60 thoughts on “John Charet’s 17 Romantic Film Recommendations (In Chronological Order)”

1. Sunrise is such an amazing film and artistic achievement. I think it is a perfect film. The storyline is brilliant…so engrossing…and from a historical perspective it’s fascinating. I loved original trailer.

   Romance is one of my least favorite genres, but I still have romantic films that I’m crazy about. My favorite is The Way We Were. I’m not saying that it is the best romantic film–or even the best on my list–but it’s my favorite. It breaks my heart.

   Here’s my list, starting with my second favorite:

   • The English Patient
   • The Piano
   • La La Land
   • Bonnie and Clyde
   • Phantom Thread
   • They Live By Night
   • The Bridges of Madison County

2. Your list is intriguing too Pam 🙂 I love it that you included The Piano, Bonnie and Clyde, Phantom Thread, They Live By Night and The Bridges of Madison County – great films 🙂 Btw, don’t you just empathize with Farley Granger’s character in They Live By Night? 🙂

3. Yes, I do empathize with the Farley Granger character Bowie and the Cathy O’Donnell character Keechie. O’Donnell gives one of my favorite cinematic performances in They Live By Night. It’s a very tragic film with a tragic protagonists based on the book, Thieves Like Us, by Edward Anderson. Anderson based the book on…wait for it…Bonnie and Clyde.

4. I’m a huge fan of William Dieterle’s slightly other-worldly romances with Joseph Cotten and Jennifer Jones, Love Letters and especially Portrait of Jennie.
   I also like the bittersweet truths of Strangers When We Meet and Jean Simmons makes Henry King’s This Earth is Mine another favorite. King handled romances well within the structure of his movies – I very much enjoy what he does with love stories in his Hemingway adaptations. And Delmer Daves added real depth to his westerns the way he wove romance into them. 3:10 to Yuma owes much of its greatness to the Ford/Farr, Heflin/Dana interludes.

5. Leave Her To Heaven is a great choice. I’m a sucker for the films of Douglas Sirk, love that lush colour and the feel of time and place. I like the British films ‘The Mother’ (2003) and ‘Close My Eyes’ (1991) as they deal with supposedly ‘taboo’ relationships. My top recommendation along those lines would be the heartbreaking German film ‘Fear Eats The Soul’ (1974). An outstanding performance from Brigitte Mira in one of Fassbinder’s best films. IMO. I also love everything about the more modern, 1950s-set film, ‘Carol’ (2015).

   Best wishes, Pete.

6. Sunrise

   Make Way for Tomorrow

   Limelight

   Il Mare

   Oasis

   Ballad of Cable Hogue

   Comrades Not a Love Story

   Solaris

   Lancelot du Lac

   Belle de Jour

   All that Heaven Allows

   Ashes of Time

   Death in Venice

   Ryan’s Daughter

   Once

   Last Tango in Paris

   The Last Sunset

   Fox and his Friends

   Sayonara

   The Sandpiper

   Grease

   West Side Story (Robert Wise)

   Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

   Marnie

   Pillow Talk

   Bringing Up Baby

   It Happened One Night

   The Crucified Lovers

   Floating Clouds

   Walkabout

   Sundays and Cybele

   The Woman Next Door

7. Hey Bill, before I comment on your choices, I would like to know what you think of what I wrote for the recently added Make Way for Tomorrow 🙂 I saw it on your list and I said, OMG, how could I have forgotten that one 🙂

8. Glad that you love Leave Her to Heaven and the work of Douglas Sirk Pete 🙂 Been a while since I saw The Mother and Close My Eyes, but thank you for giving me a reminder to rewatch them 🙂 Ali:Fear Eats the Soul is another fantastic film by a great director, which in that case was Rainer Werner Fassbinder as you so eloquently state 🙂 You probably knew this already, but that was his homage to All That Heaven Allows 🙂 Carol is another masterpiece and that would rank somewhere within my #101-200 ranking of my favorite films of all time 🙂

