Netflix has begun producing its own original romantic comedies and continues to acquire its share of others. So if you’re going to #netflixandchill with that special someone or just dream about someone with whom you can snuggle up on the couch and watch movies, then these 20 rom-coms are ready and waiting for you. They’ll make you laugh, might make you tear up, and will certainly have you rooting for love to win the day in its epic, underdog struggle with loneliness and disconnection. From classic ‘80s romantic comedies to brand-new spins on a genre as old as film, there’s something here for every taste. Budding relationships will be in jeopardy due to unfortunate miscommunication. The hearts of many former bland/cheating/douchebag boyfriends/fiancés will be broken. And there will be mad dashes to the airport. Are you prepared? Pick a movie, make some popcorn, pour a cheap glass of wine and grab the Kleenexes.

Year: 1986

Director: Spike Lee

Stars: Tracy Camila Johns, Spike Lee, John Canada Terrell, Tommy Redmond Hicks

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 91%

Rating: R

Runtime: 85 minutes

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An explosively frank feature debut that immediately announced Lee’s brave, fresh new voice in American cinema, She’s Gotta Have It, shot like a documentary, is a levelheaded exploration of a young black woman named Nola (Tracy Camilla Johns) trying to decide between her three male lovers, while also flirting with her apparent bisexuality, in order to, first and foremost, figure out what makes her happy. What’s refreshing about the film is that Lee always brings up the possibility that “none of the above” is a perfectly viable answer for both Nola and for single women—a game changer in 1986. The DIY indie grainy black-and-white cinematography boosts the film’s in-your-face realism. —Oktay Ege Kozak



Year: 1993

Director: Harold Ramis

Stars: Bill Murray, Andie MacDowell, Chris Elliott, Stephen Tobolowsky

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 96%

Rating: PG

Runtime: 102 minutes

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Bill Murray, director/co-writer Harold Ramis and screenwriter Danny Rubin take a Twilight Zone-esque comedic premise—a self-centered weatherman gets stuck experiencing February 2 again and again—and find unexpected profundity. A more conventional film would have love resolve the chronological predicament, but instead, it falls to TV personality Phil (Murray) to become the best version of himself he can possibly be. Whether it’s a Hollywood comedy challenging middle-class Americans to shake themselves from their middle-class torpor, or a meditation on our unattainable ideas of perfection, Groundhog Day doesn’t just elicit laughs, but leaves audiences more deeply moved than they ever expected—even inspiring some obsessive fans, including one fellow who calculated, down to the day, the number of decades Murray spent in February 2. —Curt Holman



Year: 2018

Director: Susan Johnson

Stars: Lana Condor, Noah Centineo, Janel Parrish

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 97%

Rating: NR

Runtime: 100 minutes

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To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, the teen scene’s newest runaway hit, is a flat-out excellent film. It is not excellent “for a teen flick.” It is not excellent “for a romantic comedy.” It is excellent for a film. TATBILB fully inverts the 80/20 ratio: Within the first 20 minutes, all five of the deeply private love letters our daydreamy, emotionally buttoned-up protagonist Lara Jean (Lana Condor) has written to her childhood crushes over the years have been stolen and mailed out—including the one to her neighbor and best friend, Josh (Israel Broussard), who just happens to also be her older sister’s just barely ex-boyfriend. This swift puncturing of any protracted emotional dishonesty Lara Jean might have hoped to indulge in, well, forever, leaves the film’s final eighty minutes free for her to embrace some really radical emotional honesty. That TATBILB allows Lara Jean to accomplish this not in spite of but through the fanfic-favorite trope of “fake dating” another, less-risky letter recipient (Noah Centineo’s ridiculously charming Peter Kavinsky) is a story strength. Of course, all the emotional honesty in the world wouldn’t matter if TATBILB’s leads didn’t burn with chemistry. Fortunately, Lana Condor and Noah Centineo can get it. Condor and Centineo are undeniably the stars of the show, but TATBILB doesn’t rest on their charismatic laurels: Mahoro as Lucas is a foxy ball of friendliness; Madeleine Arthur as Lara Jean’s best (girl) friend, Chris, is just the wide-eyed punk weirdo she needs to be; Janel Parrish plays against type as the sweet and steel-spined Margot; Anna Cathcart steals every scene as Lara Jean’s meddling little sis, Kitty; and John Corbett plays the healthily engaged version of Kat Stratford’s single OBGYN dad with a discernible glee. The importance of Lara Jean and her sisters being half-Korean, and the majority of the cast (along with Mahoro) non-white, is hard to overstate, but it isn’t the most impressive thing about the cast by a long shot. In a genre that can so often see its characters lean too far into caricature, Lara Jean’s world is instead populated with teens—and through them, love—you can believe in. —Alexis Gunderson

