Written and edited by Archie Douglas-Hamilton

Happy Valentine’s Day! Love is in the air as are the results to Reel Talk’s Valentine’s Day film poll. These past weeks, we’ve asked the department for their favourite classic romantic film or TV show, their most enjoyably alternative ones, as well as the best couple within film and television. So, without further ado, here are the results!

Favourite Romantic Film/TV Show

WINNERS

10 Things I Hate About You – 2 votes

About Time – 2 votes

The Princess Bride – 2 votes

Sleepless in Seattle – 2 votes

When Harry Met Sally… – 2 votes

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Before Sunrise – 1 vote

Bridget Jones’ Diary – 1 vote

Brokeback Mountain – 1 vote

Brooklyn – 1 vote

Business Proposal – 1 vote

City Lights – 1 vote

Crazy Stupid Love – 1 vote

French Kiss – 1 vote

Imagine Me & You – 1 vote

Interview with the Vampire (2022) – 1 vote

It Happened One Night – 1 vote

La La Land – 1 vote

Mamma Mia – 1 vote

Pride and Prejudice – 1 vote

Regular Lovers – 1 vote

Roman Holiday – 1 vote

You’ve Got Mail – 1 vote

It’s a five-way tie!

For what should be indicative of the variety of the poll’s results, these five are the only films named twice and therefore our winners – Shakespearean teen-comedy classic 10 Things I Hate About You, the sci-fi tearjerker About Time, the earnestly sweet long-distance romance Sleepless in Seattle, the endlessly quotable adventure fantasy The Princess Bride,and perhaps the quintessential friends-to-lovers movie When Harry Met Sally….

It seems Rob Reiner, director of The Princess Bride and When Harry Met Sally as well as a star of Sleepless in Seattle, and Meg Ryan, one of the two leads in Sleepless in Seattle and When Harry Met Sally, are key to making a good romantic film – Ryan, in particular, seeing as French Kiss and You’ve Got Mail were also named by those polled.

Other popular actors were Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling with La La Land and Crazy Stupid Love as answers. La La Land was not the only Oscars favourite in the bunch. We had the originator of many romantic tropes which won all 5 of the categories it was nominated in, It Happened One Night, and the cinematic classic Roman Holiday. For modern Oscars favourites, there was the moving Saoirse Ronan-led Brooklyn and the truly heartbreaking Brokeback Mountain.

Other classics brought up were the much-beloved adaptation of Helen Fielding’s novel Bridget Jones’ Diary, the gorgeous 24-hour romance of Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise, and the silent comedy staple City Lights, written, directed and starring Charlie Chaplin.

10 Things was also not the only adaptation present with the iconic interpretation of Jane Austen’s canonical classic Pride and Prejudice being named by those polled. It was also not alone in being the only stage-to-screen adaptation with the pop-culture juggernaut that is Mamma Mia showing up.

In terms of queer romance, joining Brokeback is the charming Imagine Me & You (which coincidentally was helmed by the director of Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again) as well as the highly popular horror-romance TV show Interview with the Vampire (2022).

Additionally, Interview was not the only TV show with K-Drama Business Proposal being brought up. Business Proposal was also not alone in being the non-English language entry with Philippe Garrel’s Regular Lovers being named.

Best Alternative Valentine’s Day Film/TV Show

WINNERS

500 Days of Summer– 2 votes

Gone Girl – 2 votes

My Bloody Valentine – 2 votes

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10 Things I Hate About You – 1 vote

A Charlie Brown Valentine – 1 vote

The Apartment – 1 vote

Bones and All – 1 vote

Buffalo ’66 – 1 vote

Business Proposal – 1 vote

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind – 1 vote

He’s Just Not That Into You – 1 vote

Timestalker – 1 vote

Heathers – 1 vote

Interview with the Vampire (2022) – 1 vote

Killing Eve – 1 vote

L’Amour Fou – 1 vote

The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring – 1 vote

Nekromantik – 1 vote

Normal People – 1 vote

Nosferatu – 1 vote

Possession – 1 vote

Rye Lane – 1 vote

Saving Face – 1 vote

The Silence of the Lambs – 1 vote

Singles – 1 vote

When Harry Met Sally… – 1 vote

The diversity in answers only continued with this section’s results – perhaps because of how the term ‘alternative’ can mean a lot of things. Once again, it’s another tie, this time between three: the indie reverse-break-up film, 500 Days of Summer; the worst possible advertisement for marriage, David Fincher’s Gone Girl; and the blood-soaked Canadian slasher, My Bloody Valentine!

