8 Must-Watch Forgotten Romantic Movies, Ranked

The romance genre is one filled to the brim with cinematic masterpieces. From classic rom-coms like It Happened One Night to modern dramas like the Before Trilogy, several of the greatest films of all time happen to be stories of love, heartbreak, courtship, and fiery passion. But while many romance masterpieces go down in history as quintessential examples of the genre, some others end up slipping under most people’s radar.

It’s a tragedy when a romantic movie that deserves to be counted among the greatest ever made ends up being forgotten. Of course, saying that these films have been “forgotten” is a bit of an dramatization of reality, since these niche masterpieces are bound to be remembered by at least a few hundred cinephiles around the world; but the fact of the matter is that those aren’t nearly as many fans as these exceptional motion pictures deserve.

8

‘The Green Ray’ (1986)

Image via Les Films du Losange

Directed by Éric Rohmer, one of the greatest and most important French filmmakers in history, The Green Ray follows Delphine, who has nowhere to go for the summer. Feeling bored and empty, she one day ends up meeting someone who seems to be tailor-made for her. Released in North America as Summer, the film is based on the book of the same name by the legendary Jules Verne.

The French New Wave ended around the early 1970s, but essential exponents of the movement like Rohmer continued making films reflecting the movement’s trademark style for many years after its ending. Case in point: The Green Ray, a delightful dramedy whose thematic exploration of love and loneliness feels just as timely today as it did back in its day.

7

‘Joyland’ (2022)

Image Via Film Constellation

The filmography of Pakistan is full of masterpieces that are criminally underappreciated outside their country of origin, many of them romance films, none of them better than Joyland. Saim Sadiq‘s feature directorial debut, this coming-of-age dramedy is about the youngest son in a traditional Pakistani family, who takes a job as a backup dancer in a Bollywood-style burlesque and becomes infatuated with the trans woman who runs the show.

Beautifully profound and refreshingly progressive in its boundary-breaking portrayal of gender roles, sexuality, and the patriarchy in South Asian society, Joyland is simultaneously bittersweet and unexpectedly humorous. It’s one of the most emotionally honest and most complex Asian romance films of the 21st century as a whole, an awfully underrated gem that a lot more people should check out.

6

‘To Live’ (1994)

Image via The Samuel Goldwyn Company

The 1990s were far and away one of the greatest decades for cinema in the art form’s history, and 1994 was a particularly strong year for motion pictures around the world. But while Hollywood productions like Forrest Gump and Pulp Fiction were showered with praise, other films that are every bit as flawless—such as Zhang Yimou‘s Chinese drama To Live—fell into oblivion. The story spans around three decades, following a family’s story of survival throughout the Chinese history that transpired between the ’40s and ’70s.

It’s one of the most near-perfect 20th-century war movies that nobody remembers anymore, a truly gut-wrenching drama that achieves an astonishingly epic feeling of scope and scale despite only running for a little over two hours, a shockingly brief runtime for a film of this size. Nuanced, emotional, and politically sharp, it’s a must-see not just for those who enjoy Chinese cinema, but for all those who love the romance genre.

5

‘The Lovers on the Bridge’ (1991)

Image via Gaumont

The Lovers on the Bridge was written and directed by Leos Carax, perhaps the French auteur who has been most important to cinematic surrealism throughout history. Every bit as poetically and romantically surreal as one would expect from a Carax piece, Lovers on the Bridge is about Alex, an alcoholic living on the streets, and Michèle, who’s losing her sense of sight. They form a relationship while sleeping on a bridge in Paris.

It’s one of the most anxiety-inducing romance movies in history, perfect for those who love watching love stories with a hearty side serving of nail-biting stress. But despite its grim intensity, what sets Lovers on the Bridge apart is just how tremendously full of heart it is, with some gorgeous visuals and a pair of exceptional performances by Juliette Binoche and Denis Lavant.

4

‘The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp’ (1943)

Image via United Artists

Though it’s typically films not in the English language that end up being forgotten by the majority of the world over time, there are also plenty of romance masterpieces in English that have gone awfully underappreciated through the years. For instance, the British war drama and epic romance The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, a nearly three-hour-long satire which many critics would confidently call one of the greatest British films in history. It follows Clive Candy, a British soldier, as he rises through the military’s ranks.

At the very least, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp is one of the best classics of 1943, a brilliant film made during World War II whose subtle satirization of the British Army has aged beautifully. It’s endlessly charming, profoundly moving, and admirably ambitious, transcending the war propaganda of its era to instead deliver a sweeping epic about humanity, aging, and friendship. Not many films made during this time, from the United Kingdom or elsewhere, were ever this great.

3

‘A Special Day’ (1977)

Image via Gold Film

Starring Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni, two of the greatest acting legends in the history of European cinema (who here deliver some of their greatest work ever), A Special Day is an Italian-Canadian period drama that’s among the most underrated films of the 1970s. It’s the story of two neighbors, a persecuted journalist and a resigned housewife, who meet during Hitler’s visit to Italy in May of 1938.

But while Loren and Mastroianni are undeniably the main attraction here, by no means are they the only thing that A Special Day has going for it. With a well deserved rating of 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, the film explores themes of gender roles and fascism in ways that still feel horrifyingly relevant nowadays. It’s queer cinema at its most powerful, a rousing character piece so hard-hitting that it’s impossible to watch it and not be deeply affected by it.

2

‘The Cranes Are Flying’ (1957)

Image via Mosfilm

There are plenty of great films from countries that no longer exist, but there’s one particular former nation that has one of the strongest filmographies of any country in history, and that’s the Soviet Union. For proof, one needn’t look much further than Mikhail Kalatozov‘s The Cranes Are Flying, a political drama and romantic tragedy about a woman who plans a rendezvous with her lover at the bank of a river, only for him to be crafted into WWII shortly after.

Winner of the Palme d’Or at the 1958 Cannes Film Festival, The Cranes Are Flying proved tremendously influential for Soviet cinema going forward, and it’s still one of the highest-rated Soviet movies in history on both Letterboxd and IMDb. Poetically directed, visually gorgeous, politically and thematically confident, and irresistibly poignant, it’s perfect for all those who love stories about doomed love.

1

‘A Brighter Summer Day’ (1991)

Image via Cine Qua Non Films

Edward Yang was one of the greatest and most groundbreaking Taiwanese auteurs in the history of cinema, an essential voice for the New Taiwanese Cinema movement. The question of what his magnum opus is may elicit many answers, but one is bound to come up more than most: the four-hour-long coming-of-age epic A Brighter Summer Day. Based on a true story, it’s about a conflict between two youth gangs, and about a 14-year-old boy’s girlfriend who conflicts with the head of one gang.

It’s easily one of the most perfect romantic movies of the last 40 years, though it’s most definitely an unconventional one. But while its long runtime and its remarkably slow-burning sense of pace may be daunting for those who don’t usually love arthouse romance, those who do are guaranteed to come out on the other side of A Brighter Summer Day as changed people. Youthful, emotional, politically charged, and gorgeously directed, it’s one of the greatest masterpieces in the history of 20th-century romantic cinema, even if most mainstream cinephiles don’t typically know anything about it.