Year: 2010

Director: Edgar Wright

Stars: Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Brie Larson, Chris Evans, Alison Pill, Aubrey Plaza, Jason Schwartzman, Kieran Culkin

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 81%

Rating: PG-13

Runtime: 113 minutes

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The films of Edgar Wright’s “Cornetto trilogy” may get more emphasis as the core of the director’s oeuvre, but allow one to submit that Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is the “most Edgar Wright” film we’ve witnessed yet in the still-young filmmaker’s career. A brilliant adaptation of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s comic book series of the same name, the film is a perfectly cast wonder of an action comedy that translates with preternatural ability the comic tension between banality and bombast present on the page. Scott’s (Michael Cera) existence as a slacker musician in a crappy Toronto indie rock band isn’t exciting or glamorous, which makes it all the funnier when his day-to-day romantic life is a series of climactic, overly dramatic videogame boss battles. Each Wright presents with a hyperkinetic style that revels in its joyful disconnect from reality or consequences. Freed from such trivial matters, Wright can present dynamic action sequences that still have time for clever asides and banal workplace humor, simultaneously getting the absolute best out of every person he has on hand. Really: When has Brandon Routh, as an actor, been put to better use than as an egomaniacal vegan with psychic powers? An early-career Brie Larson as rock singer Envy Adams is a bonus as well. —Jim Vorel

Year: 2019

Director: Nahnatchka Khan

Stars: Ali Wong, Randall Park, Keanu Reeves, Michelle Buteau, Vivian Bang, Karan Soni

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 89%

Rating: PG-13

Runtime: 102 minutes

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A film written by and starring Ali Wong and Randall Park was always guaranteed to be a home run, but the endlessly funny and charming Always Be My Maybe truly exceeds all romcom expectations. The duo (who penned the script with Michael Golamco) play childhood friends who lose touch after an impulsive teenage romance ends badly. From there, Wong’s Sasha becomes a celebrity chef as Park’s Marcus continues to live at home and work for his father’s blue collar business after his mother’s tragic passing. They each have things to learn from one another, sure, but Always Be My Maybe doesn’t just end when romance blossoms; it leans into the complications of two adults with independent lives choosing to be together and figuring out how to make it all work. Part of that, crucially, includes both Marcus and Sasha playing supportive roles in one another’s careers rather than compromising and giving up their passions to be together. Director Nahnatchka Khan keeps the stylish film moving at a pleasant comedic clip throughout, and there’s a killer cameo appearance you will not want spoiled before you see the movie. Seriously, you should watch it right now. —Allison Keene

Year: 1997

Director: James L. Brooks

Stars: Jack Nicholson, Helen Hunt, Greg Kinnear

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 85%

Rating: PG-13

Runtime: 139 minutes

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Jack Nicholson is not exactly the first person who comes to mind when you think romantic leading man. Certainly, when we first meet Melvin Udall, the mean-tempered, OCD-afflicted curmudgeon at the center of James L. Brooks’ As Good As It Gets, it’s clear he’s no Tom Hanks. That is, until he is one day forced to take care of his neighbor’s dog. This event serves as the catalyst for a poignant Scrooge-like transformation: More in touch with his feelings, Melvin soon grows close to the single-mother/waitress (Helen Hunt) at his favorite restaurant and, in the end, overcomes his self-centeredness and lets her know how highly he thinks of her. Cheesy? Yes. But damn if it doesn’t work. —Mark Rozeman



