In honor of the Valentine’s month that is upon us, Firefox News presents a list of films to warm the hearts of genre fans of varying stripes…

Romantic love and revenge are the two plot-drivers that cut across all genres, so any time we can explore them a bit, we probably have a shot at learning something about movies in general.  Okay, okay, so that’s the rationalization for dealing with this topic head-on.  I guess at first I felt as if some form of apology was warranted.  However, an interesting thing happened.  The more I thought about it, the more I realized that although “romance” is its own genre, usually its most compelling examples, as in literature, are not explicitly billed as such.  So maybe there’s actually nothing embarrassing about fessing up to loving the movies below.

Also, there’s a hidden agenda at work (every list has one):  I wanted to draw attention to some lesser-known films that have strong, if not unforgettable, romantic storylines, but that are also worth seeing for a host of other reasons, too.  And in terms of genre films, please note that I’ve omitted those with pronounced romantic subtexts, such as Silence of the Lambs (1991).  If you open the door to that wide a definition of romance, there’s probably no closing it.

Action/Crime

Amores Perros (2000):  brilliantly captures the recklessness of passion; at turns violent and thoughtful, Iñaritu’s endlessly surprising anthology film is arguably one of the milestones of world cinema of the past decade.

The Hidden Blade (2006):  the passion here is as buried as that in Amores Perros is foregrounded, but is no less memorable; a superior samurai flick.

Fallen Angels (1995) and Chungking Express (1994):  Wong Kar-Wai’s middle period recalls early Godard films more than Hollywood- or HK-style filmmaking, so these may be an acquired taste for some.  For others, these titles will always stand as dazzling examples of what happens when all-out genre enthusiasm meets high art.  (Note:  Wong’s later movies with Tony Leung, including the SF-tinged 2046, are heavier on the romance but lack the thrills and set pieces that make these two so appealing.)

Horror/Fantasy/SF

The Man Who Laughs (1928):  I never said “normal” romances did I?  If you like Chaplin’s City Lights, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and say, the original Nosferatu, then you can’t go wrong with this one.  Utterly unique.

Audition (2000):  both a touching father-son story and a sweet romance with hints of something darker—that is, until that final, unforgettable reel.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004):  can’t help feeling that this movie used its SF premise to achieve a near-perfect allegory about romantic relationships.

The Demonology of Desire (2007):  this short film by Rodrigo Gudiño takes the banal concept of “I’d do anything for my love” to twisted extremes and does so in very creative ways; the result is an anti-love story that ensures that you’ll never look at puppy love in quite the same way again.  “It's not love if there's no suffering.  Everybody knows that.”

Drama/Mystery/Biopic

The Road Home (2000):  the most sentimental of all the movies listed here; still, it jerks the tears courtesy of Zhang Yimou’s straight-ahead storytelling and sense of understatement, not maudlin manipulation.

Cleo from 5 to 7 (1961):  this masterwork of the New Wave doesn’t seem like a romance for most of its running time, which perhaps accounts for its power when it finally becomes one.

Madame Curie (1943):  Greer Garson and Walter Pidgeon, who starred together in the better known Mrs. Miniver, make the pursuit of science seem like the most romantic endeavor of all.  And of course it’s a tragedy, too.

In a Lonely Place (1950):  the wonderful Gloria Grahame is perfectly paired with Bogart in Nicholas Ray’s dark drama.  The mystery/suspense elements provide an effective underpinning for the romance every step of the way.

Magnificent Obsession (1954):  the title pretty much says it all.  If you’re unfamiliar with Douglas Sirk’s melodramas, this might be a good place to start—despite its occasional flaws and being (of course) somewhat over-the-top, it somehow still manages to pluck the emotional chords.

War/Western

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943):  one of my favorite movies of all time—and like almost everything else in Blimp, the romance is unconventional.  The other genres represented in this über-hybrid are war (three conflicts are depicted), historical drama, and comedy.  However, romance is one of the threads that connects everything, as it hovers between text and subtext and miraculously manages to skirt whimsy.  This movie is for fans of great filmmaking, period.

The Misfits (1961):  yes, it’s a revisionist Western, but also a movie that effortlessly seems to define the differences between men and women while at the same time suggesting what’s at stake in reconciling them.

Musical/Romantic Comedy

Lola (1961) and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964):  although the latter is only loosely a sequel to the former, they’re worth seeing together to appreciate fully Demy’s achievement.  These films are really about the romance of “the movies” itself—in their freshness, they suggest that anything is possible, the same thing often felt at the start of a relationship.

I Know Where I’m Going (1945):  for the most part, this is a dramatic character study, a comedy, even an adventure flick in some sense, with the romance lurking in the background; indeed, the movie’s ultimate, and exhilarating, success perhaps offers proof that this is the most effective approach for movie romance to take.

Trouble in Paradise (1932):  the pre-Code romantic comedy.  Almost unbearably charming—yet unlike most romances, it meets adult audiences where they are instead of promising an against-all-odds fulfillment of adolescent notions about love and happiness.

Unfaithfully Yours (1948) and Divorce, Italian Style (1961):  in the made-up subgenre of “Romantic Black Comedy” these two stand tall.  If you like your romance laced with murder, obsession, and manic jealousy, prepare to be wowed.  The narrative and visual inventiveness of these films is hard to find in popular entertainment anywhere.

Romance

Camille (1936) and The French Lieutenant’s Woman (1981):  if you must pick an unapologetic romance to view on Valentine’s Day or a similar occasion, you could not go wrong with these—both are flawless and deeply-felt works that help provide a rationale for this genre to exist in the first place.

Secretary (2002):  this one snuck up on me and proved to be surprisingly compelling; it challenges preconceived (or just conventional) ideas about romance without being too self-consciously “edgy” or iconoclastic.

The Earrings of Madame De… (1953):  almost hard to term this a romance since it has so much going on and contains so many riches.  Surprising at every turn, innovative in terms of narrative structure, and featuring Max Ophüls’s celebrated camera movement, this is the Citizen Kane of movie romances.

Finally, it seems that there should be some gay-lesbian movies on this list, but I couldn’t come up with any.  I liked, but did not love, Happy Together (1997) and Brokeback Mountain (2005), and besides, they seem a bit too obvious.  If you have any suggestions for this subgenre, please add them in comments.

[Note:  An earlier version of this article appeared in The New Jersey Graveline.]