The final month of the year is bound to fill you up with tangled up overwhelming emotions, but lucky for us, we can dive into the best romantic movies of 2022 and gain vicarious heartfelt pleasure relating to relationships and love. Here’s our curated list for this year’s films laced with romance in Korean, English and Hindi titles.
Get a load of all the feels by watching these movies before the year ends to ease your loneliness, or feel it deepen even more afterwards, either way it’s a win because all we want is to binge such movies and give in to our unrealistic hopes for happy ever afters (exceptions will always be there). Read on to find out if you’ve missed out on any romantic title this year.
Best Romantic Movies of 2022
20th Century Girl
One of the most bittersweet movies of the year has to be the South Korean Netflix film, 20th Century Girl. Ever experienced your “heart fluttering in a life-threatening way”? Well, if you have, you can easily relate to the adorable characters of the coming-of-age movie. Set in the last year of the 20th century, i.e. 1999, a teen girl is determined to keep a check on the boy her best friend has fallen deeply for, little does she know, a love story of her own awaits her around the corner.
Please prepare your tissues to endure the pain caused by this movie.
Marry Me
Jennifer Lopez is back as Kat Valdez, the Latin superstar to win over the rom-com genre yet again on Amazon Prime Video. Starring alongside her is Owen Wilson, and the two make an unlikely couple as Kat makes the hasty decision to marry a man among her concert’s audience after her fiancé’s unfaithful character is unmasked right before the event, which was also meant to be their wedding ceremony. But good for her, because her sham marriage soon blossoms into something beautiful.
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The Lost City
Have you seen the star cast line-up for this movie? You’ll be head over heels even before watching the actual film. Sandra Bullock, Channing Tatum, Daniel Radcliffe, Brad Pitt in a cameo and more. Primarily a light-hearted watch, The Lost City, on Prime Video pokes fun at the genre itself and gives us major throwbacks to the older counterparts of the rom-com category. Although it puts on the image of an action-adventure comedy, the movie largely finds its gravity with Bullock and Tatum’s hilarious onscreen chemistry.
The former plays Loretta, the renowned author of fictional romance masterpieces, who struggles to find her ground after the death of her husband. Tatum walks in as her books’ cover model, having an obvious crush on her. Loretta is then abducted by a billionaire to find the ancient lost city, a supposed symbol of her books which turns out to be real.
Moonshot
Want to catch a glimpse of what romance would look like in space? Moonshot on Prime Video has you covered, and makes it better by adding Cole Sprouse and Lana Condor. I admit, this isn’t one of the best movies of the year, but it still slips into the similar young-adult romance track with perfect co-stars who make us drool over their chemistry till the end. The future is Mars and two college students (Condor-Sprouse) board the space shuttle headed in the same direction to find their respective significant others.
Sneakerella
This Cinderella story on Disney+ is all revamped with roles reversed and “the classic resoled” as El, an aspiring sneaker artist works in the old shoe shop owned by his late mother. All his good luck charms are disrupted by his stepfather and stepbrothers, but when a new and extraordinary opportunity comes knocking at the door, he can’t help but sneak away.
Crush
Here’s your formulaic rom-com, but sprinkle it with better women loving women representation, and loads full of cuteness available on Disney+ Hotstar and Hulu. Taking a steady path into the LGBTQ+ romance saga, Crush doesn’t break coming out stories, rather it fits characters into a normalised space where all is known and understood, thus making room for a full-on sappy (said lovingly) love story between two high school girls (won’t spoil the pair). Also, not to forget, the movie leads with Disney fames as its face – Rowan Blanchard (Girl Meets World) and Auli’i Cravalho (Moana).
I Want You Back
If you loved Love, Simon and This Is Us, then you’re in for a ride because their writers have united against to give you I Want You Back on Prime Video with a charming cast you can’t resist. Peter and Emma were at the top of the world with their respective perfect love lives, but things start to crack when their partners dump them. Soon after, they see them moving on with new partners. Unable to bear the thought and accept the new reality without them, they come up with a plan to get back together with their exes.
Purple Hearts
Based on the novel of the same name by Tess Wakefield, Purple Hearts on Netflix stars Sofia Carson and Nicholas Galitzine in the lead roles. It follows the married life of an aspiring singer, Cassie and a Marine, Luke, who get together for their convenience and pay off their debts. As soon as a tragedy befalls and threatens everything in their paths, their fake relationship goes through a change of heart.
Laal Singh Chaddha
The official remake of the American movie, Forrest Gump, Lala Singh Chaddha, now available on Netflix, is a Hindi language film starring Aamir Khan, Kareena Kapoor and more. The story revolves around the titular character optimistically recounting the strands of love, friendship and Indian history throughout his life.
Wedding Season
This Netflix American romantic comedy centres around two families of the South Asian diaspora starring Pallavi Sharda and Suraj Sharma as the main characters. Plagued by their parents to “settle down” and get married, Asha and Ravi enact a scheme of their own during a summer of weddings by faking their relationship with each other. Eventually, the common track of rom-coms gets the better of them as they find themselves falling for each other for real.
Badhaai Do
Now available on Netflix, Badhaai Do starring Rajkummar Rao, Bhumi Pednekar and more, finds a proper LGBTQ+ representation in the Indian mainstream for the first time in a long time. This family entertainer is all about Shardul and Suman entering into matrimony to satisfy their parents, but gears start switching up as someone else moves in with them, eventually easing into the major plot twist their parents never even thought of.
Cha Cha Real Smooth
Streaming on Apple TV+, starring Dakota Johnson, Odeya Rush, Cooper Raiff, Leslie Mann and more, this comedy flick centres around the 22-year-old college graduate turned bar mitzvah host, who finds himself getting caught up in a relationship with a 32-year-old mother.
Which of these titles have you watched before? Do you have a favourite among these films? Which other romantic movies of 2022 did you end up loving a bit too much? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section.
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