7 Forgotten Netflix Romance Movies That Are Perfect From Start to Finish
Jennie Richardson is a TV Features and Lists Writer for Collider, and a graduate student pursuing an MFA in Fiction Writing. In other words, she really loves stories.
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As streamers go, Netflix has one of the very best collections of original romance movies. The streaming platform is the home of modern romance classics like Set It Up, the To All the Boys I've Loved Before trilogy, The Wrong Paris, and People We Meet on Vacation. Netflix's romance movies are known for having well-written characters that are easy to get attached to, as well as compelling dynamics and strong chemistry between these characters.
While Netflix has a number of romance movies that are pretty much universally beloved, it also has some truly excellent ones that have slipped through the cracks over the years. These movies have clever main premises, strong dialogue, and captivating romances. These are forgotten Netflix romance movies that are truly perfect from start to finish.
'Along for the Ride' (2022)
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Based on the Sarah Dessen novel of the same name, Along for the Ride follows a recent high school graduate named Auden (Emma Pasarow) who goes to stay at her father's home in a beach town called Colby, North Carolina for the summer. Auden is very ambitious and academic-minded, so she's missed out on most normal teenage experiences. Auden is already starting at her dream college in the fall, so now, she has the summer off to catch up on some of the things that she has missed out on.
Very quickly, Auden gets a job, makes some friends, and starts spending her nights going on mini-adventures with fellow insomniac Eli (Belmont Cameli). Auden's father (Dermot Mulroney) is more interested in writing his latest novel than parenting either her or his newborn baby, and Auden doesn't know how to connect with his wife (Kate Bosworth), so she spends more time out and about than at home. As Eli helps her check off items on the list of things she missed, the two start to really get to know each other. Auden and Eli's nights together are a bubble away from the more difficult things in their lives, though, and they soon realize that these outside obstacles could threaten their new connection. Along for the Ride is a sweet and cozy summer romance, and it remains severely underrated four years after it was released.
'Someone Great' (2019)
Someone Great is a beautiful movie with a romance that takes place out of order. Music journalist Jenny (Gina Rodriguez) is preparing to move from New York City to San Francisco for her dream job, and her boyfriend of nine years, Nate (Lakeith Stanfield), has just broken up with her. Thus, Jenny's two best friends, Blair (Brittany Snow) and Erin (DeWanda Wise), decide to cheer Jenny up and send her off by all having one last big adventure together before she moves.
Over the course of one life-changing day, Jenny, Blair, and Erin all reevaluate their paths and love lives. For Jenny, this means looking back on her memories with Nate and trying to determine where it all went wrong. For Blair, this means attempting to finally break up with Will (Alex Moffat), her boyfriend with whom she's no longer in love. Erin, meanwhile, has found a real connection with her new girlfriend, Leah (Rebecca Naomi Jones), but she is afraid to actually commit to her. Someone Great is an excellent movie that divides its romantic storylines amongst its three leads, taking them each on a journey to determine whether they want to fight for their relationships.
'Candy Jar' (2018)
Candy Jar is a coming-of-age romantic comedy about two high school debate team rivals, Lona (Sami Gayle) and Bennet (Jacob Latimore). They are the only two members of their school's debate club, and they are competing to become the club's president in order to look good to colleges. When they are reluctantly made co-presidents, Lona and Bennet start spending more time together, and they begin to question their previous impressions of each other.
Candy Jar is a funny and sweet rivals-to-lovers movie that is perfect for romance fans. Lona and Bennet are the only people who really understand each other, but their similarities also act as an obstacle to their romance. Both of their mothers put pressure on them to be the best no matter what, and they both worry about the potential risks that compromising and setting their rivalry aside could have on their futures.
'Love at First Sight' (2023)
Based on the novel The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith, Love at First Sight follows two college students who meet at JFK airport while preparing to board a flight to London. Hadley (Haley Lu Richardson) is on her way to the second wedding of her father, whom she still resents for moving away so quickly after his divorce from her mother. Oliver (Ben Hardy) is going home for a family event, although he's vague with her about the specifics. Hadley and Oliver immediately strike a connection, and they get to know each other better on the plane.
When a technological mishap prevents Hadley from saving Oliver's number after the flight, they're separated, and she is determined to find her way back to him. Oliver, meanwhile, unknowingly waits to hear from her. Love at First Sight is a really sweet and emotional movie that questions the possibility of the concept of love at first sight through the story of Hadley and Oliver. The two barely know each other, but they both take a number of risks and bold swings in order to fight for the possibility of their romance.
Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes Which Netflix Character Would Be Your Best Friend? Dustin · Emily · Wednesday · Gi-hun
Some friends drag you out of the house. Some sit with you on the worst night of your life. Netflix has written both, plus the one who tells you the truth you have been avoiding all week. Answer eight quick questions about how you actually do friendship, and find out which of them was always going to end up in your corner.
🧢Dustin(Stranger Things)
🗼Emily(Emily in Paris)
🕷️Wednesday(Wednesday)
🟢Gi-hun(Squid Game)
01
How do you usually end up making a new friend? The origin story says a lot about the friendship that follows it.
02
What is a perfect Saturday with your best friend? Friendship is mostly built out of very ordinary hours.
03
You call them at two in the morning. What happens? This is the real test of a friendship, and everybody knows it.
04
What do you want from them when you are clearly wrong? The best friendships are the ones that survive being corrected.
