
- Director: Mike Figgis
- Arriving on: February 1
Based on the novel of the same name, which acts as a semi-autobiographical account of its author John O’Brien, Leaving Las Vegas is a powerful and emotional tale of two individuals stuck in a rut of their own struggles and addictions who meet and form an unconventional relationship.
Ben Sanderson (Nicholas Cage) is an alcoholic screenwriter who has lost everything from his job to his family. On the brink of self-destruction, he travels to Las Vegas where he plans to drink himself to death but instead crosses paths with sex worker Sera (Elisabeth Shue) with whom he develops a romantic connection. Damaged in their own respective ways, the two struggling individuals grow closer through their support of one another, but as Ben’s suicidal thoughts grow ore sinister their relationship becomes increasing jeopardized.
Southside with You (2016)
- RT score: 91%
- Age rating: PG-13
- Length: 81 minutes
- Director: Richard Tanne
- Arriving on: February 1
There’s no denying that Barack and Michelle Obama are one of the most notable power couples in the world, and their relationship as former President and First Lady shows that true romance really does exist. But every relationship has a compelling back story.
A directorial debut from Richard Tanne, Southside with You explores a first date that would evolve into a relationship fit for The White House. In 1989 Chicago, a Harvard Law freshman Barack Obama (Parker Sawyers) lands a job at a law firm where he sits under the watchful eye of his new supervisor Michelle Robinson (Tika Sumpter). From what starts as a professional rapport, Michelle apprehensively agrees to go on a date with Barack – little does she know it will lead to lifetime of love.
West Side Story (1961)
- RT score: 92%
- Age rating: PG
- Length: 151 minutes
- Directors: Jerome Robbins & Robert Wise
- Arriving on: February 1
Arguably the romance musical to end all romance musicals, West Side Story is a timeless tale of forbidden love, gang rivalry, and a battle between two different cultures – a reimagining of Shakespeare’s tragic romance Romeo and Juliet.
Set in New York City in the late 1950s two street gangs fight for control over their neighborhood in the Upper West Side; the Jets, a group of white people, and the Sharks, a community of Puerto Ricans. This riff grows more violent when co-leader of the Jets, Tony (Richard Beymer), falls in love with Maria (Natalie Wood), the sister of Sharks leader Bernado (George Chakiris).
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rowan.davies@futurenet.com (Rowan Davies)
