Five best romantic movies to watch on Netflix this weekend
Netflix has no shortage of love stories, but if you pay attention closely, the best ones are those which do more than bring two people together. These Netflix stories explore what happens when love clashes with ambition, circumstances, and the inconvenient realities of life.
Take One Day, which makes a compelling case that bad timing can be more devastating than betrayal. Meanwhile, Nobody Wants This proves that even the most promising relationships come with complications that chemistry alone cannot resolve.
What makes romance such an enduring genre is its emotional range. First love, heartbreak, longing, and ultimately unexpected connections resonate across cultures and languages. And frankly, stories that acknowledge love’s messiness are much more interesting than those offering effortless happy endings.
So skip everything this week, and watch these five romantic movies on Netflix this weekend.
Five best romantic movies to watch on Netflix this weekend
Purple Hearts (Elizabeth Allen Rosenbaum, 2022)
A marriage of convenience makes a splendid mess of a love story when the bride and groom have almost no affection for each other, and Purple Hearts made sure to get a fair bit of mileage from that awkwardness.
Meet Cassie Salazar (Sofia Carson), a singer-songwriter pulling bar shifts while struggling to afford treatment for type 1 diabetes, and Luke Morrow (Nicholas Galitzine), a Marine walking towards deployment with debts breathing down his neck. She’s desperate for health insurance, he could do with the military benefits, and marriage seems like a nice little arrangement while making sure love doesn’t get a look-in!
But their “smart” plan becomes a mess when Luke suffers an injury overseas, which forces them to share a home and play the devoted couple. Oh, the rows these two have! Yet beneath all that bickering, we know a forbidden romance is blooming, and their pretend marriage becomes a love story neither saw coming.
Beyond the Universe (Diego Freitas, 2022)
You need to hold tight to your tissue boxes because Beyond the Universe knows how to break your heart. What makes it such a beautiful watch is that the poor girl is going through so much; just hearing about it might make you feel exhausted.
Nina (Giulia Be) dreams of performing with the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra, but lupus-related kidney failure has turned her life into a never-ending round of dialysis appointments and waiting for a transplant. The poor darling can scarcely plan her future, let alone pursue a career in music, and watching her makes your heart cry; hence, the tissue boxes. Then Gabriel (Henrique Zaga), a charming young doctor, comes into her life and encourages her to take a chance on that audition. Sparks fly and love seems to be on the cards, but his role in her medical care makes things tricky. What a time to fall in love, eh?
The Last Letter from Your Lover (Augustine Frizzell, 2021)
Let us now travel to 1960s England, where Jennifer Stirling (Shailene Woodley) has a wealthy husband and a life of luxury, but her heart has other plans when journalist Anthony O’Hare (Callum Turner) sweeps her off her feet. The poor woman is torn between her marriage and the man she adores, and society isn’t about to make things easy for her.
Oh, the scandal of it all! The Last Letter from Your Lover gives us a forbidden affair with secret love letters and an aromatic romance, and goodness, the lengths people will go to for love will make you question their sanity.
Decades later, journalist Ellie Haworth discovers their letters and, with archivist Rory lending a hand, sets out to discover what became of the lovers. And would you believe it… Her own love life becomes part of the drama!
Love at First Sight (Vanessa Caswill, 2023)
When it comes to love, fate has a wicked sense of humour, and in Love at First Sight, one missed flight turns into one of the best on-screen romantic adventures… so much so that it will make you want to book a plane ticket and take your chances! Poor Hadley Sullivan is supposed to be heading from New York to London for her father’s wedding, but she’s missed her flight, and what a dreadful start to the journey! Her luck takes a turn when she meets Oliver Jones (Ben Hardy), a charming British student with a fondness for numbers and probabilities, and they end up sitting together on the flight.
But goodness, Heathrow has to spoil everything! They lose each other at the airport without a decent way to reconnect, and now we’re left rooting for two people who might have found something wonderful during one flight!
20th Century Girl (Bang Woo-ri, 2022)
Oh, to be seventeen and have your whole world shaken by a schoolboy crush! 20th Century Girl takes us back to the days of teenage butterflies and friendships.
The year is 1999, and Na Bo-ra has promised her best friend Yeon-du that she’ll investigate her crush, Baek Hyun-jin, while Yeon-du goes abroad for heart surgery. A noble little mission, wouldn’t you say? Except Bo-ra gets acquainted with Hyun-jin’s friend Poong Woon-ho, and goodness gracious, she’s gone and fallen for him!
Now the poor girl has her friendship on one side and her feelings on the other, with misunderstandings making this worse. The stolen glances and innocent flirting are a delight, but mind you, beneath all that sweetness there is a heartbreak that’ll break your heart.