Here, a lot of this section’s results can be split off into categories.

To name a few in the darker category, joining My Bloody Valentine and Gone Girl, we’ve got Luca Guadagnino’s tender cannibal romance Bones and All. Continuing this theme of transgression, we’ve got the terrifying results of when a tentacle monster comes between a couple in Possession, vampiric chiller Nosferatu and Nekromantik, whose name tells you a lot about what to expect. Additionally, pitch-black teen comedy Heathers made an appearance alongside, slightly surprisingly, The Silence of the Lambs. Television also showed up here with a mention of queer spy thriller Killing Eve.

And then there’s the indie choices with the iconically melancholic Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Vincent Gallo’s Buffalo ’66, both of which sit alongside 500 Days of Summer. There’s also some genuinely sweeter stuff in here with the hopefully future-classic Rye Lane and Alice Wu’s debut feature Saving Face. Another Alice crops up here as well with Alice Lowe’s time-hopping sci-fi romance Timestalker also being in the mix.

Other entries on the lighter side were the delightful A Charlie Brown Valentine, the equally charming Billy Wilder classic, The Apartment, Cameron Crowe’s depiction of the Seattle grunge movement, Singles, and the absolutely stacked ensemble romcom, He’s Just Not That Into You.

Slightly conversely is the presence of Normal People, a wonderfully acted yet incredibly sad adaptation of Sally Rooney’s novel, featuring break-out roles from Daisy Edgar-Jones and Paul Mescal. Joining Normal People in the more melancholic realm is Jacques Rivette’s L’Amour Fou, the ‘60s French dramadepicting the slow and painful dissolution of a marriage.

There were also some enjoyably left-field answers, particularly the presence of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Some returnees from the previous category cropped up as well with 10 Things I Hate About You, Business Proposal, Interview with the Vampire (2022), and When Harry Met Sally… being mentioned.

Ultimately, for this section, the films chosen seemed to be those that either dealt with the topic of romance in more unconventional ways (ill-fated, star-crossed, transgressive, doomed, or otherwise) or simply existed outside of/have been forgotten from the dominant selection of romantic films that often get brought up.

Best Film or TV Couple

WINNERS

Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) and Ben Wyatt (Adam Scott) – Parks and Recreation – 2 votes

Sally Albright (Meg Ryan) and Harry Burns (Billy Crystal) – When Harry Met Sally… – 2 votes

Tim Lake (Domhnall Gleeson) and Mary (Rachel McAdams) – About Time – 2 votes

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Agnes Ahlberg (Rebecka Liljeberg) and Elin Olsson (Alexandra Dahlström) – Show Me Love – 1 vote

Almut Brühl (Florence Pugh) and Tobias Durand (Andrew Garfield – We Live in Time – 1 vote

Princess Ann (Audrey Hepburn) and Joe Bradley (Gregory Peck) – Roman Holiday – 1 vote

Blair Waldorf (Leighton Meester) and Chuck Bass (Ed Westwick – Gossip Girl – 1 vote

Bodhi (Patrick Swayze) and Johnny Utah (Keanu Reeves) – Point Break – 1 vote

Bridget Jones (Renée Zellweger) and Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) – Bridget Jones’ Diary – 1 vote

Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) – Brokeback Mountain – 1 vote

