A rainy night alone is one of the few situations that genuinely calls for a great film. No interruptions, no compromises on what to watch, no one talking over the quiet moments.
In retrospect, the 2010s were a decade of quiet excellence - films doing serious work without demanding credit for it.
The best romantic films work because they're fundamentally about two people trying to understand each other. Love is just the context.
Set on an island off the coast of New England in the summer of 1965, Moonrise Kingdom tells the story of two twelve-year-olds who fall in love, make a secret pact, and run away together into the wilderness. As various authorities try to hunt them down, a violent storm is brewing off-shore - and the peaceful island community is turned upside down in more ways than anyone can handle.
Two teen track stars discover first love as they train for the biggest relay race of their young lives.
A promising career with the police, a baby on the way... Marc's life seems to be right on track. Then he meets fellow policeman Kay and during their regular jogs Marc experiences a never-before-felt sense of ease and effortlessness - and what it means to fall in love with another man.
The story of an impossible love between a woman named Fred and a transgender woman named Laurence who reveals her inner desire to become her true self.
The lives of a young couple intertwine with a much older man as he reflects back on a lost love while he's trapped in an automobile crash.
What makes romantic cinema great is the gap between what characters want to say and what they actually say. These films live in that gap.
After being gone for a decade, a country star returns home to the love he left behind.
Lara Jean's love life goes from imaginary to out of control when her secret letters to every boy she's ever fallen for are mysteriously mailed out.
A young Spanish woman who has newly moved to Berlin finds her flirtation with a local guy turn potentially deadly as their night out with his friends reveals a dangerous secret.
Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a patient named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel's story is about to be completely rewritten.
Takao, who is training to become a shoemaker, skipped school and is sketching shoes in a Japanese-style garden. He meets a mysterious woman, Yukino, who is older than him. Then, without arranging the times, the two start to see each other again and again, but only on rainy days. They deepen their relationship and open up to each other. But the end of the rainy season soon approaches.
The films that change cinema are rarely the ones trying to. They're usually just trying to be great - and accidentally redrawing the map.
These films understand that love is most interesting when it's in conflict with something. The feeling matters more because of what it costs.