My Love Affair with the Movies

By Gus Mollasis | February 2023

It’s no secret that I love movies. Anyone who knows me knows how much I love it. I especially love great scenes of celluloid magic on the big screen—the way it was intended to be seen. 

But I must say in today’s streaming world, I fear that the excitement of going on a fun and romantic date to dinner and a movie is becoming passé, just like drive in theaters. 

I guess I’m just a hopeless romantic—both in life and in film. While I love getting lost in a great film or losing myself in the plight of the hero as he or she saves the day in the last scene, I am also a sucker for a great love story. 

I love when Cupid’s arrow lands on an unsuspecting couple, when sparks fly and the magic happens right before us, and love triumphs. 

So just in time for Valentine’s Day, here are a few of my favorite love films to watch with your love. And if you decide to stream any of these films, you can still go to dinner beforehand!

Moulin Rouge

The public was recently reintroduced to the brilliance of Elvis Presley while being introduced to (in my opinion) the greatest portrayal of a famous person on film by Austin Butler as Elvis. He truly captured the King in an Oscar worthy performance in director Baz Luhrmann’s dazzling film, Elvis. But long before he made Elvis, he showed us that love is indeed a many splendid thing in the colorful and mesmerizing Moulin Rouge. Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor sizzle on screen proving that all you need is love. This stunning fast-paced musical is a feast for the eyes and for the heart. It reminds us of life’s essential ingredients: freedom, beauty, truth, and above all, love.

Titanic

Movie fans can have all the blue creatures in Avatar—I’ll take Jack and Rose on the big ship. Titanic rises above all the clichés because of its love story as Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) from the wrong side of the tracks, mixes with high society Rose (Kate Winslet). With James Cameron’s adroit direction set against the historical context of Titanic’s tragic maiden voyage, accompanied with one of the greatest love songs of all time, “My Heart Will Go On”, it’s one of most dramatic love stories of all time.

The Notebook

Allie and Noah. Young love. Forbidden love. Forgotten love. Enduring love. A film that will break your heart. Directed by Nick Cassavetes and based on a novel by Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook stars Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams who play a young couple who fall in love in the 1940s and whose love story is told in present day from a notebook by Noah (James Garner) to his wife Allie (Gena Rowlands) as they face old age and seek to find their love story in their memories. Dare you not to cry. 

Say Anything

A teen romance with grit and an iconic romantic gesture that is as poignant as it is memorable. With John Cusack as Lloyd Dobler and Ione Skye as Diane, director Cameron Crowe handles this story of young love with the same honesty and heart that shine through in his bigger and better-known films—Almost Famous and Jerry Maguire.

Moonstruck

Moonstruck, by legendary filmmaker Norman Jewison, is both a drama and a romantic comedy. This warm and funny story features an Italian family navigating around life, love, and the pull of the moon on their hearts. Cher has never been better. Okay, maybe in Mask. She shines as Loretta Castorini, a widow who falls for her fiancé’s brother, Ronny Cammareri, perfectly played by Nicolas Cage. Aided by the incomparable Olympia Dukakis as Loretta’s mother, Rose, and a cast of several other warm characters, including Sarasota’s own, the incomparable David Howard, who we just sadly lost, this film is sure to enchant.

When Harry Met Sally

Director Rob Reiner, Billy Crystal, and Meg Ryan—all at their best. Together they create Hollywood magic in one of the great love stories of all time. It’s the story of two unlikely people who first become friends and eventually fall in love. A sizzling Harry Connick soundtrack makes this love story sing; the vignettes of older couples falling in love will warm even the iciest hearts; and the film will have you saying, “I’ll have what she’s having.”  

Coming Home

This Chinese historical film directed by Zhang Yimou and starring Chen Daoming and Gong Li is a masterpiece adapted from the novel The Criminal Lu Yanshi written by novelist Geling Yan. Coming Home is a story about two people who will seek to find each other over time and through social political upheaval during China’s Cultural Revolution. Ultimately it is a love story about a couple who will wait for each other to come home no matter how long it takes. Depicting a love of a lifetime and a lifetime of love, this simply told tale moves you through haunting images that are suited for the walls of the finest museums. Truly an eye and heart opening cinematic experience for anyone looking to find, define and remember what true love is.

The Shop Around the Corner

Directed by famed film legend Ernst Lubitsch, this simple, beautiful story stars Margaret Sullivan, James Stewart and Frank Morgan. It’s a tale of two unlikely gift shop workers who at first don’t like each other but eventually fall in love in their own original and magical way. Regarded by many as the finest romantic comedy in American cinema, it set the standard to which all subsequent romantic comedies are judged. And while an ambitious remake made many years later in 1998, You’ve Got Mail, starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, is quite good, there’s nothing like the original!

Rocky

“Yo, Adrian! It’s me, Rocky!” Rocky is not only a great fight film, but it is also a great love story. You know how I know for sure? Burt Young, who played Adrian’s brother Paulie in the film, personally told me so. I interviewed him at the Sarasota Film Festival many years ago. The film is a masterpiece written by a hungry Sly Stallone, directed sublimely by John Avildsen, and starring to perfection Sylvester Stallone as Rocky and Talia Shire as Adrian. Their first date scene in an empty ice-skating rink is cinema bliss, and a glimpse into the genius that is Stallone.

Casablanca

I know. You thought I was going to leave Rick and Ilsa at the airport? What can you say that hasn’t already been said about this beloved classic? I’ve seen it 150 times and hope to see it another 150 more times before I catch my plane out of Casablanca. The chemistry. The story. The laughs. The tears. The music. The sacrifice. The magic. It doesn’t get any better. Humphrey Bogart. Ingrid Bergman. Rick and Ilsa. A couple and a love story that will always tug at your heart and never grow old as time goes by.