Romantic comedies are a subgenre of gods comedy movies focusing on entertaining plots involving the theme of love and romantic relationships, among which there are movies to see absolutely. In a typical romantic comedy the protagonists are often young, likeable and destined to fall in love, yet they are isolated from some complicated situation: class differences, problems with the family of origin, another partner. Romantic comedies often have a fairytale-style happy ending. Romantic comedies are a fun and light variation of love movies.
The typical story of a romantic comedy is that 2 characters, due to a disagreement or other obstacle. They are often reluctant to get involved passionately as they think they don’t like each other. One of them already has a partner, or there are social pressures. The writers leave clues suggesting that the characters are attracted to each other and that they would be a good match for love. Characters typically take time to understand their feelings or handle the challenges outside their being together, which they ultimately conquer.
Over the years, romantic comedies have become popular with both women and men and have begun to expand their traditional structure in other ways. Some romantic comedies face strange or extreme conditions for the characters, such as a zombie movie in which the main character is a zombie who loves a human woman after eating her partner. They are romantic comedies in which, in addition to comedy and love movies, other film genres intervene, creating a more complex and creative mix.
The Conventions of Romantic Comedy
Among the conventions of romantic comedies is the experience of 2 potential future lovers in comic or unusual scenarios. During the meeting, screenwriters often produce a funny feeling of awkwardness between both potential mates by portraying a preliminary clash of beliefs or personalities, an awkward situation, or by presenting a humorous misconception or misidentification circumstance.
The romantic comedies are totally driven by the scenario of the encounter of a conflicting couple for much of the film. The best time of this type of cinematic story was during the Great Depression in the 1930s; Quirky and funny movies made massive use of romance and love stories, perhaps because the much more rigid class consciousness of those years turned love between different social classes into seductive dreams.
Some of the most important literary prototypes of the romantic comedy genre were written by Shakespeare in the late 1890s: A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Twelfth Night. In the 20th century, with the expansion of Hollywood, romantic comedies in America reflected various elements of the culture in its rapid change, creating numerous subgenres over the years.
City Lights (1931)
In his later years, Charlie Chaplin was known for bringing drama into his plays whenever he had the chance. City Lights is the film in which he makes both parts. Although its structure resembles Chaplin’s picaresque genre, there is more of a deliberate goal as the wanderer attempts to assist a blind flower girl, played adorably by Virginia Cherrill. When he is drunk and cannot remember his actions when he is sober, Harry Myers should also be remembered for his role as the generous millionaire in this extraordinary film.
Citizens gathered for the presentation of a new statue dedicated to “Peace and Prosperity”. After the inaugural speech the veil is lifted and we see the Little Wanderer asleep on his lap among the sculpted figures. He manages to leave the confusion of the assembly to wander around the city. He scolds 2 newsboys who make fun of him for his misery, and as he shyly appreciates a naked statue he has a near-fatal encounter with an elevator.
It Happened One Night (1934)
A romantic comedy made in an era raging with censorship, It Happened One Night shows falls in love and desires with allusions: a cleverly presented leg, a shirtless Clark Gable, a story on the road constantly imitated over the years. . It Happened One Night holds up particularly well thanks to the chemistry between Gable and Claudette Colbert, who plays the runaway heir haunted by Gable’s reporter. Their collaboration is competing as well as fun until it morphs into a romantic way, with Colbert’s Ellie running away from the wedding celebration to be with her reporter. The film won 5 Oscars.
Ruined heir Ellen “Ellie” Andrews escapes with pilot and fortune hunter King Westley against the dreams of his very wealthy dad, Alexander Andrews, who wants the marital relationship canceled because he understands that Westley is only really interested in Ellie’s money. Jumping off the ship in Florida, Ellie escapes and boards a bus bound for New York City to reunite with her husband. Meet fellow traveler Peter Warne, a journalist who recently lost his job. Peter recognizes her and offers her a chance: he’ll help her reunite with Westley if she offers him the exclusive story. If not, he will inform his father.