   BTW, I added Make Way for Tomorrow to the list 🙂

9. I hear ya Pam 🙂 BTW, I just added another film to the list, it is on number 6 entitled Make Way for Tomorrow 🙂

10. Interesting list there Colin 🙂 I need to rewatch the first two titles and that last one (not 3:10 to Yuma, but I love that one), I did see Strangers When We Meet and yes, I love that one 🙂

11. Make Way For Tomorrow sounds like a masterpiece. I’ve got to look for it and, hopefully, find it.

    Another one that I forgot on my list, that your addition reminded me of is the film Tomorrow (1972) directed by Joseph Anthony, starring Robert Duvall. Have you seen it?

12. It has been a long time since I saw Tomorrow, but a rewatch is in order Pam 🙂

13. i agree with Orson Welles. Make Way for Tomorrow is definitely the saddest film ever made. I remember the first time i saw it. On a UHF television station and I didnt just weep. I was hysterical. I liked your summation. One thing I would add is the final date scenes are reminiscent of similar scenes in Sunrise.

14. I remember that Bill 🙂 Your list is interesting too 🙂 The only reason I did not put down Marnie is because I had already including another Hitchcock film on there and I wanted to limit it to one director. Nevertheless, I love Marnie and it is actually my second favorite Hitchcock film 🙂 I see you included Walkabout on there and that is an intriguing choice 🙂 A lot of great titles, glad to see a Douglas Sirk film on your list 🙂 Speaking of Pillow Talk, as you might have deduced, I link to two of her songs on this blog entry 🙂 Glad to see that somebody else loves The Sandpiper as much as I do 🙂 Along with Chaplin and Hawks, you have a Visconti, a Bunuel and a Mizoguchion here – awesome 🙂 Even some of Sam Peckinpah’s films were romantic and you noticed it with The Ballad of Cable Hogue – like you, I too am a huge Peckinpah fan 🙂 Bresson is another 🙂 BTW, Cammell and Roeg’s Performance just got the Criterion treatment 🙂 Thoughts? 🙂

15. ill have o see the Criterion Performance before I have any thoughts about it. I limited myself here to one per director as well, or i would have also included Bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia, Bringing Up Baby, In the Mood for Love 2046, and a host of others. I liked most of the films on your films, but mostly for reasons other than the romantic element. I loved three times, but only saw it once in a theatre. I have to see a movie at least half a dozen times before it becomes ingrained enough to put on a list. Also loved Gertrude and, of course City Lights. I should have included Summer with Monika, one of Bergman’s few romances. oh and I am at fault for forgetting about A Woman Under the Influence.

16. Interesting to hear that you limit it to one director too as well Bill 🙂 You did actually include Bringing Up Baby though 🙂 I am at fault too though cause I forgot to include A Woman Under the Influence as well and it ranks within my first 100 favorite films of all time 🙂 I also forgot that Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia can qualify as a romance 🙂

    Speaking of City Lights, I can’t imagine anybody not being moved by that final image 🙂 Given that you love Chaplin as much as I do, I can tell that you agree 🙂

17. i might have told you this before, but when i first saw city lights it was at silent speed, and that last image seemed to last forever. and by the end everyone in the theatre was weeping. it is so short when projected at sound speed, that i am always disappointed. i will always have a sore spot for woody allen for ripping off this image at the end of manhattan. his character, who jumped on his best friends girlfriend the minute they broke up and then dumped her for an underage girl who them dumped him and he changed his mind and wants her back, is too much of a sleazeball to deserve this image.

18. by the way, in my novel “The Goners” I have my protagonist fall in love with the girl he takes to see “City Lights.” in real life, a girl fell in love with me during a screening of “Limelight.” My tongue=in-cheek advice to the lovelorn who are having troubles making romantic connnections is this…put on the Brando act to gain their sympathy. put on the Chaplin act during the relationship. put on the Bogart act when breaking up .

