With the holidays upon us, after a whole bout of partying, perhaps there is nothing better to do to recover from the festivities than staying home with your partner, popping in a DVD and snuggling up on the couch. Inspired by the recent release of New Year’s Eve in theatres, we have rounded up our personal favourite top 5 romantic movies for the holiday season.
5. Serendipity (2001)
“Serendipity”, as defined by dictionary.com, means “good fortune; luck”. In the movie, a couple, played by John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale, serendipitously encounter each other when they both try to buy the same black cashmere gloves at Bloomingdale’s in New York City while doing Christmas shopping. They feel a mutual attraction, and despite them both being involved in relationships at that point, they end up eating ice cream at a restaurant called Serendipity 3 together. The movie tracks how they lose contact and their struggles to find each other again several years later when they are both about to be married to other people. After watching this movie, it will be hard to not believe that there is such a thing as destiny when finding true love.
4. The Shop Around the Corner (1940)
The lead characters, played by Hollywood star Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullivan, are gift shop employees who can’t stand each other, but don’t realise that they are pen pals and have fallen in love with each other, until Christmas Eve. It is the movie that inspired You’ve Got Mail, the 1998 Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan romantic comedy about two rival bookstore owners who hate each other in real life, but fall in love with each other anonymously online.
3. Lady and the Tramp (1955)
The lovable Disney classic about an American cocker spaniel named Lady from a refined, upper-class family, who falls in love with a stray who calls himself the Tramp. It is not so much a Christmas movie, but the movie does begin on Christmas morning with Jim Dear giving his wife Darling a cocker spaniel puppy whom she names Lady. She later meets a stray from the “wrong side of the tracks” called the Tramp, and he shows her how he leads a “footloose and collar-free” life, culminating with the famous candlelight dinner scene involving a string of spaghetti.
2. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
The perennial oldie but goodie, this has been a holiday movie staple for decades. A man who contemplates suicide on Christmas Eve is prevented from doing so by his guardian angel, who shows him what life would have been like if he never existed. The American Film Institute placed it number one on their list of the most inspirational American movies of all time—and inspired you certainly will be.
1. Love Actually (2003)
Finally, the number one favourite on our list: Love Actually. With all the touching intertwining love stories in the movie taking place a month before Christmas and culminating on Christmas day in an exciting love fest, where almost everyone finds their happy endings to the tune of the most uplifting score you can ever imagine, you and your partner will be left with the delirious, giddy feeling in your hearts that all is right in the world, as long as there is love.
