Valentine’s Day has finally arrived. It’s the time for love, romance, life as a couple and imagining a future with your sweetheart while you make room for yourself next to him or her on the couch. Or maybe not, and the best you have today are the “Sam va lentin” memes. But, either way, if your plan today is to stay at home watching a romantic movie (either holding hands with your partner or eating ice cream out of spite), there is a platform that can be your best ally: Disney+.
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The streaming service that integrates all of Disney, Pixar, Star and National Geographic has in its catalog several of the best romantic movies you can watch on a day like today. And for all tastes, from classics that never go out of style and are repositioned again and again on television to alternative love stories for all audiences.
We leave you with a selection of ten films that we are sure will make you spend a different Valentine’s Day. And surely better.
10. While You Were Sleeping
The first film on the list is one of those classic films that never goes out of style. It was one of Sandra Bullock’s first big hits, before she shot to stardom with films like Gravity, and a film that is also a perfect fit for Christmas viewing.
According to the synopsis, a lonely Chicago subway worker falls in love with an unknown man whom she finds very handsome. After a robbery by thieves, the girl manages to save him but he falls into a coma. At that moment, his strange family mistakes him for his fiancée. Undoubtedly, this is a film as funny as it is moving and worth seeing once in a lifetime.
9. The Last Song
Before Miley Cyrus dedicated Flowers to Liam Hermsworth, the most scorned song of this year next to Shakira’s, both starred in The Last Song, the movie where they met and where they started their relationship.
The Last Song explores the story of Ronnie, a young woman who is forced to move with her divorced father Steve, with whom she has a bad relationship, to a small town in the southern United States. This causes great strains at first, but they will end up coming together thanks to music.
Full of music, sappiness and drama, The Last Song is a good movie for those who still believe in love. And for those who don’t, let them buy themselves flowers and hold hands. It’s not so bad either.
8. Romeo + Juliet
Who wouldn’t like a very young Leonardo DiCaprio, with that little blond hair he sports in Titanic and ready to conquer the heart of his beloved? If you don’t have enough with his latest hits like Once Upon a Time in Hollywood or The Wolf of Wall Street, you can take a look at the Oscar-winning actor’s past to meet him again in this 1996 film.
Romeo+Juliet is a 90s update of William Shakespeare’s classic, in which two young people (DiCaprio and Claire Danes) living in Verona Beach (lol) fall hopelessly in love. But their families, the Capulets and the Dantescos, won’t make it so easy for them.
It is probably the sappiest film in the catalog, but also a fun exercise in which they decided to relaunch a literary classic. It’s definitely worth seeing if you’re not rainbow-proof.
7. Cinderella
I won’t repeat this unless it’s in front of a lawyer, but the remake of Cinderella seems like a good movie to me. So, it’s the 2015 film, when Disney was just beginning to experiment with readapting its classics to live-action, Kenneth Branagh directed this readaptation of the classic. And not so bad, hey.
Beyond some later nonsense, such as Dumbo or Mulan, Cinderella is a film that adapts perfectly to this new format and even offers new ideas for a story that could not seem more closed.
With a cast starring Lily James (Pam & Tommy, what an evolution) and Richard Madden (Game of Thrones), the remake of the Cinderella story is ideal for a date like Valentine’s Day.
6. The Proposition
If you hear the names Ryan Reynolds and Sandra Bullock, your mind will quickly go to a romantic comedy. These two classics of the genre move like a fish in water in this type of film, and The Proposal is probably the best example of both.
In this 2009 film, Margaret (Bullock), a prominent New York publisher, is about to be deported to Canada. To avoid her transfer, she declares that she is engaged to her assistant, Andrew (Reynolds). He agrees to play along, but with a series of conditions that her boss will have to face.
Funny, fresh and with quite curious plot twists, this film has risen as one of the best romantic comedies of recent years.
5. Down With Love
Not Moulin Rouge, not Transpotting, not Big Fish. If there’s one film in which Ewan McGregor is irresistible, it’s Down With Love. The film directed by Peyton Reed (director of the Ant-Man trilogy) casts McGregor as a hard-hitting journalist in 1960s New York: Catcher Block.
Block is the biggest Don Juan in town, so he decides to face his biggest challenge: falling in love with a girl who says she doesn’t believe in love. Barbara Novak is a writer who has published the revolutionary best seller Down with Love, so how will she deal with this proposal?
Full of tangles, funny moments and curious characters, Down With Love is one of those unknown gems of romantic comedy. It’s worth a look, if only for McGregor and Renée Zellweger.
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4. West Side Story
Steven Spielberg can rise this year as one of the most awarded directors in history thanks to The Fabelman. But last year he was already on the verge of reaching the top again, thanks to the new adaptation he directed of West Side Story.
The musical of musicals has a spectacular production, but also sublime performances. Ansel Elgort and Rachel Zegler star in this feature film, along with stellar appearances by Rita Moreno and Ariana DeBose.
Whether for the impossible love that the protagonists experience or for its songs, it is worth watching West Side Story and letting yourself be immersed in the New York of the happy (or not so happy?) fifties.
3. Wall-E
One of the strangest and curiously emotional love stories in the entire Pixar universe is the one narrated in Wall-E. Beyond the unbeatable intro of Up or the family relationship of The Incredibles, Wall-E and Eva are two of the characters with the most chemistry on the screen. And being non-speaking robots, this is fascinating.
The film is set on Earth after several hundred years. Wall-E is a robot who is in charge of cleaning the planet of all the garbage that has been accumulating, but his vision of everything around him changes when he meets Eva and falls terribly in love with her.
Wall-E stands as a dystopia between criticism and satire, but also as a film full of iconic moments that stick in your mind forever.
2. Love, Simon
Not only heteronormative couples deserve to be on this list, because even for Wall-E robots it seems that love between a woman and a man is the right thing to do. So it was obvious that we had to add to the list one of the most beautiful love stories of recent years, which also talks about a hom*osexual relationship.
With love, Simon tells about the life of Simon Spier, a 17-year-old high school senior who has great parents, wonderful friends and a little sister he even likes. But the only thing that complicates his life is that he has not yet dared to come out of the closet and reveal his big secret.
The story unfolds like a classic teen comedy, but perfectly tells a love story that many young people can relate to.
1. The Shape of Water
At the top of the list is what, for my taste and that of many, is one of the best love stories ever told on the big screen. It earned Guillermo del Toro a well-deserved Oscar, and served to show that falling in love with a monster, beyond Beauty and the Beast, is also an option.
The Shape of Water tells the story of Elisa, a deaf-mute woman who lives in 1960s Baltimore and works as a night cleaner at an aerospace research center. One night, while cleaning in a high-security area, she sees a capsule with a strange being inside being brought to the laboratory… and love arises between the two.
Weird, funny, emotional and action-packed, The Shape of Water is the pinnacle of Del Toro’s cinema and, moreover, provides the viewer with dozens of lessons that are unforgettable.
