Netflix Valentine's Day: The best romcom movies to watch

Valentine's Day is upon us once again – and if you're looking for a romantic film to watch to mark the occasion, Netflix is perhaps one of your most likely first ports of call.

The streamer has released all sorts of original romcoms over the years – including brand new hit People We Meet on Vacation – while it's also home to a number of great bug screen romances from years gone by.

From all-time greats to Four Weddings and a Funeral to more recent hits such as Anyone But You, via films from master directors such as Nancy Meyers and Spike Lee, there's a great selection of options to choose from in our round-up below.

And while we've mostly kept it light, we've also included a few options that are less rom-com and more rom-dram – just in case you're after something to make you sob a little.

If you’re looking for options, read on to find a list of the best romance movies available to watch on Netflix right now – including our official Radio Times reviews of each entry.

Netflix Valentine's Day movies: The best romcoms to watch

1. Four Weddings and a Funeral

No one could have foreseen that this glorified sitcom would change the nature of British screen comedy. The tale of a foppish bachelor, his eccentric friends and their romantic escapades is extremely funny, charming, poignant and never anything less than hugely enjoyable.

But it also struck a chord with British viewers tiring of alternative stand-up and with global audiences, thanks to its unique sense of understated, self-deprecating wit. Neatly structured and full of genuine warmth for its characters, Richard Curtis's Oscar-nominated screenplay is superbly observed and well served by Mike Newell's deft direction.

But more important to the film's enduring appeal is the individuality of the performances. Simon Callow and the Bafta-winning Kristin Scott Thomas are outstanding alongside star Hugh Grant, who became an overnight sensation as the tousled serial ditherer haplessly pursuing his star-crossed passion for enigmatic American Andie MacDowell. – David Parkinson

2. Something's Gotta Give

Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton show the young 'uns how it's done in this feel-good romantic comedy. Reuniting the stars for the first time since 1981's Reds, the film is a frothy portrayal of post-menopausal love from What Women Want director Nancy Meyers.

In a role that combines sassy sophistication and emotionally flummoxed charm, Keaton shines as a divorced playwright who thinks affairs of the heart are a folly of youth, until she reluctantly nurses her daughter's ageing lover (Nicholson). Drawn to the arrogant bachelor, she's surprised to find a mutual attraction, despite his assertion he only dates women under 30.

While wolfish Nicholson plays to type, it's still thoroughly enjoyable watching the duo interact. There's a life-affirming energy whenever they're on screen together, making the subplots - including Keaton's pursuit by young doctor Keanu Reeves - intrusive distractions.

Though the feature drifts into sentimentality and there's scant substance beneath the heart-warming veneer, it's pleasing to see Hollywood fluff where passion has no age restriction. – Sloan Freer

3. People We Meet on Vacation

A thrill-seeking travel writer drags her staid male friend on a series of platonic vacations in this globe-trotting romcom. As the film alternates between a present-day wedding in Barcelona and flashbacks to the various vacations the BFFs have taken in the past, we learn about Poppy and Alex's various failed relationships and the major ruction that's left them not speaking for two years.

Even from that brief description, you can guess how it all pans out in a plot that amounts to When Harry and Sally Met Lonely Planet Guides. But as far as by-the-numbers fluff goes, it's glossy, well-crafted and witty, practically revelling in its predictability.

Co-stars Emily Bader (Netflix's My Lady Jane) and Tom Blyth (The Hunger Games: the Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes) inject some charm into two lead characters who could easily be downright irritating for vastly different reasons. Look out, too, for cameos from fellow Netflix stars Miles Heizer (13 Reasons Why) and Layton Williams (Bad Education) in the wedding scenes. – Dave Golder

4. Anyone But You

Despite its charismatic leads, Shakespearean influence and picture-postcard locations, director/co-writer Will Gluck's modern take on Much Ado about Nothing is a lacklustre affair. After a promising first date, Bea (Sydney Sweeney) and Ben (Hit Man's Glen Powell) fall out acrimoniously.

But when both are invited to the same wedding in Sydney, they bicker but pretend to be lovers, aiming to make Ben's ex (Charlee Fraser) jealous and put off Bea's matchmaking parents (Dermot Mulroney and Rachel Griffiths). But who's really fooling who? The script offers a few decent one-liners but creaks with strain in its tangled plotting, stabs at bawdy humour and attempts to make grilled-cheese sandwiches appear sexy.

It's little wonder the normally reliable Sweeney and Powell seem disengaged. Alexandra Shipp and Hadley Robinson stand out among the likeable supporting cast, while Joe Davidson's bluff surfer banks the most laughs. But otherwise, Anyone but You rarely summons the wit or spritz that romcom fans might RSVP to. – Kevin Harley

5. Pride and Prejudice

It must have been daunting to bring Jane Austen's period drama to the big screen for the first time in 65 years. Not only is the 1940 Laurence Olivier/Greer Garson version seen as a classic, but it was also followed by a number of revered TV adaptations - notably the 1995 BBC production starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle.