Trouble in Paradise (1932)
Ernst Lubitsch on status, seduction and class focuses on 2 thieves who fall in love masquerading as nobles across Europe. Made before The Hays Code, it is a boldly sensual film, with a genuine portrayal of romance. After 1935 the film was banned from re-release until the late 1960s.
Herbert Marshall and Miriam Hopkins play criminals attempting to deceive a rich widow played by Kay Francis, with sexual and sentimental issues emerging from Francis and Marshall’s relationship and the existence of the other suitors by Francis. It’s a smart and sexy film, with a jaw-dropping vibe and a script that conveys the swagger and artificiality of the social hierarchy.
The Prizefighter and the Lady (1933)
The light comedy and romantic styles of this film blend with the star looks of celebrated boxers of the time. Myrna Loy plays a hip bar singer and gangster girl who plays with the feelings of Max Baer, the heavyweight champion. With the famous Jack Dempsey as referee and Baer Primo Carnera’s real challenger in the ring, it is a circle of celebrities not only from the cinema. An old Hollywood movie that is fun and out of the ordinary.
Ninotchka (1939)
Greta Garbo’s cold, emotionless woman personifies the typical portrait of a Soviet character in Ernst Lubitsch. Then the woman discovers that she can enjoy both a man (Melvyn Douglas) and the freedom of the West while traveling in Paris. It may be a little unexpected to see how much our conception of Russian communism has been told in pop culture: the jokes typically focus on Russians who can’t think of the normal comforts of the West, a cliché of Cold War movies. Garbo is overwhelming in her first comedy, supported by romantic love in her flirtations with Douglas.
The Philadelphia Story (1940)
This adaptation of a Broadway hit was an essential in getting Hepburn’s career back on track after a series of flops. Her role as icy heiress Tracy Lord in this comedy is a force of nature. Her no longer drunk ex is played by Cary Grant, who is a wonderful acting partner. Jimmy Stewart and Ruth Hussey round out the cast as journalists. This classic from the American comedy is a pure pleasure to watch and the script is a work of art.
Tracy Lord is the eldest daughter of a wealthy worldly family from Philadelphia. She was married to CK Dexter Haven, a luxury yacht designer and member of her social group, but she left him 2 years earlier, as, according to her father, she is not up to par with her family and friends: she got drunk and since she was important to him, she consumed more and more alcohol. Their only interaction while they are married, the film’s opening scene, is a violent fight in which she falls to the ground. Now she will marry the “new” rich George Kittredge.
The Shop Around the Corner (1940)
There would definitely be You’ve Got Mail without The Shop Around the Corner by Ernst Lubitsch, who influenced both Kathleen Kelly’s Upper West Side bookstore and the main facility of the 1998 film. their identity. It’s a film that typically gets attention as a second-rate Christmas movie starring James Stewart. The female presence of the cast is not to be overlooked. Margaret Sullivan’s Klara is a valid competition partner for Stewart’s Alfred. Fresh from his starring role in The Wizard of Oz, Frank Morgan steals the show as employer Hugo Matuschek.
Alfred Kralik (James Stewart) is the main seller of a leather goods shop in Budapest owned by the restless Mr. Hugo Matuschek (Frank Morgan). Kralik’s colleagues at Matuschek and Company include his friend, Pirovitch (Felix Bressart), a married man; Ferencz Vadas (Joseph Schildkraut), a two-faced womanizer; the saleswoman Ilona Novotny (Inez Courtney); the employee Flora Kaczek (Sara Haden); and Pepi Katona (William Tracy), the expedition boy. Early one morning, Kralik reveals to Pirovitch that he had an anonymous correspondence with an intelligent and cultured woman whose ad he discovered in the newspaper.
