If pop culture is to be believed, watching a movie on Valentine’s Day will consist of one of three things: lounging in pajamas in front of the living room TV while crying into a tub of ice cream if you’re single, doing everything short of barricading the windows and busting some ankles to make your boyfriend sit through The Notebook or Twilight if you’re in a relationship, and Fifty Shades of Grey if you’re middle-aged. The books have a rep as “mommy porn,” but the director of the upcoming film, Sam Taylor Wood, is married to Aaron Taylor-Johnson, so clearly she knows her stuff.
You can screw #1- to heck with sexist shaming of single ladies! Make Valentine’s Day a Galentine’s Day and break out the popcorn with some girlfriends! Plus, the possibility of seeing your old kindergarten teacher or your mom at the theater might not be worth the risk of #3 for some (sorry for that mental image). But what if you’re in a relationship? Agreeing what to watch on Netflix can be tough in normal circumstances, but what about on Valentine’s Day? Sure, there are plenty of romantic movies that aren’t just an excuse to ogle Ryan Gosling or Leonardo DiCaprio for 4 hours, but what about those guys who won’t even watch Tangled or (500) Days of Summer? Well, you’re in luck (even if you do have a boyfriend with no taste). From 12-year-olds to killers to 12-year-old killers, here are 8 great romantic movies for guys who (think they) hate romantic movies.
Moonrise Kingdom
Quirky, eccentric, but sincerely sweet, this 2012 comedy from wizard of whimsy Wes Anderson (who scored an Oscar nom this year for the equally stylistic The Grand Budapest Hotel) about two 12-year-olds who fall in love and run away together inspired the Halloween costumes of every hipster couple on the internet, and with good reason. It’s original enough to avoid the sentimentality of your average tearjerker, but moving enough to make a genuinely great date night choice.
Let the Right One In
Also a love story about two 12-year-olds, but the resemblance ends there. If your man’s like most BFs, the phrase “romantic vampire film” probably brings back repressed memories, but this 2008 Swedish movie about a bullied schoolboy who falls in love with a prepubescent vampire is dark, atmospheric, and succeeds as both romance and horror. Hollywood has remade the film as Let Me In, starring Chloe Grace Moretz as the child vampire. That movie was pretty great too, though Let the Right One In works better as a love story (and has the better title).
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Fall in lesbians love with Scott Pilgrim and the dyed-hair-sporting, teleporting, American (homeboy’s from Canada) Manic Pixie Dream Girl of his literal dreams in this 2010 comedy based on the popular graphic novel series. When a lovesick Scott learns he must defeat Ramona Flowers’ seven evil exes in order to date her, he battles vegans, ninjas, rival musicians, and Demon Hipster Chicks in a movie chock-full of cheeky one-liners and video game-style screen graphics all the while.
Across the Universe
All you need is love. Can’t buy me love. I don’t like you, but I love you. (That last one was actually a Smokey Robinson cover, but it’s still one of the deepest things ever written.) Is there anything more romantic than The Beatles? This 2007 musical, which follows the love story of Lucy (as in “diamonds”) and Jude (as in “hey”), is admittedly less “plot” and more “cleverly staged and choreographed Beatles covers against the psychedelic backdrop of the Vietnam War-ravaged, hippie-generation 1960s, and also Beatles references” (with characters named Sadie, Jojo, even Mr. Kite and Dr. Robert), but… wait, what’s the problem with that exactly?
House of Flying Daggers
Got a guy who’ll only watch action films? No worries. Boasting dazzling martial arts choreography, perhaps the most spectacular use of color ever seen in a movie (the director, Zhang Yimou, also directed the Opening Ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics), and a surprisingly strong central love story, House of Flying Daggers is beautiful in every sense of the word. As is Takeshi Kaneshiro.
Kill Bill Vol. 1/Kill Bill Vol. 2
Raise your hand if you agree Quentin Tarantino’s kung fu/spaghetti Western/action movie mash-up is one of the most beautiful love stories of modern cinema. Okay, fine. But even if you don’t agree that the relentlessly cool (and ultra-violent) saga of Uma Thurman’s samurai-sword wielding assassin’s quest for revenge against ex-lover Bill and the rest of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad (DiVAS) for shooting her and leaving her for dead on her wedding day is at its heart an epic romance of passion, misunderstandings, and insanely over-the-top arterial splatter, the Kill Bill movies are still the perfect double feature. Hot chicks mowing down yakuza for the guys, strong women kicking butt for the girls. What’s not to love?
True Romance
Another Tarantino film — he didn’t direct, but wrote the screenplay — this very R-rated crime thriller from 1993 is, on the surface, as far away from Nicholas Sparks as you can get. Full of the Pulp Fiction and Django Unchained auteur’s trademark stylized violence, clever profanity-laced dialogue, and memorable supporting performances from Christopher Walken and before-they-were-famous Brad Pitt and Gary Oldman (blink and you’ll miss a cameo by Samuel L. Jackson!), True Romance is practically a college guy’s fever dream. But the titular true romance, that of Elvis Presley-obsessed film buff Clarence and sweet-voiced hooker Alabama, is as sweet as any fairytale. Just look at them and their tacky plastic sunglasses and honeymoon smiles and matching inability to mix prints. Aren’t they a perfect couple?
Before Sunrise
This one sounds like a standard date movie and, technically, it is: literally, a movie about a date. Boy meets girl on a train to Vienna, boy and girl get off train and go on a date. That’s the entire movie. But what makes this 1995 independent film from Boyhood director Richard Linklater (which spawned two sequels, Before Sunset in 2004 and Before Midnight in 2013) an atypical romance is its minimalistic approach and candid, intelligent screenplay. Jesse and Celine are young, intelligent, idealistic, cynical, witty, complex, believable, and they click. There’s no kiss in the rain, no violins. Just scintillating conversation and a single, fleeting, swoon-worthily genuine connection. You’ll have to get your boyfriend to look past that box art, though.