So it's to his credit that debut director Joe Wright does such a beautiful job with his gutsy and less idealised interpretation. Focusing on wit and intellect rather than heaving bosoms, he presents his Regency heroine Elizabeth Bennet (Keira Knightley) as a waspish tomboy, able to run rings around sullen bachelor Darcy (Matthew Macfadyen) with her spirited ripostes.

Though mournful Macfadyen can't match Firth's scorching magnetism, Knightley is a memorable leading lady, as delightful to watch as her well-shot surroundings. The support cast is strong, too, with Brenda Blethyn and Donald Sutherland particularly exceptional as Lizzie's marriage-obsessed mother and doting father. – Sloan Freer

6. 13 Going on 30

This update of the much explored body-swap theme is essentially a female Big. Cute and frothy, it's an ultra-girlie, wish-fulfilment fantasy in which a nerdy teenage girl's dreams become reality when she's miraculously transformed into a gorgeous and successful 30-year-old woman (Jennifer Garner).

Though the events that follow are unrealistic fancy, Garner's delightful and authentic-feeling turn helps paper over many of the plot holes. Her adolescent take on the adult world is completely charming, infusing the film with a scatty innocence.

This is nicely balanced by Mark Ruffalo's unassuming performance as her childhood best friend. Overall the tale is flimsy and predictable, but it's buoyant and engaging enough not to matter. – Sloan Freer

7. Hit Man

Writer/director Richard Linklater gets the laughs and romance right on target with this enjoyable caper. Glen Powell (Top Gun: Maverick) co-scribes and stars as bland, cat-loving philosophy professor Gary Johnson, who spices things up by taking a side-gig as a fake contract killer, to aid the police in entrapment operations.

But Gary's double life gets thrown for a loop when, in character as his super-cool alter ego "Ron", he meets the alluring Madison (Adria Arjona), who wants him to kill her unpleasant ex.

Linklater and Powell (who previously made an impression in the director's Everybody Wants Some!!) play the various jobs for absurdist laughs, as Gary takes on a different killer look and persona for each occasion, based on his marks' profiles and assumptions.

Meanwhile, thanks to the chemistry of the two leads, the romantic side plot has real sizzle - even as events escalate to the point of farce. Sexy and snappy, Hit Man packs plenty of heat. – Amber Wilkinson

8. Sweet Home Alabama

The satirical edge that Reese Witherspoon displayed in Election is blunted by too much Legally Blonde-style kitsch in this negligible romantic comedy. She plays a New York-residing, Alabama-raised fashion designer who needs a divorce from her childhood sweetheart in order to marry socialite Patrick Dempsey.

So Witherspoon heads home, bristling with snobbish attitude, only to step into a corny Dixieland fantasy that seems manufactured to take her down a peg or two as well as blind her to the problems that caused her to abandon husband Josh Lucas in the first place.

Director Andy Tennant managed more realism in his Cinderella story Ever After, but the charming Witherspoon almost manages to make us care about yet another Identikit big-city caricature. – David Parkinson

9. She's Gotta Have It

Spike Lee's directorial debut hasn't lost any of its vitality over the years and remains his most genuinely entertaining work, refreshingly free of much of the political rhetoric which occasionally overcomes his other projects.

Tracy Camila Johns is the strong willed young woman who not only has to have it, but also refuses to be tied down to one of three suitors out to tame her.

Lee has plenty of fun deflating the macho egos on parade, grabbing many of the best lines for himself as the irritatingly persistent Mars Blackmon. Vividly shot in black and white apart from one lovely colour sequence at the end. – John Ferguson

10. Letters to Juliet

This slight but effective romantic drama packs an unexpected punch, thanks to Vanessa Redgrave's nuanced performance. She plays Englishwoman Claire, who's on the trail of a long-lost lover called Lorenzo in Verona, home of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

She has returned to the city with her grandson Charlie (Christopher Egan) after a letter she wrote 50 years ago and posted into a crack in the wall beneath Verona's famous balcony is found by aspiring novelist Sophie (Amanda Seyfried). Sophie is visiting the city with her preoccupied fiancé (Gael García Bernal), and hopes the discovery of the letter will provide a breakthrough for her writing.

When Sophie is united with Claire, the two women scour the Tuscan countryside in an attempt to find Lorenzo, encountering all manner of false leads along the way. Nicely weighted performances and the beautiful Italian setting combine to make this an unassuming treat. – Karen Krizanovich

11. Man Up

Lake Bell stars here as a woman who steals someone else's blind date (Simon Pegg) from under a clock at Waterloo Station, and then tries to perpetuate the lie over the course of one eventful evening. Complicating matters further are Bell's oddball school chum (Rory Kinnear) and Pegg's weird ex-wife (Olivia Williams).

Heaped with wit and insight, this feel-good screwball romance from director Ben Palmer (The Inbetweeners Movie) boasts a smart script and winning performances, all set against buzzing London streets. Bell's English accent is pretty good for a New Yorker, too. – Karen Krizanovich

12. Mermaids

After making his directorial debut with My Favorite Year in 1982, Richard Benjamin has forged a career in quirky comedies, despite the occasional return to acting. In this gentle romantic comedy, he coaxes a deft performance from Winona Ryder as a confused 1960s teen, caught between her lust for a local handyman (Michael Schoeffling) and her desire to be a nun.