19. That scene in your novel The Goners that you explain is the perfect way to pay homage to a cinematic masterpiece 🙂 Interesting that a girl fell in love when a screening of Limelight occurred and it is your number one favorite Chaplin film 🙂 I also love your advice – very inspired 🙂

20. You did tell me this before Bill, but I am always happy to hear you tell it again 🙂 I do know that when a film plays at Silent Speed, it is typically 16-18 fps (frame per second) whereas when it plays at sound speed, it is typically 24 fps (frame per second). As much as I love the film Manhattan, I understand your point-of-view given the type of character that Woody Allen plays 🙂

21. L

22. Hey Bill, what do you mean by L? 🙂

23. L was the first letter of a comment made that disappeared when i tried to send it. for some reason, the L remained.

24. What were you going to tell me Bill? 🙂

25. some things about chplin. beginning by mentioning that i first saw limelight when it was finally released in the seventies and seeing it four times later with that girl is not the factor that makes int my favorite chplin, adding that i think modern times is his funniest and city lights his purst work of art. then some other things about how my favorite movies of certain directors are not always the ones i think are their best films, and finally that i often prefer a directors late films over their more popular early ones….cries and whispers over the seventh seal, rio bravo over the big sleep, the milky way over nazarin, the birds over notorious, lancelot du lac over pickpocket, etc

26. Always amazed and thrilled by your film knowledge. Sadly, I’m sorely lacking and am only familiar with Vertigo, John! While it’s not one of my favorite romantic movies, I do enjoy it as a Hitchcock vehicle. But reading up on some of these others has been enlightening. I’m particularly intrigued by The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. A musical! I love some of the movies on Pam’s list too–The Piano and Phantom Thread. Didn’t like P.T. at first, but it grew on me. Especially the soundtrack!

27. Oh yeah, check out The Umbrellas of Cherbourg Stacy 🙂 I actually loved Phantom Thread from day one and yes, Johnny Greenwood’s music score is hypnotizing 🙂 Speaking of Vertigo, I actually wrote an essay on it last year, here is the link below in case you are interested 🙂

    Vertigo (1958) – A Ten-Part Personal Essay Written By John Charet

28. While Last year at Marienbad is one of those films I return to yer after year, I dont see it as a romance. Hiroshima Mon Amour would be my choice as Resnais’ romantic classic. This story of a French woman whose life is ruined by her love affairs with two men of the countries WW2 enemies, Germany and Japan, is a complex romance that explores the failures of understanding cultures outside of oue own. but Marienbad is the superior film, and my interpretation of it is quite different from the normally accepted ones, so I will try to explain it here.

    Marienbad is about the relationship of theatre to cinema. It takes place in a old hotel that has a theatre inside it, where rehearsals for a play are taking plac, and where the play itself will be performed. Its first shot of people shows the audience watching the play. It could be a public performance or could be the people involved with the production of the play watching a dress rehearsal. Subsequent scenes show rehearsals of scenes from the play, people involved with the play engaged in game playing and their own personal dramas, one including infidelity and murder which may be the real life event that inspired the play or may be life imitating art.The primary action follows the play’s two leads conversing philosophically about a previous production of the play, which took place the previous year in Marienbad, a town in the Czech Republic known for its fountains and mineral springs. Or perhaps they are privately rehearsing scenes from the play outside on the hotel grounds. But they are not the same characters we see rehearsing the play at the beginning of the film, so perhaps they are the real characters the play is based on, and these scenes are the cinematic equivelant of the scenes being staged and rehearsed inside the hotel. What we do know is that they were lovers and their love affair resulted in the death of the woman’s husband. Perhaps these characters are the ghosts who are present at the rehearsals of a play that tells their tragic story. yet this is not the story the actors seem to be rehearsing. Perhaps the murder took place in Marienbad and is now being re=enacted in a room in the hotel by the ghosts of the lovers. It is all left up to interpretation, but the one thing I believe to be true is that the hotel houses a theatre in which a play is being rehearsed and performed, and the two lead characters in the film represent an aspect of the play and that Resnais is contrasting cinema and theatre through the exterior and interior scenes,

29. Insightful analysis Bill regarding Chaplin 🙂 I too often see a celebrated director’s later work as representing them at their peak 🙂 Case in point for me, David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: The Return (I know it is technically a television series), Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Gertrud, and Jean-Luc Godard’s Goodbye to Language to name just a few 🙂

30. I hear ya Bill 🙂 Truth be told, I wrestled back and forth as to whether I should choose Last Year at Marienbad or Hiroshima Mon Amour.

