30 Best Romance Movies On Netflix Now (2020)
For when you’re in the mood for love.
netflix Nothing beats cozying up on a weekend night with a glass of wine (or bottle), some popcorn, and a good romantic movie to strike up all those warm, fuzzy feelings, and maybe even a few tears.
Whether you've got your best friends by your side, a significant other, or you’re just having some me-time, a cheesy romance really sets the mood. We all want to find love, and sometimes a good romance film is the closest you’re going to get.
What are the best romance movies on Netflix right now?
These films are all available for you to binge on Netflix, so you can have a whole marathon of romances to keep you going.
These star-studded love stories will have you laughing, crying, and maybe even doing both at the same time.
1. About Time (2013)
This is one of my favorite romance films of all time, and one of the most popular in this category on Netflix.
Rachel McAdams and Domhnall Gleeson star as a couple who fall in love after meeting on a blind date. Gleeson’s character soon finds out that he comes from a line of time travelers, causing understandable complications in their love story.
Despite the magic realism, this story is one of true, heartfelt love.
2. Blue is the Warmest Color (2013)
A refreshingly different take on young love, this French film explores youth and sexuality honesty and beautifully.
Fifteen-year-old Adele is on a quest to find love with boys from her town, when she falls into an intense love affair with another young girl. It's the film that propelled Lea Seydoux to stardom, and even earned the prestigious Palme d’Or at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival.
3. Sleeping With Other People (2015)
Think standard rom-com but with more dysfunction and a whole lot of laughs.
Two former lovers, struggling with monogamy, reunite at a group therapy session and end up on a tumultuous path of lust, love, and everything in between. It’s one you can watch and be glad you’re not them, but also kind of wish you were!
Alison Brie and Jason Sudeikis have such an electric, sharp chemistry on-screen that it’s easy to forget it’s fiction.
4. As Good as It Gets (1997)
Two seemingly broken people finding each other and restoring one another to a life of love and joy? What could be more romantic than that?
Jack Nicholson plays an obsessive-compulsive romance novelist who frequents a local restaurant where only Helen Hunt, a waitress and single mother, can put up with serving him.
Their rocky frenemy relationship makes for an interesting foundation as they try to build something more.
5. Set It Up (2018)
If you’ve seen Booksmart (another must-watch), you’ll love this movie from writer Sarah Silberman.
Slaves to the corporate world, two assistants hatch a plan to make their bosses fall in love so they’ll stop being so demanding. You can probably guess where the real love story lies.
But with more laughs, charm and entertainment than your typical rom-com, this movie is far from predictable.
6. Her (2014)
The talented writer/director Spike Jonze brings together Joaquin Phoenix, Scarlett Johansson, Amy Adams, Rooney Mara, Chris Pratt, Kristen Wiig, and Olivia Wilde for an unusual and brilliant take on modern love.
Theodore Twombley (Phoenix) is a depressed, lonely man struggling with his divorce who falls for Samantha (Johansson), a virtual voice living in a computer operating system.
The film will challenge everything you think you know about love, loss, and finding yourself.
7. Moonlight (2017)
Winner of the 2017 Academy Award for Best Picture (remember that awkward moment on stage with the cast of La La Land?), this is a stunning crossover between a coming-of-age story and a coming out story.
The story follows Chiron, a young black man, at 3 key stages in his life, navigating his relationship with his drug-addicted mother and a criminal father figure, all while finding his own truth in his sexuality.
8. Always Be My Maybe (2019)
Sasha (Ali Wong) and Marcus (Randall Park) go their separate ways after a teenage fling, but are reunited after Sasha’s failed engagement causes her to move back home from her successful, celebrity life.
Marcus’s old feelings soon reignite, but he’s forced to deal with feelings of inadequacy due to Sasha’s success and her new boyfriend, Keanu Reeves (playing a hilarious version of himself).
9. To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (2018)
Based on the eponymous novel, this is a feel-good teen romance to beat out the rest.