His Girl Friday (1940)
Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell teamed up for this fun, fast-talking romantic comedy from the director Howard Hawks. The film was ahead of its time: a love in the media world backed up by sharp dialogue, a perfect chemistry between Grant and Russell, sharp minds with the same flair for news scoop. By modifying the 1928 play The Front Page, Hawks shifted the work environment of maniacal journalists to Chicago with a snap: he transformed Hildy Johnson into a stylish and spirited journalist, as well as the ex-wife of Grant’s Walter Burns. , the intriguing and understanding editor of The Morning Post with a seductive beauty. His Girl Friday is based on typical 1940s machismo: Walter ruins Hildy’s relationship with another man, and enjoys convincing her to work harder. But the woman’s final decision will be terribly modern and fit for today’s times.
The Lady Eve (1941)
Among the films of the director Preston Sturges The Lady Eve shows a splendid con artist (Barbara Stanwyck) determined to find the love, and the legacy, of a naive man (Henry Fonda) who has recently returned from a one-year expedition to the Amazon. In a good version of the battle of the sexes formula, The Lady Eve discovers conventional genres reversed, with Stanwyck’s Jean Harrington acting as the dominant sex hunter with Henry Fonda’s unsuspecting but sweet Charles being a passive object of desire. With enough secret identities and a broad farce to live up to a William Shakespeare play, The Lady Eve poses as a frosty American classic.
Jean Harrington is a gorgeous scam artist. In addition to her equally thieving father, “Colonel” Harrington, and her partner Gerald, she is intent on robbing Charles Pike, the beneficiary of the Pike Ale’s wealth, on a large ship. Charles has just returned from a year-long exploration of the Amazon for a study of snakes. The girls aboard the ship are fighting for the rich man, but Charles is occupied by the reptiles.
A Matter of Life and Death (1947)
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger had a knack for taking legends and extracting a concrete human history from them. The grandiose nature of deep space may be unknowable to us, however it is our capacity to love that makes this small, conflict-ridden dimension so rewarding.
The powers that stand in the way of new love between a melancholy Royal Air Force pilot (David Niven) and a caring American radio operator (Kim Hunter) in Archer’s superb supernatural melodrama A Matter of Life and Death they are big. The pilot was supposed to die after his plane was shot down, however, due to a clerical error in the afterlife, he falls and falls in love. When an outlandish authority from the other world (Marius Goring) turns to Earth to call him back, the pilot challenges the fate decided for him, declaring that he cannot leave now that the mistake has led him to his new love. Made just after World War II, the film revolves around difficult but essential concepts, and who better than Powell and Pressburgers can provide them with a fantastic and fun shape? If you appreciate the extravagant depictions of the afterlife in comedies you must see this movie. A real stairway to heaven, optical impacts that flex time and space: A Matter of Life and Death is one of the most interesting romantic comedies to see.
Roman Holiday (1953)
All imitations, including modern and bizarre versions in the market of The streaming series begins with Audrey Hepburn’s Princess Ann escaping her golden prison to gain experience in the Eternal City. As he embarks on his journey, he runs into American journalist Joe Bradley (Gregory Peck). Falling in love while riding a Vespa or strolling near the Trevi Fountain are among the cult scenes of the film, until Joe’s fraud is revealed. The final scene of the film remains one of the most heartbreaking in a charming fun backdrop. Directed by William Wyler, Roman Holiday will prove to be Hepburn’s masterpiece, earning her an Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role.
Ann, a princess from a European country in Rome, is disappointed in her predictable life and secretly leaves her country’s embassy. A sedative puts her to sleep on a bench, where Joe Bradley, a migrant journalist from the “American News Service”, discovers her, without recognizing who she is. Believing she’s drunk, Joe lets her spend the night in his apartment. The next morning, Joe rushes to work late and offers his publisher, Mr. Hennessy, incorrect information about his presence at a princess interview. When Hennessy informs him that the interview is canceled and reveals the princess’s identity with an image of her, he realizes who is sleeping in her house. Seeing a possibility, Joe calls his photographer friend, Irving Radovich, to persuade him to sneak photos. Joe then informs Hennessy that he will deliver a special and in-depth interview with the princess and asks how much he would earn from such a scoop. Hennessy pays $ 5,000, however he bets Joe $ 500 that he won’t get the chance to have the interview.