Year: 1982

Director: Sydney Pollack

Stars: Dustin Hoffman, Jessica Lange, Terri Garr, Bill Murray

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 90%

Rating: PG

Runtime: 119 minutes

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Can you imagine how audiences and critics might react to Tootsie if it came out in theaters today? Sydney Pollack’s film plays with gender roles and layers its portrait of an actor going full-drag with gay panic for giggles. You can just picture this film getting lambasted in 2015 for making a joke out of homophobia and for having the gall to ask viewers to sympathize with the plight of an actor who has to dress as a woman to find work. But the reason Pollack’s 1982 classic endures is because of its compassionate heart. This is a kind, empathetic movie that puts its hero, Dustin Hoffman’s cranky perfectionist thesp Michael Dorsey, in the shoes of his female peers to teach him (and us) a lesson, not to make snide jokes at the expense of the opposite sex. The humor is never mean-spirited; the message is rarely pompous, though when it is, that’s meant to be part of the point. Tootsie’s sharp comedy makes it a great piece of entertainment, but it’s the film’s sincere sensitivity that makes it timeless. —Andy Crump





Year: 1995

Director: Noah Baumbach

Stars: Josh Hamilton, Eric Stoltz, Elliott Gould

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 57%

Rating: R

Runtime: 96 minutes

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The thing about college graduation is that you’re expected to do something afterward. As always, though, the movies are here for us. Young filmmakers have long exorcised those one or two (or seven) years after graduation, wherein caustic anxiety about the future leads well-educated twentysomethings to enter an extended period of uselessness on their way to whatever’s next. Thus emerged this talky cousin of the coming-of-age movie, which exists mostly to comfort new generations of grads and depress older ones. In the debut feature from writer-director Noah Baumbach, a group of liberal-arts types graduate and then sit around and lament a future they don’t bother to confront: “Oh, I’ve been to Prague. Well, I haven’t ‘been to Prague’ been to Prague, but I know that thing, I know that ‘stop-shaving-your-armpits, read-The Unbearable Lightness of Being, fall-in-love-with-a-sculptor, now-I-know-how-bad-American-coffee-is thing.’” The film both celebrates and satirizes that first post-collegiate year, and it gave the world a glimpse of Baumbach’s ability to remind us all of the realness and rawness of that youthful angst. Though it declines to wrap up tidily, there’s some comfort in that, too. —Jeffrey Bloomer

Year: 2016

Director: Alex Lehmann

Stars: Sarah Paulson, Mark Duplass, Clu Gulager

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 90%

Rating: NR

Runtime: 85 minutes

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Sarah Paulson is one of the most vital actors working today, and at this particular moment she’s damn close to ubiquitous; here she shows up as one of two leads in newcomer Alex Lehmann’s lovely romantic comedy Blue Jay, a compact and unassuming film about big, life-changing things that’s presented in a beautiful monochrome package. Think of it as a palate cleanser for Paulson after a year spent maneuvering productions of grander scope and ambition. But scale and quality exist in two separate zip codes, and what Blue Jay lacks in import it makes up for with effervescence and melancholy. As though to put Paulson’s luminous talents to the test, Lehmann has cast her alongside Mark Duplass, a man primarily known for making tons of low-fi mutter-fests and whose range allows him comfortably to play himself. Paulson and Duplass make such a great pair that the film’s relative nothingness is pleasurable rather than painful. Blue Jay only clocks in at about an hour and twenty minutes (less, counting the credits scrawl), so it should breeze along by its very nature, but it feels like it only runs about half as long as that. It’s well crafted, well mannered and very well acted, though you may decide for yourself if all credit should go to Paulson. She draws out Duplass’ best merits as an actor, much as Amanda draws out the best in Jim: The more the film progresses, the brighter and more enthusiastic Duplass becomes, relishing every second he gets to be on screen with her. Their chemistry is palpable. —Andy Crump



