10 Romantic Movies that Make Women Cry

Love stories on the screen do not always ooze with a feel-good factor; in fact many of them are memorable because of their capacity to wring the heart and make the tears flow even when the boy does get the girl before the credits come up. Here are ten famous romantic movies that are guaranteed to soak your handkerchiefs but perhaps leave you with a feeling of catharsis in the end.

The Notebook

This 2004 film is based on a novel by Nicholas Sparks and stars Ryan Gosling, Rachel Adams and James Marsden. In the film the traditional poor boy-meets-rich girl gets an entirely different treatment by director Nick Cassavetes. The travails of the young couple as their economic differences act as barriers to their love are sure to get you reaching for the Kleenex.

TIP: 'Tell Me Honey...2000 Questions for Couples' is the best-selling book that will help you come closer as a couple. It has 2000 questions you can ask each other, including hundreds of questions about love, romance and sex. This book is available as an instant download ebook.

Casablanca

This 1942 romantic film won three Academy awards, including those for best picture, director and screenplay. Set amidst the intrigue of World War II, Casablanca is about a man torn between his love for a woman and his noble side which allows her to leave with her Czech resistance leader husband in a bid to escape from Nazi sympathizers. The film’s dialogues, characters and music have steadily increased in popularity over the years so as to become iconic while the movie itself consistently figures among the most loved films in cinematic history.
 

Dying Young

Starring Julia Roberts and Campbell Scott, this 1991 release can be considered one of the foremost romantic tearjerkers of the last decade. The story is about a young woman who answers a vacancy for a live-in caretaker to tend a seriously ill man. She finds the man close to her own age but initially difficult to get along. Eventually the two grow close and find happiness in a deep bond of love despite the looming presence of death. Directed by Joel Schumacher the film is about the unexpected ways love can find humans and the pain of saying goodbye.


 

From here to eternity

Some of the most heart-wrenching love stories have been set against the backdrop of war. And while From Here To Eternity is more a war film than a romantic movie, the love lives of the two soldiers torn apart by the inhumanity of war and its ethics are sure to set your eyes streaming. The iconic love scene between Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr on the beach of Halona Cove, Oahu, Hawaii brings to hilt the desperation and futile passion of lovers that forms an important part of the story.  This 1953 drama directed by Fred Zinnemann and based on the novel of the same name by James Jones went on to garner eight Academy awards out of 13 nominations.
 

In love and war

This romantic film has the first world war as the background and is based on the real life romance that inspired Ernest Hemingway’s most famous love story “A Farewell To Arms”. It tells the tale of the passionate love between Ernest Hemingway and Agnes Von Kurowsky when the former is working as a journalist on the front lines and is seriously injured in fighting between enemy forces. As Ernest is tended by Agnes cares in the army hospital, romance blossoms between the two but in times as difficult as these, everything seems to be so fragile, including love. This 1996 film was directed by the legendary Richard Attenborough and starred Sandra Bullock as well as Chris O’Donnell in the lead roles.
 

Message in a bottle

A more personal tale of love and healing, this 1999 film starred Kevin Costner and Robin Wright Penn. The latter played the role of Theresa who while running along the beach one morning finds a bottle with a message inside. As she reads tender message inside, she is deeply moved and resolves to search out its author. Eventually she finds the writer of the love letter but learns that he is still to emerge from the shadows of the tragedy of losing his wife. The two are drawn together in a desire to embrace new love but fate appears to have planned something different for them. The film ends on Theresa being told that the writer is no more but not before she discovers that her love was returned by him.
 

The Way We Were

This 1978 film is a beautiful poignant tale about the growth and evolution of the love of a couple, set against the political and historical events of the 1930-60s. Robert Redford and Barbara Streisand play the couple who are drawn to each other in college by their mutually contrasting personalities, fall in love and then get married. However with time and differing priorities, their relationship changes till each seeks to go his/her own way. Told in flashback, the film ends with the realization on the part of both individuals that they can never go back to being the way they were and all that they share now besides a daughter is memories of the past.
 

Out of Africa

Loosely based on the autobiographical book of the same name by Danish writer Karen Blixen, better known by her pseudonym Isak Dinesen, this 1985 film won seven academy awards among which the major ones were for best picture and director. Set in the sweeping locale of the African outdoors, the film explores Karen’s attempts to make sense of her marriage to a German baron even as she finds herself increasingly drawn to Denys, an English big game hunter. After Denys dies in a plane crash and her own coffee plantation is destroyed in a fire, Karen returns home to Denmark but not without a treasure of memories and a lifetime of bitter-sweet experiences.
 

Titanic

This is one story that is sure to make each and every woman cry her eyes out. The film tells the epic story of the ship that can never sink but which meets its fate on its very first journey. Weaved within the luxuriant feel and pathos of the doomed ship is the love story about a rich girl falling for a poor boy who wants to go to America and try his luck in the country where dreams come true. Rose gets a glimpse of what life can mean when one is free of the shackles of tradition, custom and gender expectations but before she can actually leave with jack for the freer climes of America, the ship meets in end and with it the love affair, but not before Jack makes Rose promise to never give up and have plenty of babies and grow old. Till Rose realizes the love of her life, the boy who gave her strength to survive the icy cold waters is dead, you are sure to have run out of tissues in your tissue box.
 

Romeo  +  Juliet

This has got to be the mother of all romantic tragedies. Originally inspired by Shakespeare’s Elizabethan play, the story has been adapted by numerous film-makers. One of the best of the lot is William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet, a 1996 film adaptation from the Australian director Baz Luhrmann and starring Leonardo Dicaprio and Claire Danes in the leading roles. Luhrmann’s film represents an abridged modernization of Shakespeare’s play wherein the original dialogues are retained but the Montagues and the Capulets are represented as warring business empires and swords are replaced by guns. The film tells the tragic tale of the star-crossed lovers from warring families who only want to love and be loved by the mate of their dreams. However violence and prejudice intervene and one of the main sources of anguish is the promise of young love so cruelly nipped in the bud.