Jamal Malik (Dev Patel) and Latika (Freida Pinto) – Slumdog Millionaire – 1 vote

Jess Day (Zooey Deschanel) and Nick Miller (Jake Johnson) – New Girl – 1 vote

Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Céline (Julie Delpy) – Before Trilogy – 1 vote

Jon Snow (Kit Harrington) and Ygritte (Rose Leslie) – Game of Thrones – 1 vote

Josh Lyman (Bradley Whitford) and Donna Moss (Janel Moloney) – The West Wing – 1 vote

Kat Stratford (Julia Stiles) and Patrick Verona (Heath Ledger) – 10 Things I Hate About You – 1 vote

Louis de Pointe du Lac (Jacob Anderson) and Lestat de Lioncourt (Sam Reid) – Interview with the Vampire (2022) – 1 vote

Monica Gellar (Courtney Cox) and Chandler Bing (Matthew Perry) – Friends – 1 vote

Pam Beesley (Jenna Fischer) and Jim Halpert (John Krasinski) – The Office – 1 vote

Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson – all Spider-Man iterations – 1 vote

Rapunzel (Mandy Moore) and Flynn Rider (Zachary Levi) – Tangled – 1 vote

Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) and Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) – The Terminator – 1 vote

Shane Hollander (Hudson Williams) and Ilya Rozanov (Connor Storrie) – Heated Rivalry – 1 vote

Tom Hepple (Jim Broadbent) and Gerri Hepple (Ruth Sheen) – Another Year – 1 vote

And it’s another tie!

This time between Parks and Recreation’s Leslie and Ben, About Time’s Tim and Mary, and When Harry Met Sally…’s Harry and Sally!

This arguably might be the hardest question in the bunch, asking those polled to select just one iconic couple in all of media.

Ultimately, our results reflect a nice range of media with couples from a sitcom (Leslie and Ben), a classic romance (Harry and Sally), and a modern one (Tim And Mary).

Joining Leslie and Ben as television couples are fellow sitcom couples, Friends’ Monica and Chandler, New Girl’s Jess and Nick and The Office’s Pam and Jim – all couples that have cemented themselves in television history. Outside of sitcoms, there’s The West Wing’s Donna and Josh, Game of Thrones’ Jon and Ygritte, and Gossip Girl’s Blair and Chuck. The lead couple in last December’s smash-hit Heated Rivalry, Shane and Ilya, also got a mention as well as another highly popular modern TV queer couple, Louis and Lestat from Interview with the Vampire (2022).

In the realm of classics, Kat and Patrick from 10 Things I Hate About You cropped up as did Bridget and Mark, leads of Bridget Jones’ Diary. Also named were the timeless pairing of Hepburn and Peck with Roman Holiday’s Ann and Joe, Jesse and Céline from the Before Trilogy, and the tender yet rocky pairing of Jack and Ennis from Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain.

For more modern couples, we had Tom and Gerri from Ken Loach’s marriage drama Another Year, last year’s We Live in Time’s couple Almut and Tobias, and Jamal and Latika from Danny Boyle’s Oscar-sweeping Slumdog Millionaire. The more current couples were also not exclusive to live-action with Rapunzel and Flynn Rider from (arguably) Disney’s modern masterpiece Tangled.

Interestingly, there was only one couple from a slightly lesser-known romantic film, being Agnes and Elin from the late-90s Swedish queer romance Show Me Love.

There were even a few non-romance film couples that snuck in there, including Sarah and Kyle from The Terminator, Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson from the Spider-Man franchise, and Point Break’s Bodhi and Johnny – although, despite its genre, Point Break is arguably the most romantic film named here.

What seems to be the case for the entire poll’s results is that, if you’re going to watch a really great romantic film this Valentine’s Day, Warwick’s Film and TV department recommends you go with About Time (joint-winner of 2/3 categories), 10 Things I Hate About You (joint-winner of 1 category with mentions in all 3), or When Harry Met Sally… (another joint-winner of 2/3 categories but with a mention in all 3).

However, if you’re sick and tired of watching the same films every year and want something different, go and take a look through the results again and see if there are any others that catch your eye.