Year: 2017

Director: Joe Swanberg

Stars: Jake Johnson, Aislinn Derbez, Joe Lo Truglio, Keegan-Michael Key, Nicky Excitement

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 85%

Rating: NR

Runtime: 90 minutes

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Joe Swanberg, bless his unfailing tenacity, appears to get behind the camera and hope everything works out for the best. His style is chancy, but it’s hard not to admire his unabashed love of spontaneity. This is especially true when it does work out for the best, as it does in Win it All. Swanberg co-wrote the film with your underachieving dream boyfriend, New Girl’s Jake Johnson, ostensibly a direct result of their actor-director collaborations in Drinking Buddies and Digging for Fire; Johnson, perhaps unsurprisingly, is the star here, too, playing that aforementioned scruffy gambler, Eddie, a career loser who takes any wager-earning gig he can get by day before flinging his earnings down the crapper playing games of chance at incalculably grimy casinos by night. There is, in grand Swanberg tradition, a looseness to Win it All that remains for the duration of the film, hanging off of Johnson’s central performance. Whether because of his contributions on the page or on the screen, Johnson feels like a key component to Win it All’s success as a narrative: The story hangs off of him, off of his work, his emoting, the physical quality to his self-presentation before a lens. It means a lot that Swanberg and Johnson both care on a profoundly human level for Eddie. Who couldn’t? You probably have an Eddie figure in your life, whether you know it or not: The gregarious, amiable rascal, the kind of dude who just can’t slam the brakes when he’s careening toward trouble, and knows it. He’s a lovable schmuck, his own worst enemy. The people in his life care about him, his creators care about him, and so of course we care about him, too, even at his worst, even as he invites troubles and hazards into his life against all fair warnings given him by his support system. Win it All, in other words, is a Joe Swanberg movie, a domestically-focused tale about a slacker in conflict with his demons washed in the texture of 1960s and 1970s cinema. —Andy Crump.

Year: 2017

Director: Jim Strouse

Stars: Jessica Williams, LaKeith Stanfield, Noël Wells, Taliyah Whitaker

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 88%

Rating: NR

Runtime: 85 minutes

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Jessica Williams plays Jessica James, a twenty-something theatre fanatic who’s trying to get one of her plays produced while simultaneously dealing with a breakup. The ex? Damon, played by the equally wonderful Lakeith Stanfield (Atlanta, Short Term 12), who can’t manage to stay out of Jessica’s dreams. When she meets a new fling, played by the comically refreshing Chris O’Dowd, she begins to re-evaluate her love life while clinging to her life goals. When do you know you’ve made it? As lighthearted as the film can be, it’s rooted in an exploration of the deeper questions that any artist, or person for that matter, grapples with. Williams is hilarious, which we all know from her time on The Daily Show. She’s also incredibly powerful, showcasing a feminine strength that’s so crucial to this generation and a passion for her craft that’s the opposite of the indifference often associated with millennials. The film is perfect for a popcorn and beer night with the gals and guys. —Meredith Alloway

Year: 2015

Director: Brett Haley

Stars: Blythe Danner, Sam Elliott, Martin Starr

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 93%

Rating: PG-13

Runtime: 95 minutes

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Picture this: You’ve been on your own for decades following the death of your spouse, your friends are all mostly enshrined in retirement community living and you’ve just been told that you have to put your pooch to sleep. In a less thoughtful movie, you’d be expected to fall into a traditional romance with a perfect stranger and validate your existence anew through wholesome late-stage monogamy. But Brett Haley’s I’ll See You in My Dreams has insight and empathy to spare, which combine with its casts considerable charms—especially those of Haley’s star, Blythe Danner—to make his film altogether different from other fare of its sort. Danner’s happily independent widow falls into a friendship with her pool boy (Martin Starr) and into courtship with the never-more-dashing Sam Elliot, but I’ll See You in My Dreams doesn’t condescend to its characters (or its viewers). Instead, it offers an organic, non-judgmental portrait of one woman choosing to reconnect with life.—Andy Crump



