Best romantic film

Published on Tuesday 12 February 2008 18:56

A kiss is still a kiss…

1 ROMAN HOLIDAY

Audrey Hepburn is the princess who falls in love with the journalist (Gregory Peck) in William Wyler's 1953 classic. All the glamour of 1950s Hollywood with a surprisingly real emotional core. Not quite a weekend in Rome, but definitely getting there.

2 UN HOMME ET UNE FEMME

You'll recognise the music from this 1966 classic by Claude Lelouch, starring Jean-Louis Trintignant and the delectable Anouk Aime (Oscar-nominated for best actress). Not a weepy, but a will-they, won't-they. A mix of black-and-white and colour adds to the strong atmospherics. It's French: how romantic can you get?

3 WATERSHIP DOWN

Nothing makes lovely ladies go weak at the knees and vulnerable like this weepy animation from the late 1970s. You'll still have the Art Garfunkel theme, Bright Eyes, in your head for months, maybe even years after watching (OK, maybe that's not such a good thing). Anyone not welling up by the end of it surely has a heart of stone, so it's probably quite a good measure of someone's personality too. But where's the Scottish connection, you ask? Fear not – Hannah Gordon, voice of Hyzenthlay, is of course an Edinburgh bunny in real life.

4 THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT

Why can't the most powerful man in the world have the one thing he wants most? That's the questions posed by Rob Reiner's 1995 film about a widower US president (Michael Douglas) who falls for an environmental lobbyist (Annette Bening). From the pen of Aaron Sorkin, the political drama – with a healthy dose of romance and comedy – was supposed to lay the groundwork for TV series The West Wing, which eventually followed in 1999. All the ingredients are there: Michael J Fox playing a prototype Sam Seaborn character; the quick-fire dialogue for which Sorkin has become famous; and, in an ironic twist, Martin Sheen, who later goes on to play the president in The West Wing, is cast as the White House chief of staff to Douglas's chiselled leader.

5 AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER

Forget goofy teen romantic comedies, for good old-fashioned romance find the classic weepie An Affair to Remember. In this textbook boy-meets-girl, boys-loses-girl and boy-gets-girl-in-the-end formula, it is the stellar turns from Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr that lift the 1957 drama head and shoulders above run-of-the-mill tales. Nickie Ferrante (Grant) and Terry McKay (Kerr) meet but can't get involved so agree to a reunion at the Empire State Building six months later. The twist? Will she make it? The real twist? Will he notice the change in her?