If you ask for a good rom-com to watch, you’ll probably end up with a lot of the same suggestions.
Movies like Clueless, When Harry Met Sally, Pretty Woman and You’ve Got Mail are certainly fantastic classics, but it can be refreshing to watch something totally new to you.
Since the Watch With Us team are experts in all things movies, we’ve got just the list for you.
We compiled four romantic comedies we’re pretty sure are almost perfect, but you’ve probably never even heard of them, let alone watched them.
That ends now. Prepare to believe in love again with these four underrated love stories.
‘Down With Love’ (2003)
In this homage to “no-sex sex comedies” from the early 1960s, Renée Zellweger stars as Barbara Novak, an aspiring author who touches down in New York City to promote her anti-romance, how-to book Down with Love. When she arrives at Banner Publishing, the executives don’t appreciate the book’s subject matter, and when Barbara attempts to use playboy author Catcher Block (Ewan McGregor) to help her out, he rebuffs her. Instead, Barbara gets an unexpected boost from a Judy Garland song, and sales skyrocket. Angering Catcher, he decides to trick Barbara into falling in love with him to prove the fallacy behind her success.
Before Peyton Reed directed the Ant-Man movies for the MCU, he helmed this vastly underappreciated romantic comedy pastiche that is enlivened by screwball humor and a visually ravishing, energetic style. Though Down with Love whiffed with critics and audiences at the time, the movie has since developed a cult following and critical reappraisal for its smart subversion of rom-com tropes. It doesn’t hurt that both McGregor and Zellweger are also absolutely dazzling, putting on their best campy ’60s Hollywood acting performance like they were born for it.
‘Stardust’ (2007)
In England, the quaint village of Wall resides just next to a stone barrier that acts as the divide between the world of humans and the world of magic in Stormhold, and it is guarded to ensure no one ever crosses. When a young man named Dunstan (Nathaniel Parker) manages to get across, he spends the night with an enslaved princess — nine months later, a baby named Tristan is delivered to Dunstan’s doorstep. As an adult, Tristan (Charlie Cox) finds himself at the center of a hunt for a fallen star (Claire Danes), forcing him to cross back over into Stormhold to find her and discover his destiny.
Stardust is perhaps not a typical rom-com, but it is a wonderfully charming fantasy-adventure romance with an undeniable sense of humor that mixes tongue-in-cheek humor that appeals to kids with some racier jokes that will go over their heads. The movie is broadly appealing but not in a bad way; it’s a spirited, lively and exhilarating yarn that is a must-watch for fans of The Princess Bride. Stardust’s fantastic ensemble cast also includes Michelle Pfeiffer, Robert De Niro and Sienna Miller.
‘Celeste and Jesse Forever’ (2012)
High school sweethearts Celeste (Rashida Jones) and Jesse (Andy Samberg) get married young, but their passionate early romance starts losing its spark just as quickly. While Celeste is a successful trend analyzer who runs her own company, Jesse is an unemployed artist who seems in no rush to find steady work. When Celeste finally gets the courage to tell Jesse that she’d like a divorce, she promises him that they will remain friends. But the two former lovers seem unwilling to spend much time apart, and the arrangement raises the eyebrows of their friends — then, Celeste starts having second thoughts.
While Celeste and Jesse Forever isn’t terribly subversive or setting out to do much to differentiate itself from a packed rom-com genre, it excels effortlessly through the unique charms of Jones and Samberg. Ultimately, the movie also succeeds at feeling authentic to reality, capturing the messy, flawed and often incomprehensible behavior of people after they break up. The screenplay (co-written by Jones) does an excellent job of creating characters that are likable, with regard for their emotions.
‘But I’m a Cheerleader’ (1999)
High school student Megan Bloomfield (Natasha Lyonne) is your typical all-American teenager, a cheerleader who dates football player Jared (Brandt Wille). But when Megan seems to express a concerning interest in things like Melissa Etheridge, vegetarianism and her fellow cheerleaders, her parents are left with no choice but to send her to gay conversion camp True Directions. There, she meets fellow lesbians Graham (Clea DuVall), Hilary (Melanie Lynskey) and Sinead (Katharine Towne). But the camp seems to be having an opposite effect, as Megan finds herself falling for Graham.
Much like there are plenty of fish in the sea, there are also plenty of rom-coms to stream — and these forgotten gems are worth revisiting whether on Valentine’s Day or any of the other 364 days of the year. Throughout these underrated romantic comedies, you’ll spot several familiar faces. Long before he was appearing […]
But I’m a Cheerleader is a highly stylized and hilarious satirical rom-com that explores heteronormativity, gender roles and feminine identity. While critics denigrated the film at the time for its content, colorful production design and similarities to the films of John Waters (Mink Stole, one of Waters’ primary collaborators, plays Megan’s mother), all these traits have helped to generate the movie’s passionate cult following. It is now beloved as an empowering lesbian love story that celebrates a queer perspective.