Year: 2016

Director: Leslye Headland

Stars: Jason Sudeikis, Alison Brie, Jason Mantzoukas

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 64%

Rating: NR

Runtime: 95 minutes

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The romantic comedy is a genre crying out for an update. We’ve had a few worthy entries in the 21st century—the imaginative Amelie, the clever and quirky Silver Linings Playbook, even the irreverent Knocked Up. But none of those films embraced the genre and all its tropes quite like the latest from Leslye Headland does. With her third film, which is little more than 90 minutes of sexual tension building between two friends, Headland has managed to create a direct descendent of Frank Capra, Billy Wilder, Rob Reiner and Nora Ephron—and make it just as uproariously funny as its forebears’ best works. Sleeping With Other People pushes at every boundary without ever feeling unnecessarily tawdry; it’s the Cards Against Humanity version of When Harry Met Sally (there’s even an “I’ll have what she’s having” moment involving a bottle of tea). Alison Brie could be our decade’s Meg Ryan, and Sudekis could be our Hanks—but there’s no doubt that Leslye Headland will keep making us laugh for years to come. —Josh Jackson



Year: 1997

Director: Kevin Smith

Stars: Ben Affleck, Joey Lauren Adams, Jason Lee, Kevin Smith

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 87%

Rating: R

Runtime: 113 minutes

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Anyone who has listened to enough hours of Kevin Smith’s podcasts or lengthy Q&A sessions knows that, behind his perpetual potty-mouth and flashes of egomania, Smith is a big softie at heart. After two films that reveled in crass slackerdom lifestyles (Clerks and Mallrats), Smith honed his writing voice for his third feature, Chasing Amy. The film stars Ben Affleck as an amateur comic book artist named Holden whose life is thrown awry when he meets a beautiful and vibrant girl named Alyssa (played by Smith’s then-girlfriend Joey Lauren Adams) and instantly falls in love. The problem? Alyssa is a lesbian. Crushed but still determined to spend time with her, Holden develops a close friendship with Alyssa, eventually telling her how he feels with the kind of speech that anyone who has ever experienced a hurtful bout of unrequited love has tossed around in their minds but never found the words to express.—Mark Rozeman



Year: 2019

Director: Jennifer Kaytin Robinson

Stars: Gina Rodriguez, Brittany Snow, DeWanda Wise

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 82%

Rating: R

Runtime: 92 minutes

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Netflix’s Someone Great plays out like the visual version of Lorde’s “Supercut.” The song, which is also cleverly placed in the film and promptly re-entered the U.S. iTunes charts last weekend following its release, recounts a magical relationship after the breakup. But instead of surveying the wreckage, Lorde presses play on the good times. “All the moments I play in the dark / Wild and fluorescent, come home to my heart,” she sings. Someone Great’s Jenny (played by Gina Rodriguez, world’s most likeable actress) finds herself in a similar situation. After landing her dream music writing job with Rolling Stone, she and her boyfriend of nine years, Nate (acted by a very hunky LaKeith Stanfield), call it quits, fearing they won’t survive a long-distance relationship split between New York City and Jenny’s future home, San Francisco. The pulsing pop tune from Lorde’s 2017 album Melodrama plays while a literal “Supercut” of Jenny’s and Nate’s relationship flashes before our eyes—Instagram posts, Facebook messages, texts, emails and exchanges with Jenny’s two best friends, Blair (Brittany Snow) and Erin (DeWanda Wise) serve as an intro to a film about reminiscing, reconnecting with friends and, ultimately, moving forward on your own. Rodriguez is, as always, loveable as hell. Wise gives an endearing performance as the romantically hesitant Erin, and the two women, along with Snow, master a refreshing version of the romantic comedy in which female friendship, not just love interests, serves as a plot centerpiece. And as much as I enjoyed watching an R-rated New York City spree complete with foul language, bathroom sex, fierce friendship and joints the size of baseball bats, Someone Great is most memorable for its music. A mixtape of indie stalwarts, pop bliss and Big Freedia, the soundtrack is heaps of fun, deeply meaningful and the most realistic aspect of the film—except maybe the girls’ struggle to get spots on the guest list. That battle is all too real. —Ellen Johnson



Year: 2014

Director: Gillian Robespierre

Stars: Jenny Slate, Jake Lacy, Gaby Hoffmann, Gabe Liedman, Polly Draper, Richard Kind, David Cross

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 90%

Rating: R

Runtime: 83 minutes

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Above all else, Obvious Child is a compassionate film. That might strike pro-life viewers as odd, even offensive, to say since this romantic comedy-drama features a main character getting ready to have an abortion. But in its modest, clear-eyed way, director and co-writer Gillian Robespierre’s feature debut goes beyond the issue’s moral implications to present a realistic, sensitive portrayal of how one young woman makes her decision to terminate her unwanted pregnancy. That the movie also manages to be funny and incredibly sweet is a small marvel. Obvious Child stars rising comic actress Jenny Slate as Donna, a struggling standup in New York. A few years shy of 30, Donna hasn’t quite gotten the hang of anything yet in her life—not her career and not her relationship. (In fact, as the film opens, she walks off stage from a small Brooklyn club to discover that her boyfriend is leaving her for her friend.) Thrown into depression, Donna alternates between stalking her ex and trying to turn her misery into standup material. But it’s not until she meets a wholesome, handsome guy named Max (Jake Lacy) at the club that she can see a possibility for new love—a vision that’s complicated by the fact that she gets pregnant after their one-night stand. Obvious Child seeks to rethink the typical twenty-something romantic comedy. The setup is almost a parody of the scenario usually visited upon a sad-sack protagonist: Not only does Donna lose her boyfriend, she also discovers her job is ending, leaving her in a state of total limbo. But Robespierre upends those conventions with the serious development at the film’s center. Obvious Child isn’t blind to the fact that abortion is the closing of a door and the ending of a possible life, but it’s grownup enough to assume that adults can watch one woman’s journey toward terminating a pregnancy and recognize the emotional intricacies that go into that decision. Touching on a red-hot issue, Obvious Child is agreeably gentle, and even wise. —Tim Grierson

Year: 2018

Director: Claire Scanlon

Stars: Zoey Deutch, Glen Powell, Lucy Liu, Taye Diggs, Pete Davidson, Tituss Burgess

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 92%

Rating: NR

Runtime: 105 minutes

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One can never have enough Zoey Deutch in their moviegoing diet. She’s a treasure, multi-layered, ever hilarious. Want her to throw snark at you? Want her to project confidence without haughtiness? Want her to pull off “awkward with a side of charming” without tipping the scale too much in one direction or the other? She can do all of that. If you have room for just one Deutch movie this month, go for The Year of Spectacular Men, but if your schedule’s open, fit in Claire Scanlon’s Set It Up, a delightful, zippy, corny-and-loving it rom-com about beleaguered office assistant Harper (Deutch) teaming up with as-beleaguered office assistant Charlie (Glen Powell) to get their horrible bosses (respectively, Lucy Liu and Taye Diggs) into bed with one another. Maybe they’re horrible only because they’re undersexed; maybe they’re just horrible. Set It Up isn’t exactly a hard read in that regard (or any, really), but it’s a hoot all the way through, and Scanlon’s smart to hang the film on Deutch and Powell’s chemistry. —Andy Crump

Year: 2008

Director: Kevin Smith

Stars: Seth Rogen, Elizabeth Banks, Craig Robinson, Jason Mewes, Traci Lords

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 65%

Rating: R

Runtime: 101 minutes

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Kevin Smith used the experiences of making his first film (Clerks) at night in the convenience store where he worked, and injected it into Zack and Miri Make a Porno, where cash-challenged roommates shoot their first adult film at night in the coffee shop where they work. Zack (Seth Rogen) and his partner/roommate/possible love-interest Miri (Elizabeth Banks) attend their high-school reunion where Miri tries to reacquaint herself with Bobby, her unrequited high-school crush hilariously played by Brendan Routh. When Miri learns Bobby’s “partner” is a gay porn star (Justin Long in a memorable performance) Miri is shattered but Zack is inspired, and the two begin to shoot their homemade porn film to help pay the rent. The audition scenes are priceless (use your imagination to learn Bubbles’ talent), but when Zack and Miri have to star in their own film they discover more than just sex. —Tim Basham



