My most romantic movies

Casablanca. Fans of Michael Curtiz’s 1942 romantic masterpiece can recite the entire movie frame by frame, line by line. “Here’s lookin’ at you, kid.” “We’ll always have Paris.” “Round up the usual suspects.” The true romance is in Rick the cynic’s gradual commitment to a just cause.

Brokeback Mountain. To call Ang Lee’s story “a gay movie” is like calling Romeo and Juliet a text about teenagers being out of control: it is so much more than that. It has a striking universality: a yearningly romantic movie about repining and regret, and how only in retrospect do we understand life.

The Sound of Music. Corny, soppy and overcute, it’s still a great film about the romance of family life. It is the child’s eye view of how families should be: and how children prefer a mother-figure who is focused on them and fun to be with than any amount of status and glamour. Christopher Plummer allegedly loathed doing the 1965 pic, but maybe that gave him a romantic-brooding edge.

Now, Voyager. 1942 romance with Bette Davis and Paul Henreid as star-crossed lovers sharing a cigarette together under the night sky. “Why ask for the moon when we have the stars?” It’s been suggested it should be banned in Scotland because the cigarette sequence is so seductive.

Titanic. James Cameron’s 1997 version is regarded as the most romantic of movies by young people. For me, the computerised technology rather distracted from the love story. But one has to grant it status as a romance with impact, and Kate Winslet and Leonardo di Caprio in iconic ship-bow pose.

Camille: There have been several versions of Dumas’s uber-romantic tale of the courtesan with a golden heart, dying of consumption, but none greater than George Cukor’s 1936 version with the divine Greta Garbo. When asked what she will do when resting in the country, she replies incongruously: “I have my cookbooks to occupy me.”

Ghost: The cult 1990 film about love being greater than death, with Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore. Not hugely convincing, but memorable, and has touched many hearts.

Brief Encounter: the romance of restraint. Written by a gay man (Noel Coward) so it can be seen as a metaphor about the difficulties of “coming out” in 1945: an exquisite treatment of brief romance in the context of a long-gone English decorum and stoicism.

Some Like it Hot. Usually billed as a comedy, but Monroe flawlessly represents the hopeless romantic who usually ends up with the stickey end of the lollipop: and Joe E. Brown is the romantic for whom there are no obstacles whatsoever.

The Apartment. Shirley MacLaine was never more romantic than as the waifish elevator girl who finally finds love, in Billy Wilder’s 1960 critique of corporate life.

La Belle et La Bete. Jean Cocteau’s 1946 fairytale in which Beauty falls in the love with Beast, and finds she loves him for his character and soul, not his looks.

Destry Rides Again. Dietrich as the bad girl turned good egg and Jimmy Stewart as the pacifist who finds he has to fight make a 1939 romance to die for. Churchill and Beaverbrook watched it repeatedly during World War 2, just to hear Marlene sing: “See What the Boys in the Backroom Will Have.” They blubbed every time. (In Berlin, Eva Braun was watching some of the same movies.)

Walk the Line. The captivating Johnny Cash biopic acted with conviction by Joaquim Phoenix and Reece Witherspoon. Reece refuses to do sexually explicit or nude scenes, but she transmits love, passion and playful commitment just the same.

My Cousin Rachel. Richard Burton did too many rubbishy movies for money, but in this 1952 Daphne du Maurier he is the very soul of the Gothic romantic hero.

Four Weddings and a Funeral. Definitely on the side of romance, and the quest for love. Little Charlotte Coleman (who later died) throwing herself into the arms of her hunky Texan at the end is a moment of sweet consummation.

Roman Holiday. The engaging fleeting romance between Audrey Hepburn as a mitching princess and Gregory Peck as the sceptical journalist in 1953. Reputedly based on an episode in Princess Margaret’s life.

Magnificent Obsession. It may be stretching plausibility to believe in Rock Hudson as a square-jawed heterosexual doctor passionately in love with tragic Jane Wyman, but in 1954, it swept the boards: and it still has a genuinely romantic sincerity.

Gone with the Wind. Probably the most romantic movie of all time for its fans. Banned in Ireland soon after its 1940 release, it has recently attracted new critiques for its implicit acceptance of marital rape, racism and patronising attitudes to servants. Still, Vivien Leigh’s parting words have entered the language: “Tomorrow is another day.”

Irish Independent Magazine: 15 April 2006.