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.
Great romance films understand that love is most interesting before it's resolved. The tension, the almost, the not-yet â that's where the cinema is.
When a impoverished widow's family moves to the big city, two of her five sons become romantic rivals with deadly results.
An Irish rogue uses his cunning and wit to work his way up the social classes of 18th century England, transforming himself from the humble Redmond Barry into the noble Barry Lyndon.
An urban office worker finds that paper airplanes are instrumental in meeting a girl in ways he never expected.
A fledgling ballerina falls in love with a brilliant composer, but the jealous head of the ballet company plots to drive them apart.
The summer of his high school freshman year, Hodaka runs away from his remote island home to Tokyo, and quickly finds himself pushed to his financial and personal limits. The weather is unusually gloomy and rainy every day, as if taking its cue from his life. After many days of solitude, he finally finds work as a freelance writer for a mysterious occult magazine. Then, one day, Hodaka meets Hina on a busy street corner. This bright and strong-willed girl possesses a strange and wonderful ability: the power to stop the rain and clear the sky.
These films work because they trust their characters to be complicated. Love doesn't simplify people â it complicates them. These films know that.
Everyone deserves a great love story, but for 17-year-old Simon Spier, it's a little more complicated. He hasn't told his family or friends that he's gay, and he doesn't know the identity of the anonymous classmate that he's fallen for online.
An unexpected meeting on a train leads two travelers to spend an evening wandering through Vienna. As the night unfolds, they share stories and conversations about life and love, exploring new ideas while a quiet intimacy grows between them, knowing it may be their only night together.
Two melancholic Hong Kong policemen fall in love: one with a mysterious underworld figure, the other with a beautiful and ethereal server at a late-night restaurant.
A closeted boy runs the risk of being outed by his own heart after it pops out of his chest to chase down the boy of his dreams.
The story of a teenage boy called Yu, who falls for Yoko, a girl he runs into while working as an upskirt photographer in an offshoot of the porn industry. His attempts to woo her are complicated by a spot of cross-dressing - which convinces Yoko that she is lesbian - dalliances with kung-fu and crime, and a constant struggle with Catholic guilt.
The best measure of whether a film is worth watching is whether you'd recommend it to someone you respect. These all qualify.
These films understand that love is most interesting when it's in conflict with something. The feeling matters more because of what it costs.