Lara, a shy introvert, has her life turned upside-down when secret letters she wrote to her crushes are sent out to their recipients. Each of her crushes takes turns confronting her, and she's forced to challenge her awkward teenage ways to attempt to improve her street cred.
You get two for one with this film because there’s even a sequel on Netflix now (and a third installment coming soon!).
10. Jerry Maguire (1997)
The film that gave us iconic romantic phrases: “You complete me,” "Show me the money," and “You had me at hello.”
A sports agent (Tom Cruise), leaving his agency in a dramatic career move, finds himself with just one client (Renee Zellweger). Both in complicated stages in their life, they strike up an unlikely romance filled with heartwrenching moments and a lot of ups and downs.
11. Hitch (2005)
The talented and charismatic Will Smith plays an even more charming relationship coach, Hitch, who teaches hopeless, awkward men how to have success with the women they desire.
Used to having women fall at his feet, Hitch comes up against an unexpected challenge when he encounters Eva Mendes’ character who refuses to be wooed.
12. Just Friends (2006)
Before he was the action hero Deadpool, Ryan Reynolds gave us many iconic early 2000s rom-coms. This underrated film sees Reynolds at his best, playing his good looks off his goofy humor.
Going from being a chubby, awkward teen, Reynolds becomes a trim, successful music producer who gets stranded at home for the holidays. There, he's forced to confront his childhood BFF, who is also the girl he was in love with for most of his life.
Anna Faris puts on a side-splitting performance as his ditzy pop star client who joins in on the adventure.
13. Someone Great (2019)
A real love story should be about falling in love with yourself.
Jenny is dumped by her long-term boyfriend just before her big move to the West coast. In the depths of sorrow and heartache, she and her two best friends join forces for one last outrageous adventure in New York City.
The story is marked by flashbacks of her relationship that will make you feel the breakup as if it was your own. This one is all about coping with love and loss, and learning to keep looking forward.
14. Holding the Man (2015)
This is a love story spanning across 15 years, from awkward teen years to adulthood.
Two Australian teens meet at their all-boys school and slowly fall for one another. The boys wind their way through youth and growth, finding themselves and each other over and over.
15. Silver Linings Playbook (2012)
Disguised as a rom-com, this is one of the most honest movies about mental illness that has ever been made.
Set in Philly, it captures suburban American family life perfectly. Losing his job and his wife, Bradley Cooper moves back in with his parents after spending time in a mental institution.
He crosses paths with another struggling young adult, played by Jennifer Lawrence, who agrees to help him get his life back on track if he agrees to compete with her in a dance competition.
16. Marriage Story (2019)
Premiering on Netflix last year, this movie quickly captured the attention of critics and appeared in the 2020 Golden Globes nominations.
Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson play a couple who, despite their love for one another, can’t make their marriage work. It's a complex analysis of a marriage as it unravels and explores how love remains even when all bonds are broken.
17. Howards End (1992)
The iconic Emma Thompson and Anthony Hopkins put on a stellar performance in this classic, based on the E.M. Forster novel of the same name.
Set in Victorian England, three families are engulfed in a scandal as Thompson and Hopkins fall in love. It explores social conventions, codes of conduct, and relationships in turn-of-the-century England.
18. Ibiza: Love Drunk (2018)
This plot is a safe bet but a fun watch all the same.
When Harper is sent to Spain for a business trip, her hard-partying friends tag along and encourage her to pursue a famous DJ, following him to Ibiza at the expense of her professional reputation.
The dynamic girl squad provides plenty of laughs and hysterical moments.
19. Nappily Ever After (2018)
The transformative life lesson in this movie begins with a haircut.
After a romantic setback, a perfectionist career woman gets a dramatic makeover and embarks on a journey of self-discovery. She goes on a date with her charismatic barber and discovers a whole part of herself she was denying.