Sabrina (1954)
With 2 of the most famous protagonists such as Humphrey Bogart and William Holden, Billy Wilder as director and Ernest Lehman as author, Sabrina owes virtually all of her fame to the luminescent Audrey Hepburn. Hepburn was currently a star, having won an Oscar for her starring role in 1953’s Roman Holiday and here she shines once again. Typically referred to as a romantic comedy, Sabrina has far more significant gifts than entertaining entertainment, and 25-year-old Hepburn stars with great actors like Holden and Bogart, taking the Cinderella archetype to new heights.
Sabrina Fairchild is the young girl of the Larrabee family driver, Thomas, and has loved David Larrabee all her life. David, a three-time-married idle playboy, never actually had an interest in Sabrina. Considering that she actually lived on Long Island, New York on the Larrabees estate with her father for several years, she is still a young girl to him. Sabrina also pays attention as David attempts yet another female conquest. Distraught, she leaves her father a farewell note and then lights all 8 cars in the locked garage to kill herself. She is losing consciousness from the fumes when Linus, David’s older brother, opens the garage, discovers her, and drags her out when she loses consciousness.
Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi (1958)
A three-hour film that mixes different cinematic genres: love, comedy, action, drama, catastrophic. Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi was one of the very first Hindi films to focus on crazy romantic comedy with drama and action.
The story tells of 3 brothers, Brijmohan, Jagmohan and Manmohan, who run an auto service center, played by 3 brothers in real life: Ashok Kumar, Anoop Kumar and Kishore Kumar. After falling in love, Brijmohan advises his younger siblings never to trust females. Meet a girl in distress, Renu, played by Madhubala, whose vehicle breaks down on a rainy night. Manmohan repairs his car and the couple falls in love. Trouble comes when Renu’s father, unaware of Renu’s interest in Manmohan, is approached by Raja Hardayal Singh, who wishes his brother Prakashchand to marry Renu. Singh’s royal coffers turn out to be empty, and this is one of his many plans to gain wealth. Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi includes famous timeless songs, action comedy and stunning performances by the actors.
Some Like It Hot (1959)
Sugar Kane is the kind of character Marilyn has had a hard time avoiding most of her career: a superficial blonde, a pure sex object, someone who exists in the context of the film simply. to tickle the male aspect, inside or outside the story. You may wonder why Billy Wilder gave up putting in Sugar’s character with any level of compassion, because he created the character as a one-dimensional object.
In February 1929, in the Chicago of the Prohibition era; his nervous friend Jerry is a jazzman. They play in a club owned by the mafia “Spats” Colombo. Informed by the “Toothpick” informer Charlie, the authorities raid the room. Joe and Jerry escape, however they later inadvertently witness Spats and his henchmen murdering “Toothpick” and his gang in revenge. The gang sees them as they escape. Broke, scared and hopeless to leave town, Joe and Jerry dress up as women so they can participate in Sweet Sue and also her Society Syncopators, an all-female band in Miami. On the train, Joe and Jerry befriend Sugar Kane, the band’s lead singer and also a ukulele player.
The Apartment (1960)
L’Appartamento is a romantic comedy with existential reflections on the errors of falling in love, especially of fathers. It is also a comedy in which the apparent good guy gets negatively involved with everyone who acts on him. Among the great aspects of The Apartment is the sensitivity to harassment in the office and the negative habits of men in power. It’s one of the best romantic comedies about the workplace: a film by master Billy Wilder that is worth reviewing and looks as great as the first time.
In the late 1950s, CC “Bud” Baxter is a lone grind at an insurance company in New York City. To climb the corporate hierarchy, he allows 4 corporate supervisors to have his apartment on the Upper West Side to spend time with their mistresses. Baxter runs the “reservations” program, yet the steady flow of women in and out makes his neighbors believe he’s a playboy, bringing home a different woman every night.
