Film Gecko

Top Ten Romantic Movie Moments

by Jane Boursaw on February 13th, 2008

Hola, Dear Readers! Valentine’s Day is - yipes! - tomorrow already! But if you’re still scrambling for a way to score points with your loved one, how about picking up a few tips from the movies? What, you can’t dance like Patrick Swayze? Ok, so rent the movie instead. My Top Ten Romantic Movie Moments to keep our hearts racing from here to eternity:

1. Dirty Dancing. “Nobody puts Baby in a corner.” You tell ‘em, Johnny! And then the street-wise dancer grab’s the young girl’s hand and pulls her on-stage for “their” dance. Could there be a better ending to this nostalgic movie about young love at a 50’s-era summer resort? I think not.

2. Bridget Jones’s Diary. Daniel (Hugh Grant) and Bridget (Renee Zellweger) have just emerged onto the street from an intimate, candle-lit dinner. She raises her arm to hail a taxi, and then he pulls her into his arms and gives her one of THE most romantic kisses in cinema history. And then, of course, they go back to her apartment, where she realizes she wore…the BIG underpants! Ack, just like real life.

3. Casablanca. But there MUST be a way it can work, we think silently, watching Rick (Humphrey Bogart) and Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) stand in front of that plane and decide to spend their lives apart. But no, he gazes into her sad eyes and declares, “It doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you’ll understand that.” But…but…

More Romantic Movie Moments - and the “Dirty Dancing” final scene - after the jump!

4. Jerry Maguire. “You…complete…me…,” says Jerry (Tom Cruise), and we all wish someone would say that to us just ONCE before we die. Whatever happens after that in the movie doesn’t matter because those heartfelt words captured Dorothy’s (Renee Zellweger) heart and ours, too.

5. Moonstruck. “I love you,” says Ronny (Nicolas Cage). Slap! “Snap out of it!” yells Loretta (Cher). But the droopy-eyed bread-baker won’t be put off. “I love you,” he says again, “but love don’t make things nice. It ruins everything. It breaks your heart. It makes things a mess. We aren’t here to make things perfect. We are here to ruin ourselves and to break our hearts and love the wrong people and DIE. The storybooks are BULLSHIT! Now I want you to come upstairs with me and GET in my bed!” Perfect. What girl could refuse a proposition like that?

6. Working Girl. On their way down the stairs from a successful business meeting, Jack (Harrison Ford) and Tess (Melanie Griffith) suddenly stop, drop their briefcases, and embrace in a passionate kiss to beat all kisses. The next scene finds them tearing each others’ clothes off as they stumble through the door of his apartment. It’s a scene guaranteed to get some cardio into your life, even if you don’t get on that treadmill.

7. While You Were Sleeping. Lucy (Sandra Bullock) is sitting in her booth at the station, drearily taking tokens for the train. Her life is a mess. All of a sudden, someone drops an engagement ring through the little window, and she looks up to see Jack (Bill Pullman) standing there with his whole family beaming from ear to ear. “Lucy? I have to ask you a question,” he says. It’s a movie-moment proposal par excellence.

8. Ghost. Oda Mae (Whoopi Goldberg) is trying to convince Molly (Demi Moore) that the ghost of her dead lover is inhabiting her body (hey, it’s a movie!). They’re on opposite sides of a closed door, and, desperate to make her believe, Sam the ghost (Patrick Swayze) tells Oda Mae to slide a penny under the door, which she does. Sam then lifts the penny and Molly finally, tearfully believes. Need a good cry? Then have yourself a little tear-fest with this movie, followed by Love Story, The Way We Were, and Titanic.

9. Pretty Woman. As Vivian (Julia Roberts) gets ready to leave town and start a new life, we weep for the love she thought could never work. Then we see a limo pull up outside her apartment, and Edward (Richard Gere) is sticking his head out of the sunroof waving a bouquet of flowers. She comes to the fire escape in disbelief, as he climbs up (remember - he’s afraid of heights!) to rescue her from a life of struggle. And she gets to “rescue him right back.” Priceless. Two broken people, mended at last.

10. Green Card. It’s a relationship doomed to failure. Bronte (Andie MacDowell) is an organized, plant-loving vegetarian. Georges (Gerard Depardieu) is a loud, messy carnivore. But we know it’s true love when she races to find him at the café and they embrace in a passionate kiss right before he’s forced to leave the country, courtesy of the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Will these mis-matched lovebirds find their way back to each other? We’re pretty sure they will.

11. Sleepless in Seattle. As Annie (Meg Ryan) wanders sadly around the top of the Empire State Building, she’s afraid she blew her one chance at happiness. Then she sees a backpack and picks it up, just as Sam (Tom Hanks) and his son, Jonah, step off the elevator. Sam and Annie can’t stop looking at each other as they all get on the elevator and begin the rest of their lives together…sigh…

12. An Officer and a Gentleman. Zack (Richard Gere) is a commitment-shy Naval trainee who’s afraid of love. Paula (Debra Winger) is a world-weary factory worker whose own Naval officer father loved and left her mother 20 years before. It looks like this relationship is headed for NoWheresVille, too, but then…Zack strides through the factory in his white Navy uniform, swoops her up in his arms, and carries her out as all of her friends cheer. And we cheer, too, because, well…the guy usually doesn’t come back. Not in real life, anyway.

13. When Harry Met Sally. It’s New Year’s Eve, and Sally (Meg Ryan) is looking around for someone to kiss, but everyone is taken, and then…we see Harry (Billy Crystal) running frantically down the street and into the party. He fights his way through the crowd to find her and says breathlessly, “I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.” Yes! Yes! Yes!

14. An Affair to Remember. Nickie (Cary Grant) is getting ready to leave Terry’s (Deborah Kerr) apartment forever, and then he stops and realizes…he strides across the room and opens the door of an adjacent room, sees the wheelchair, and goes back to embrace her. “Oh, it’s nobody’s fault but my own!” she cries. “I was looking up… it was the nearest thing to heaven! You were there…” And we just know she’ll be able to walk again, but even if she doesn’t, all is right with the world.

15. Romancing the Stone. They faced down smugglers and kidnappers together, but when Jack (Michael Douglas) jumps over the side of that boat in search of the crocodile that ate the diamond…well, we never expected to see him or the diamond again. And neither did Joan (Kathleen Turner), which makes him showing up outside her NYC apartment with new yacht in tow all the more sweeter.

And just because: