There’s nothing like a shamelessly romantic movie to get the heart stirring. When all else fails – your date idea falls flat or the roses wither on the way home – a well-chosen movie will make Cary Grant or Ryan Gosling your wingman for the night.

So whether you’re actively planning your romance around Netflix and chilling, or just need something to fill in for the restaurant overbooking, these are our favourite movies to watch to up the romance quotient, with just enough schmaltz to make everyone happy, not nauseous.

Comedy

Crazy Rich Asians

A bit like Ronseal, offering exactly what it says on the tin, Crazy Rich Asians was a surprise blowout hit when it crashed into our cinema screens in 2018. The story is a tale as old as time: girl meets boy, family of boy doesn’t approve of girl. So far, so Romeo & Juliet.

What makes Crazy Rich Asians stand apart is firstly how it transposes that story away from Verona and onto the upper classes of Singapore, and secondly, just how ruddy charming and lovely the leads and star-crossed lovers Constance Wu and Henry Golding are. Sadly, people are not made this undyingly perfect in real life (or this rich). Oh well, the other half will find that out eventually.

The Big Sick

Comedian and Silicon Valley star Kumail Nanjiani makes for an unlikely romantic heart-throb in this rom-com based on Nanjiani’s own experience of falling in love with wife and co-writer Emily V Gordon (played in the film by Zoe Kazan).

After the meet-cute – when Emily heckles Kumail at one of his stand-up shows – the pair tentatively enter into a relationship but Nanjiani remains hesitant because of his family’s insistence that he marry a girl from their own Muslim culture. They eventually break up just before Emily falls ill and is put into a coma. Her parents come to her bedside, clashing with a concerned, but awkward Nanjiani.