Harold and Maude (1971)
One of the most innovative romantic comedies ever made, by director Hal Ashby. Bud Cort plays Harold, a struggling young man whose attraction to death obscures his world view, until he meets Ruth Gordon’s Maude, a spirited older woman who seeks her younger soulmate to regain the charm of life. . The film is both sour and romantic in its portrayal of the unusual relationship. While the couple spends most of the film strolling and having rational, sweet conversations, their dark side looms. The ending is from dramatic and tragic film, but uplifting at the same time.
Harold Chasen is a 19-year-old boy obsessed with death. She stages fanciful bogus suicides, goes to the funeral services of individuals she doesn’t know, and drives a hearse, all to the shame of her wealthy worldly, self-obsessed mother. His mother sends Harold to a psychoanalyst and buys him a high-end car, all plans which he overturns in his own way.
What’s Up, Doc? (1972)
This slapstick comedy is perfect thanks to contributions from Barbra Streisand as Judy Maxwell, Ryan O’Neal as musicologist Dr. Howard Bannister, and Madeline Kahn in her first screen role as the Howard’s future wife, Eunice Burns. Their characters skyrocket under the instructions of Peter Bogdonavich, starting with a skilful script. The film’s long-standing legacy remains in its comedic scenes: an imaginative car chase in San Francisco and a scene in which Howard claims he doesn’t recognize Eunice in a restaurant while hiding under a table with Judy.
Dr. Howard Bannister, a musicologist at the Iowa Conservatory of Music, traveled to San Francisco to complete a research fellowship provided by Frederick Larrabee. Howard is accompanied by his bossy girlfriend, Eunice Burns. As the two explore the Bristol Hotel, Howard meets the charming Judy Maxwell in the drugstore who starts chasing Howard and stays at the hotel without paying.
We Loved Each Other So Much (1974)
Masterpiece by Ettore Scola, this cult comedy follows 3 friends over the course of 30 years. Gianni, Marco and Nicola meet for the first time as young optimists leading Italy’s battle for liberation from fascism. After the war, they leave, with the intention of making their dreams come true. In the decades that follow, their lives intersect, reviewing the impact and adaptation not only of their dreams and failures, but of those of Italy in general. A Italian comedy with a bitter and melancholy flavor about the passing of time and how lives change with social pressures and the inability to maintain one’s coherence. It’s one of those comedies that mix with the drama and that at some point, with the intensity of the emotions it transmits, can streak your face with tears.
Annie Hall (1977)
Annie Hall, is a arthouse film framed in the 1977 romantic comedy genre. The character is Woody Allen in reverse, from her fiction to her female characters. The film has a particular magic: a sweet nostalgic flavor in his famous lines, a melancholy desire for a less complicated era and for a place where everything seemed possible with love.
Comedian Alvy Singer is trying to figure out why his relationship with Annie Hall ended a year earlier. Growing up in Brooklyn, he angered his mother with existential concerns, and was precocious in sexuality, suddenly kissing a 6-year-old schoolmate and not understanding why she wasn’t eager to reciprocate. Annie and Alvy hear another man mock the work of Federico Fellini and Marshall McLuhan. That night, Annie has no interest in sex with Alvy. Rather, they discuss his first wife, whose ardor has brought him no enjoyment. His second marital relationship was with a New York writer who didn’t like sports and was unable to orgasm.
Love on the Run (1978)
After seven years Antoine and Christine separate, while remaining friends. Antoine continues to meet with Christine’s friend, Liliane, who has published a memoir of hers collaborating as a proofreader. Antoine begins a romantic and troubled relationship with Sabine, a saleswoman in a record store.
With Love flees Francois Truffaut concludes a work consisting of five films made over the course of twenty years by recounting the growth of Antoine Doinel, constantly played by the actor Jean-Pierre Léaud himself. Love flees is one French comedy with melancholy and poetic tones typical of Truffaut’s cinema and is the last film in the Doinel cycle, the film that takes stock of the entire path of the previous films in the series.
