Down With Love (2003)
Are you a fan of Love Hard’s identity play? In that case, you need to look no further than Down With Love. Set in the 1960s, it’s a riff on romantic farces from that decade, such as classic Doris Day films (That Touch of Mink, Pillow Talk), George Roy Hill’s Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967), and perhaps most notably Richard Quine’s Sex and The Single Girl (1964).
Peyton Reed’s rom-com follows feminist author Barbara Novak (Renée Zellweger) whose breakout book, which asserts that women don’t actually need men, becomes a smash-hit. Concerned by what this means for the future of his gender, misogynistic playboy Catcher Block (Ewan McGregor) decides to disguise himself and trick Barbara into falling in love with him.
A movie about catfishing before catfishing was really a thing, Down With Love plays with trickery in the most satisfying of ways. And if you find that just one movie on this subject isn’t enough, I’d like to give 10 Things I Hate About You, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, and 27 Dresses honorable mentions.
Available to stream on HBO, HBO Max, and Cinemax.
The Best Of Me (2014)
I’ll admit that I don’t have too much of a reason to put The Best Of Me on this list, besides the fact that it’s a great — and often overlooked — romantic flick. The movie cuts between two storylines. In one, teenagers Amanda (Liana Liberato) and Dawson (Luke Bracey) fall in love. But when Dawson is wrongfully sent to prison, the two are split up.
In the other parallel narrative, the couple unexpectedly reunites when they’re much older (played by Michelle Monaghan and James Marsden). Like Love Hard, The Best Of Me is heart-achingly romantic, so if you’re looking for a good cry, add it to your list immediately.
Available to stream free on IMDbTV.
Disconnect (2012)
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Like Catfish, Disconnect is tonally pretty different from Love Hard but explores some of its same themes in an exhilarating and engaging way. The movie, directed by Henry Alex Rubin, follows a number of different storylines, all connected by social media. Starring Hope Davis, Jason Bateman, Frank Grillo, Andrea Riseborough, and Alexander Skarsgård, Disconnect is not to be missed for people who are interested in the way we interact online.
Available to stream on Amazon Prime, Tubi, and Plex.
The Holiday (2006)
As far as Christmastime romances go, The Holiday is a stone-cold classic. Directed by Nancy Meyers, it follows two separate love stories that take place unexpectedly when a London-based young writer (Kate Winslet) and an LA producer (Cameron Diaz) switch houses for a couple of days. This movie follows the looking-for-love-in-all-the-wrong-place to unexpected-romance pipeline perfectly.
Available to stream on Netflix and Hulu.
Love Actually (2003)
It’s pretty hard to make a list of the best rom-coms without mentioning Love Actually somewhere. Especially in this case, since the holiday favorite is continually mentioned in Love Hard — the title of which is a combination of the leads’ favorite Christmas movies (see the next entry, too), though Josh is convinced this one isn’t actually a Christmas movie. Love Actually also inspires a heartwarming moment in Love Hard when Natalie recreates the famous poster-board scene.
Directed by Richard Curtis, Love Actually brings together a number of different storylines which all essentially feature people searching for love over the holidays. The all-star cast includes Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson, Keira Knightley, Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, Liam Neeson, Bill Nighy, Laura Linney, and Martin Freeman, to name just a few.
Available to stream free on IMDbTV.
Die Hard (1988)
And, finally, we have to close this list out with the one and only Die Hard, which stars Bruce Willis as a cop fighting terrorists. Directed by John McTiernan, the action classic has been the subject of a years-long debate regarding whether or not it is, indeed, “a Christmas movie.”
Regardless, it’s a great movie, and if Love Hard inspires you to watch it, due to it being Josh’s favorite and the other piece of the rom-com’s title, that’s a great result.
Available to stream free on IMDbTV.
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