    As for your analysis on Last Year at Marienbad, it is spot on. Given that it takes place in a hotel with a theatre, you could say (even though you already stressed this) that we are the members of the audience. The people behind the scenes are of course the actors. They may not be who they portray themselves as in other words. Would you say that Last Year at Marienbad serves as a perfect example of a film that breaks the fourth wall? 🙂

31. no, quite the opposite. i agree with resnais’s description of the film as a sclure that moves. i think we the audience are always on the outside of the film, watching it from different angles. the audience is clearly depicted in the first scene inside the theatre as they wait for the play to begin. we are seeing a cinematic representation of several events around this production and are left to make our own judgements on whi is playing who and what is happening and when to whom. sono, i think the fourth wall is clearly in place, but it is not a proscenium that frames the action, vut a circular wall with windows we can peer through. my idea of a film that breaks the fourth wall is Berman’s A Passion, when the actors face the camera and talk about the characters they are playing.

32. as there is no editing function for the comments, i must clarify some mispellings. its not that i am a bad speller, im just a terrible typist.

    sclure is sculpture, whi is who, vut is but, Berman is Bergman.

    all of these except sclure are obvious, but it is important that you read sculture where i wrote sclure

33. I rewatched Journey to Italy today. An excellent film and I would like to know more specifically why you esteem it so highly. The final scene, with her disappearing into the crowd, reminded me of Children of Paradise which was, for many decades, my favorite film of all time. I have no idea why i neglected to put it on my romance list, as it deserves first place. I guess I finally got tired of watching it once I knew all the dialogue by heart and then the subtitles were redone in a way that infuriated me.

34. Sorry for the late response Bill 🙂 Been kind of busy today 🙂 Resnais interpretation is how I viewed it as well 🙂 I also agree with you on Ingmar Bergman’s Passion 🙂 Since we are on the subject of theatre, what did you think of John Cassavetes Opening Night? I love it 🙂

35. I am quite aware of that Bill 🙂 No need to apologize 🙂 I personally know some people whose typing skills leave a lot to be desired, so they sometimes text me example sentence and I will tell them what they spelled right and what they spelled wrong. Believe it or not, it is a actually something of a common issue. The biggest surprise for me was that it was with their iPhones as opposed to a traditional computer or laptop 🙂

36. As for Journey to Italy, I can start by giving a personal reason 🙂 I do not know If stoicism is the right word, but there are days where my mindset is akin to that of Ingrid Bergman and George Sanders respective characters. Take for instance, the way each of them view (for lack of better word) the scenery on their trip to Italy. What are they thinking at the moment? That mystery is what makes it so fascinating. Also, the ending, when the two realize that they can never live without each other. I end up thinking the same thing about my loved ones after feeling emotionally distant for a while. As for other reasons, I would say that the film’s missing link between Italian neorealism and the kind of existentialist drama that would pave the way for Michelangelo Antonioni’s 1960’s work. When anybody watches Journey to Italy today, it feels as If it was made yesterday given the lack of anything resembling Hollywood glamour. Also, the minimalist (is that the right word) use of background music gives it an indie feel 🙂 I hope all of this makes sense 🙂 Thoughts? 🙂