The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)
Woody Allen has said several times that The Purple Rose of Cairo is one of his favorite films he directed, and it’s no surprise: it’s his most creative and compassionate film. Providing her best interpretation of the 13 films she has made with the director, Mia Farrow plays a lonely woman who goes to the movies to live her dreams through her favorite stars. Even when hasty Tom Baxter (a young Jeff Daniels) steps off the screen and enters his life, he keeps his feelings and expectations in check. The film develops extravagantly towards a heartbreaking and elegiac final act that suggests, however extraordinary it may seem, why we go to the cinema.
She’s Got ta Have It (1986)
Spike Lee makes his directorial debut with this one independent film that ended up being among the most crucial 1980s films for encouraging indie production. Lee brought a never-before-seen voice and verisimilitude to the screen in a wise, adventurous and entertaining film. The main theme of women’s freedoms is still relevant 30 years later.
Nola Darling is a young artist who lives in Brooklyn and manages 3 suitors. The well-meaning and respectful Jamie Overstreet, the self-centered Greer Childs and the Mars Blackmon bike rack. Nola is involved with each and every one of them, but refuses to devote herself completely to one in particular, rather appreciating her individual flexibility, while each guy wants her for himself.
Moonrise Kingdom (2012)
Films Wes Anderson‘s are unromantic and often focused on visual style, but Moonrise Kingdom displays a warmth and innocence created by sincere teenage love. The year is 1965 and sleepy New England island of New Penzance is thrust into action when explorer Khaki Sam Shakusky (Jared Gilman) and region-resident Suzy Bishop (Kara Hayward) escape together. Sam’s scouts hate him and his adoptive parents don’t want him back. Sam is full of surprises: he is quite competent, and when he meets the girl he has been exchanging letters with for a year, he hands her a composition of wildflowers and starts imparting ideas for survival. Suzy is a rebel who upsets the balance between her parents (Bill Murray and Frances McDormand) and her 3 little brothers. Anderson and co-writer Roman Coppola avoid clichés on every occasion. The forces that would normally work to tear Sam and Suzy apart rather rally behind them, perhaps dominated by the conviction of their love. Moonrise Kingdom is a quirky and original romantic comedy.
On the island of New Penzance, New England, 12-year-old orphan Sam Shakusky participates in Camp Ivanhoe, a Khaki Scout summer camp led by Scout Master Randy Ward. Suzy Bishop, also 12, resides on the island with parents Walt and Laura and her 3 younger siblings in a house called Summer’s End. Sam and Suzy, both shy, intelligent and mature for their age, in the summer of 1964 they become friends through correspondence. The relationship becomes romantic during their correspondence and they make a secret pact to reunite and escape together. In September 1965, they execute their strategy. Sam departs from Camp Ivanhoe while Suzy escapes from Summer’s End. The couple meet, walk, camp and fish in the wilderness with the goal of reaching a particular area.
The Astronot (2018)
The Astronot follows the journey of Daniel McKovsky, a wandering and lost soul who has spent the past 30 years of his life alone, gazing at the stars through his trusty brass telescope. Memories of his father’s disappearance during World War II haunt Daniel’s mind as he continues to search for purpose in life. Growing up without his mother and left to fend for himself in the woods of central Oregon, Daniel dreams of becoming an astronaut and exploring the vast unknown reaches of space. However, the irony of his situation is not lost on him, as he remains trapped in his isolated world.
The Astronot is a romantic comedy with a vintage aesthetic that takes place in a remote rural area of the United States. Despite its lighthearted tone, the film explores the challenges that life can bring and the impact they have on Daniel’s journey. His tragic experiences create a deep empathy with the audience, as they witness a funny and endearing character struggling to find his place in the world. With its mix of humor and drama, The Astronot is a unique and captivating film that will leave viewers rooting for Daniel’s success.
