by Mark Brinkerhoff
That sound you heard this week? It likely was #FilmTwitter collectively reeling from reading The Ringer staff’s list of the 50 “best” romantic comedies of all time. What prompted such a breathless response, however, was that only one of the films on the instantly infamous list pre-dated the 1980s, and it *wasn’t* Annie Hall. No, that Best Picture-winning, genre-redefining classic didn’t make the top *50*, Harold and Maude did.
Now far be it for me to quibble about anything the late, great Hal Ashby made (namely Harold and Maude) but the otherwise ignorance of literally more than half a century of not only the very best rom-coms, but some of the finest films of all time—period—can’t go unnoticed. So with that, here’s a non-exhaustive, chronological list of the “best” rom-coms from the genre’s Golden Age in the ’30s through its modernization in the ’70s/’80s with links to where you can watch them...
- Trouble in Paradise (1932)
- She Done Him Wrong (1933)
- It Happened One Night (1934)
- Modern Times (1936)
- My Man Godfrey (1936)
- The Awful Truth (1937)
- Bringing Up Baby (1938)
- You Can’t Take It With You (1938)
- Ninotchka (1939)
- His Girl Friday (1940)
- The Philadelphia Story (1940)
- The Shop Around the Corner (1940)
- The Lady Eve (1941)
- The Palm Beach Story (1942)
- The More the Merrier (1943)
- Adam’s Rib (1949)
- Born Yesterday (1950)
- Singing in the Rain (1952)
- Roman Holiday (1953)
- Sabrina (1954)
- The Seven Year Itch (1955)
- Bell, Book and Candle (1958)
- Pillow Talk (1959)
- Some Like It Hot (1959)
- The Apartment (1960)
- The Parent Trap (1961)
- Marriage Italian Style (1964)
- Barefoot in the Park (1967)
- Cactus Flower (1969)
- Harold and Maude (1971)
- What’s Up, Doc? (1972)
- Annie Hall (1977)
- The Goodbye Girl (1977)
- Grease (1978)
- 10 (1979)
- Arthur (1981)
- Tootsie (1982)
- Romancing the Stone (1984)
- Sixteen Candles (1984)
- The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)
- Crocodile Dundee (1986)
- Something Wild (1986)
- Broadcast News (1987)
- Moonstruck (1987)
- Overboard (1987)
- Roxanne (1987)
- Bull Durham (1988)
- Married to the Mob (1988)
- Working Girl (1988)
- When Harry Met Sally… (1989)
With apologies to I’m No Angel (1933), Ball of Fire (1941), Woman of the Year (1942), Desk Set (1957), Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Lover Come Back (1961), Bye Bye Birdie and Irma La Douce (1963), The Owl and the Pussycat (1970), A Touch of Class (1973), Splash (1984), Can’t Buy Me Love (1987) and Coming to America (1988), a few takeaways:
- The ’30s/early ’40s and the late ’70s/’80s truly were the heydays of classic rom-coms.
- No one defined the genre more—or better—than Cary Grant & Katherine Hepburn (except possibly James Stewart & Jean Arthur, or Rock Hudson & Doris Day…).
- Anyone who overvalues rom-coms of the past 30 years really ought to experience the joys and utter delights of urtext rom-coms, which actually set the template for what they enjoy today.
- Reinvest in the rom-com, Hollywood!