05
What do your friends actually value about you? The friend you attract says something about the friend you are.
06
You have a falling out. How does it go? How a friendship repairs itself matters more than how it breaks.
07
What do you actually need a best friend for? Everybody is missing something. The right friend fills that gap.
08
Ten years from now, what keeps the two of you close? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides who you get.
The Group Chat Has Spoken Your Best Friend Is…
Four Netflix characters, four completely different ways of showing up for somebody. This is the one who fits how you actually do friendship, and what having them in your life would be like.
Dustin Henderson
You do not do friendship at half volume, and neither does he. What you want is somebody who says yes to the plan before you have finished describing the plan.
- Dustin is the friend the entire show runs on: loyal past the point of sense, enthusiastic about everything, and incapable of leaving anybody behind.
- You have the same instinct. Your friendships are loud, specific and slightly ridiculous, and they last for decades because of it.
- He is also the one person who would take your strangest interest completely seriously, which is far rarer than it sounds.
- You would have a group chat. It would never once be quiet.
Emily Cooper
You are the friend who makes things happen, and so is she. Together you would be mildly exhausting to everyone around you and completely delighted with yourselves.
- Emily treats an ordinary Tuesday as something that could be turned into an occasion, which is either the best or the worst quality in a friend depending on your energy levels.
- You share her refusal to sit still. Neither of you has ever accepted a night in when something was happening somewhere else.
- She is far more loyal than people give her credit for. She defends her friends loudly, publicly, and occasionally before checking the facts.
- She would post the photo without asking. You would forgive her, because it is a very good photo.
Wednesday Addams
You have no patience for pleasant lies, and she has no ability to tell them. What looks like coldness from the outside is the most reliable friendship on this list.
- Wednesday never says a kind thing she does not mean, which makes the rare ones count for an enormous amount.
- You would rather be told the truth than be made comfortable. She is constitutionally incapable of offering you anything else.
- Underneath all of it she is ferociously protective. She simply refuses to make a performance out of caring.
- Do not expect a birthday message. Do expect her to ruin anyone who wrongs you.
Seong Gi-hun
You look after whoever is having the worst day. So does he. It is the least strategic way to move through the world and the best possible quality in a friend.
- Gi-hun is not the strongest player in Squid Game, or the cleverest. He is the one who keeps choosing to protect somebody else, over and over, at genuine cost to himself.
- You have the same instinct. You notice who is struggling and you stay with them, long after anybody would blame you for leaving.
- He is a flawed friend, and that is part of why it lands. He lets people down, then comes back and tries again, which is more than most manage.
- He would give you his last chance and never once mention that he had done it.
'Wedding Season' (2022)
Wedding Season is a fantastic fake-dating romantic comedy that follows Asha (Pallavi Sharda), a woman who recently both ended her engagement and left her face-paced job on Wall Street to work for a New Jersey-based startup. When Asha's mother pressures her to set up an online dating profile, she meets Ravi (Suraj Sharma), but their date doesn't go well. After the two cross paths at a wedding, though, Asha asks Ravi to fake a relationship with her for the remainder of the weddings that they both have to attend that summer.
Thus, Asha and Ravi go to the rest of the weddings together that summer, pretending to be a couple so that their families no longer put pressure on them. Asha, in particular, isn't looking for love, and is much more determined to prove herself at work. Still, though, she and Ravi start to really start to form a connection through their fake relationship. The only problem is, there is a ticking clock on their fake romance, and Asha starts to realize that she might not be ready for it to end. Wedding Season is such a fun and swoonworthy rom-com, and romance fans who love wedding movies will really enjoy this one.
'The Lovebirds' (2020)
The Love Birds is an action rom-com that starts with a breakup. Leilani (Issa Rae) and Jibran (Kumail Nanjiani) once had the perfect romance. Now, though, it's been four years, and they fight all the time. Finally, on the way to a dinner party, Jibran and Leilani decide to break up. Seconds later, though, they hit a cyclist with their car. The cyclist then refuses their help, and another man steps in and kills him with their car, pulling a confused Leilani and Jibrani into a dangerous conspiracy.
Worried that they will be blamed for the man's death, Leilani and Jibran decide to pursue the conspiracy and solve his murder. The more entangled the former couple gets in this investigation, though, the more danger they find themselves in. The Lovebirds is an absolutely hilarious movie with a compelling action plot and an excellent second chance romance, where Leilani and Jibran start to see each other in a new light thanks to the life-and-death stakes at play.
'The Half of It' (2020)
The Half of It is a Cyrano de Bergerac-inspired coming-of-age movie about a teenage girl named Ellie Chu (Leah Lewis). Ellie lives in a small town called Squahamish, and since the death of her mother years earlier, she helps her father support the two of them by writing her classmates' essays for money. One day, Ellie's neighbor, Paul Munsky (Daniel Diemer), offers to pay her to write a love letter to his crush, the popular Aster Flores (Alexxis Lemire). Despite her own secret crush on Aster, Ellie agrees to it, but the letter quickly spirals into constant texting.
The Half of It has everything: a beautiful coming-of-age story, a lovely and unexpected friendship between Ellie and Paul, and a complicated love square involving the two of them, Aster, and her boyfriend. The romance between Ellie and Aster develops completely through writing, with Ellie feeling conflicted over the lie that brought them together in the first place. Meanwhile, Aster believes that Paul is the one that she is falling for.
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