37. i was a;so truck by the use of scenery, especially in the traveling scenes, and you comments cemented my feelings about he use of it in connection with the characters. although rossellii was the prime innovator in the neo realist vein, i dont see it here, except in his use of non actors (i presume) in the roles of tourist guides and other real-life figures. also i dont see a connection between the hollywood pairing of sanders and bergman with the naturalistic performances of the early new wave. structurally, i found the film to resemble the classic hollywood style, with its impeccable framing and editing. sanders anoyed me because he seemed to be playing himself (the suicide who left the note saying “Im bored” and ingrid bergman was uncharacteristiclly unpleasant with her perpetual scowl and innate dissatisfaction. still, i admire the movie and that last minute confession of love brought tears to myeyes. still i have to admit, whenit comes to the rossellin-bergman films, i prefer stromboli and europe 51. i see the antonioni parallels, especially in the alienation of the characters from their environment. it reminds me of certain scenes in the passenger. thank you for giving your reasons for holding this film above the others, and i understand and respect your position.

38. in my opinion, Opening Night is a stellar film that examines the mental anguish of an actor in the process of creating and defining a character. It is my second favorite Cassavetes’ picture, and the first I did not see in a theatrical release. However, I was eventually able, after many viewings on home systems, to see it on the screen at the Harvard Film Archives during a complete Cassavetes retrospective.

39. I love the inclusion of Vertigo — it is a twisted love story, but a love story nevertheless. And Bernard Herrmann’s “Scene d’Amour” is definitely one of the most romantic pieces of music ever written.

    Another out-of-the-box love story is Superman (1978). The “Can You Read My Mind” sequence is, in my opinion, one of cinema’s most romantic moments.

40. Thank you for the kind words Bill 🙂 I actually never said that Journey to Italy was a pure neorealist film. The fact that it was shot on location is what gives it a neorealist vibe, but that is about it. The drama’s lack of Hollywood polish (at least for the most part) makes it a precursor to that of Antonioni and the French New Wave. Let us not forget that the French critics at Cahiers du Cinema were early champions of Journey to Italy, which consisted of Jean-Luc Godard and Francois Truffaut among others. And of course, they became directors in their own right within the French New Wave movement. I too love Stromboli and Europe 51 🙂

41. That is awesome Bill 🙂 The whole concept of Opening Night is an inspired one indeed. I always wanted to attend a John Cassavetes retrospective 🙂

42. As you already knew Eric, Vertigo is my number one favorite film of all time 🙂 I also agree with you on Bernard Herrmann’s Scene d’Amour 🙂 It is most certainly “one of the most romantic pieces of music ever written” as you so eloquently state 🙂

    I do love the 1978 version of Superman as well and yes, the “Can You Read My Mind” sequence is a worthy contender for one of the many romantic moments of cinema (American or otherwise) 🙂

43. the retrospective i attended in 1986 was curated by Ray Carney, who had just published his book The Films of John Cassavetes: Pragmatism, Modernism, and the Movies, He later edited Cassavetes on Cassavetes, and owns the only known copy of the first version of Shadows, which he screened at the retrospective.

44. I do remember that there were two versions of Shadows – the 1958 screening was more of a workprint. Cassavetes considered the 1959 final product to be the definitive version 🙂

45. here is a fair article on the Shadows controversy. i dont know if i told you this but i recently compared, scene for scene the original theatrical release of killing of a chinese booking with the shortened re-edit by cassavetes, and i found the short version played much better. i liked the early version of shadows that carney screened at the retrospective, but havent had the opportunity to compare it with the second version.

46. Thanks Bill 🙂 But I actually do not see a link to either one 🙂

47. the two versions of the killing of a chinese bookie are available on Tubi

48. Gotcha Bill 🙂 I too saw both versions of Killing of a Chinese Bookie 🙂

49. which one did you like better?

50. I would have included Last Tango in Paris, but I was afraid I would be misunderstood by some may think i meant there was a grand romance between Paul and Jeanne, but the real heartbreaking romantic tragedy is between Paul and his wife, Rosa, who has committed suicide. The scene of Pul at the side of her coffin is among the most deeply emotional scenes ever put on film. Every time i see it, I am shattered.