For a marathon to work, you need a few films that people already love, at least one genuine discovery, and something that sparks a conversation at the end.
The 2010s produced a generation of films that refused to be just one thing. Smarter than they needed to be. Better than expected.
Romance cinema at its finest doesn't sentimentalise love. It shows it clearly â messy, inconvenient, and still somehow worth everything.
After two years away, Hache returns to Barcelona seeking a fresh start. Falling for Gin while facing unresolved feelings for Babi, he must confront love, loss, and who he's becoming.
Hollywood, 1927: As silent movie star George Valentin wonders if the arrival of talking pictures will cause him to fade into oblivion, he sparks with Peppy Miller, a young dancer set for a big break.
Based on the true story of Robin, a handsome, brilliant and adventurous man whose life takes a dramatic turn when polio leaves him paralyzed.
A man and a woman meet in the ruins of post-war Poland. With vastly different backgrounds and temperaments, they are fatally mismatched and yet drawn to each other.
A romantic comedy centered on Dexter and Emma, who first meet during their graduation in 1988 and proceed to keep in touch regularly. The film follows what they do on July 15 annually, usually doing something together.
The romance films that endure are the ones that don't lie about love. They acknowledge the difficulty while making the feeling feel completely worth it.
Free-spirited writer Juliet Ashton forms a life-changing bond with the delightful and eccentric Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, when she decides to write about the book club they formed during the occupation of Guernsey in WWII.
A controlling father's attempts to ensure that his two children succeed in high school backfire after his son experiences a career-ending sports injury. Their familial bonds are eventually placed under severe strain by an unexpected tragedy.
Spain, 2003. An accidental discovery leads Clarence to travel from the snowy mountains of Huesca to Equatorial Guinea, to visit the land where her father Jacobo and her uncle Kilian spent most of their youth, the island of Fernando Poo.
An acclaimed writer, his ex-wife, and their teenaged children come to terms with the complexities of love in all its forms over the course of one tumultuous year.
A mistaken delivery in Mumbai's famously efficient lunchbox delivery system (Mumbai's Dabbawallahs) connects a young housewife to a stranger in the dusk of his life. They build a fantasy world together through notes in the lunchbox. Gradually, this fantasy threatens to overwhelm their reality.
The best cinematography is invisible until it isn't. These films have moments where you notice the image and can't look away.
The best romantic films leave you with an ache that has nothing to do with sadness. It's the ache of something real, depicted precisely.