20. 40 Days and 40 Nights (2002)
You know how the start of a relationship is filled with lust and an inability to keep your hands off one another? Imagine not being able to fulfill these desires.
Scorned by a failed relationship, Matt (played by Josh Hartnett) has been struggling with commitment and monogamy despite feeling a pine for love. He decides to give up physical intimacy for lent to work on his emotional maturity.
Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), the love of his life shows up just as he’s about to begin.
21. The Duchess (2008)
Another good old-fashioned Victorian love story, but this time with more adultery and even more hoop skirts.
Keira Knightly ignites and intense and scandalous affair with a politician (Dominic Cooper) after finding herself unhappily married to a powerful Duke (Ralph Fiennes).
22. Let It Snow (2019)
Despite the holiday season setting, this heartfelt teen romance story will warm you up all year round.
The rom-com follows a series of overlapping one-day stories of burgeoning love, friendship, and domestic struggles. The cast features a line of up of newcomers who are sure to dominate our screens in years to come.
23. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
This is a rare look at Jim Carrey outside of his usual, slapstick roles. He joins Kate Winslet in this sci-fi romance blend that took home Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.
A former couple takes part in a medical procedure to purge all memories of one another from their minds. The movie follows their separate narratives as we explore what love really means when it’s detached from memory and nostalgia.
24. The Incredible Jessica James (2017)
Jessica (played by The Daily Show’s Jessica Williams) is a fiercely independent, passionate theatre worker who has been unlucky in love.
Struggling with a breakup, she meets a fellow newly-singleton, Boone (Chris O’Dowd). The two attempt to help each other out of their breakups and into the world.
With an electric co-star chemistry, these characters are a joy to watch.
25. Pride and Prejudice (2005)
Jane Austen’s 19th-century novel is romance in its true form.
This on-screen adaptation stars Keira Knightley as the lead, Elizabeth Bennet, a headstrong young woman who falls in and out of love with the mysterious Mr. Darcy. The costumes and cinematography only add to what is already a brilliant story.
26. When Harry Met Sally (1989)
If you’ve ever had a crush on a close friend, this movie will speak to you like nothing else.
Harry and Sally are two pals who opt to avoid a romantic relationship in order to save their friendship. But love is not always something that can be contained, and these friends find themselves in a push and pull friendship that is always teetering on the brink of something more.
27. The Notebook (2004)
In case you’ve been living under a rock, or just want to cry over Noah and Allie again, The Notebook is one of the most heart-wrenching love stories of all time.
Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams play young lovers with a powerful magnetism and undeniable chemistry. Their love story becomes complicated when they are separated by war and class differences in the 1940s.
28. Been So Long (2018)
You’ll know lead actress Michaela Coel from Black Mirror or the British comedy-drama, I May Destroy You.
Here, she plays a single-mother living in Camden, London who falls for a man living in the shadows of his troubled past. The movie is an adaptation of the stage musical by Ché Walker and Arthur Darvill, and features a beautiful soundtrack of funk and soul.
29. Definitely, Maybe (2008)
I told you Ryan Reynolds was the face of the 2000s rom-com genre!
This story follows a single dad recounting 3 significant romances in his life to his young daughter. In a How I Met Your Mother-style plot, we’re left guessing which will end up being the woman he fathered a child with.
Told through endearing flashbacks and humorous twists, the movie nails the ending much better than the TV series did, so you don’t even have to stick out 9 seasons for an anti-climax.
30. American Honey (2016)
Andrea Arnold, the writer and director of this movie, is a genius when it comes to capturing intimacy in its most subtle forms. She's also the woman behind Fish Tank and Big Little Lies season 2.
Sasha Lane, in an impressive breakout role, plays a troubled teen who joins a traveling gang of misfits, led by Shia LaBeouf’s character. It’s a complicated story of infatuation, adventure, and youth told through indie-style shots and silences that speak a thousand words.
Alice Kelly is a writer with a passion for lifestyle, entertainment, and trending topics.