Surrounded by an eccentric mother (Cher) who's having an on-off relationship with a local shopkeeper (Bob Hoskins) and a younger sister (Christina Ricci) who practises being a swimmer by holding her breath in the bath, it's not surprising she finds life so perplexing.

This is a curious, light-hearted tale (it'll make you smile, not belly laugh), with Ryder the greatest surprise as the young girl who's experiencing all kinds of pubescent angst. – David Parkinson

13. We Live in Time

Love, mortality and time are the key concerns of this moving, thoughtful but faintly contrived romantic melodrama. Florence Pugh plays ambitious fusion chef Almut and Andrew Garfield is homely Weetabix rep Tobias, a contrasting duo who fall in love, have a child and make wedding plans.

Yet, when Almut is diagnosed with reoccurring cancer, the question of how best to spend her remaining time weighs heavily on them. Written by playwright and screenwriter Nick Payne, the script maps out this tale in non-linear fashion to uncertain effect. While John Crowley's elegant direction makes it easy to gauge where we are in the couple's history, the scrambled chronology lacks clarity of purpose.

Some twists, metaphors and writerly quirks can seem forced, including the occasionally overwritten dialogue. Compensation comes in part from Garfield and Pugh, who give likeable, expressive turns as the lovers facing tough choices. With Bryce Dessner's graceful score and Crowley's sensitive handling also factored in, this fitfully absorbing weepie works best when it gives its emotions room to breathe. – Kevin Harley

14. What to Expect When You're Expecting

The lives of five couples with parenthood problems are tenuously linked in this star-studded comedy inspired by the bestselling pregnancy book. Expectant mothers include Cameron Diaz's celebrity fitness coach, Jennifer Lopez's keen-to-adopt photographer and a hysterical Elizabeth Banks as a baby-obsessive married to the son of a rich racing-car driver (Dennis Quaid) with a trophy wife.

Meanwhile, Chris Rock leads a tangential "dudes group" of new fathers who envy the life of the free and single more than ever. Of the star cast, it's Quaid's mixture of impossible ego and inevitable ageing who comes across the best.

Director Kirk Jones (Nanny McPhee, Everybody's Fine) keeps the reproductive tale on the right side of light, so it could be just the movie for exhausted parents. For others, it may be a little too laboured. – Karen Krizanovich

15. What Women Want

Mel Gibson seems to be winning the battle of the sexes in this inventive romantic comedy from director Nancy Meyers. Gibson plays a chauvinistic advertising executive who accidentally suffers an electric shock and suddenly finds himself able to hear women's thoughts.

His unique gift sometimes proves to be a mixed blessing, but when bitchy rival Helen Hunt beats him to a top job, Gibson decides to play dirty. Gradually, his insights into how women think, and what they want, bring out his feminine side.

Despite the daft premise, this is wittily written and sharply directed, with Gibson effortlessly running the gamut from sheer obnoxiousness to utter charm. Hunt is great, too, as his far-from-perfect love match.

A couple of superfluous subplots slow down the action, but otherwise this is splendid entertainment in the grand tradition of those screwball comedies of old. – Dave Aldridge

16. Adventureland

It's the summer of 1987, and college graduate James (Jesse Eisenberg) is stuck in a dead-end job in an amusement park while his buddies go on vacation in Europe. He's pretty sure life is passing him by until the chance of romance arrives in the shape of co-worker Em (Kristen Stewart), who's having an on/off fling with the odd-job man (Ryan Reynolds).

Despite being written and directed by Superbad's Greg Mottola, this coming-of-age summer comedy avoids teen gross-out antics in favour of something more heartfelt. Mottola himself worked in an amusement park while attending Columbia University, and the perfectly recalled 1980s setting and wistful tone have the feel of personal memories of being young and naive.

Eisenberg is suitably vulnerable, a kind of gangly everyman for the nerds, while Stewart's smart yet melancholy heroine captures the silent suffering of adolescence brilliantly. It's a movie that radiates a warm, nostalgic glow, even with 80s hit Rock Me Amadeus on the soundtrack - and that's quite an achievement. – Jamie Russell

17. Set It Up

In desperate need of a break from the office, two beleaguered assistants team up to trick their workaholic bosses into falling in love.

18. To All The Boys I've Loved Before

What if all the crushes you ever had found out how you felt about them… all at once? Lara Jean Song Covey's love life goes from imaginary to out of control when the love letters for every boy she's ever loved are mysteriously mailed out.

19. Blue Jay

Two former high school sweethearts unexpectedly reunite in their old hometown, where they rediscover their magical bond and face a shared regret.

20. When We First Met

Noah is heartbroken when he learns that Avery, a close friend whom he's secretly in love with, is engaged to someone else. Desperate for a second chance, he uses a time-traveling photo booth to relive the night they first met in an attempt to win her heart.

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