Year: 2014

Director: Lynn Shelton

Stars: Keira Knightley, Chloe Grace Moretz, Sam Rockwell, Mark Webber, Ellie Kemper, Jeff Garlin, Gretchen Mol

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 65%

Rating: R

Runtime: 100 minutes

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Laggies leans into coming-of-age and romantic dramedy genre tropes, but fiddles around with them in a pleasing manner. The film centers on Meg (Keira Knightley), a college graduate wasting her higher education. Reeling from the one-two punch of a marriage proposal by her longtime boyfriend Anthony (Mark Webber) that she’s still not sure she’s ready for and also seeing her father, Ed (Jeff Garlin), making out with a random woman at the wedding of her friend, Allison (Ellie Kemper), Meg wanders off into the night. She’s approached by 16-year-old Annika (Chloe Grace Moretz), who’s looking to have Meg buy some beer for her and her friends. Meg acquiesces, and then bonds with Annika and her pals over skateboarding. Shelton has the ability to coax extraordinarily relaxed, naturalistic performances out of her actors and actresses, and that’s where Laggies really succeeds. It gives a smart nudge to the oddness of its conceit, and Knightley and Sam Rockwell, especially, rise to the occasion to help sell the material. Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie offers up an evocative score. And with the assistance of cinematographer Benjamin Kalsulke and production designer John Lavin, Shelton crafts a film that feels intimate and to-scale. —Brent Simon



Year: 2013

Director: Richard Curtis

Stars:Domhnall Gleeson, Rachel McAdams, Bill Nighy, Tom Hughes, Margot Robbie

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 69%

Rating: R

Runtime: 123 minutes

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The enormous success of 1994’s Four Weddings and a Funeral, both the highest-grossing British film in history at the time of its release, as well as a $245 million worldwide box office smash, made a star of its screenwriter, Richard Curtis. The British-set romantic comedy About Time, starring Domhnall Gleeson and Rachel McAdams, is Curtis’ third film behind the camera, and it presents an amplified version of the triumphs and shortcomings most characteristic of his work. There is abundant charm, as well as a genuinely sweet-spirited view of the world; it is also dependent on plot turns that don’t withstand much scrutiny. On his 21st birthday, Tim (Gleeson) discovers from his father (Bill Nighy) that the men in his family have the ability to travel back in time. If they find a dark place, clench their fists and just focus their mind—poof, off they go! Naturally, Tim’s first instinct is to use his newfound power to try to snag a girlfriend. However, after a summer of futilely wooing the visiting friend of his older sister Kit Kat (Lydia Wilson), a still-single Tim heads off to London to pursue a career as a lawyer. There Tim meets Mary (McAdams), and falls head over heels in love. What’s that—she has a not-so-serious boyfriend met just before they crossed paths? Tim can rectify that situation, of course. Mostly, though, Tim and Mary’s love is sincere, born of shared interests and mutual regard. About Time is chiefly a comedic fantasy of wish fulfillment, an overstuffed casserole of cute riffs and beats structured around characters who unyieldingly exhibit ample portions of generosity and benevolence. If it rather awkwardly handles the delineation of its time travel rules, almost everything that is frustrating about the movie is also counterbalanced by moments of thoughtfulness and insightfulness. Instead of romance, per se, About Time is actually about family more broadly—and specifically about fathers and sons. The last 25 minutes tap into a rich emotional undercurrent related to the hard truths that so many men have difficulty discussing. Would that Curtis had the discipline to more artfully and substantively weave this material into his movie, or explore more honestly Tim and Mary’s relationship by having him share the burden of his secret. As is, About Time feels like a partially improvised fairytale. Brent Simon