The most romantic period movies of all time

Atonement (2007)

Directed by Joe Wright, Atonement stars Keira Knightley as a wealthy woman, Cecilia, who falls in love with Robbie (James McAvoy), a worker on her family’s property. However, their romance is thwarted thanks to the accusations brought forth by her younger sister, Briony (a 13-year-old Saoirse Ronan).

Beginning in the 1930s, the movie shows Briony’s decades-long attempt to atone for her grievances, with older versions of her character played by Romola Garai and Vanessa Redgrave. —Lia Beck

Where to watch Atonement: Amazon Prime Video (to rent)

Belle (2013)

Amma Asante’s Belle is based on the life of Dido Elizabeth Belle, a multiracial woman who was brought up in the British aristocracy in the 1700s. While not much is known about the real Belle’s life, the film starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw explores the prejudice she faces in high society; her romance with law student John Davinier (Sam Reid); and her ties to the abolitionist cause.

“Belle is like a Jane Austen novel spiked with an extra shot of social conscience,” EW’s critic writes. “…[It] subtly skewers the absurd rules and hypocrisies of class.” —L.B.

Where to watch Belle: Amazon Prime Video (to rent)

Carol (2015)

Rooney Mara and Cate Blanchett star in Carol, which follows Therese (Mara), a young department store worker who begins seeing the titular older woman (Blanchett) in the early 1950s. Their affair is complicated by their other relationships with men, Carol’s custody battle for her daughter, and the intolerance of their time period. —L.B.

Where to watch Carol: Peacock

Where to watch Carol: Paramount+

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)

Period pieces aren’t all corsets and European history. Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a wuxia movie and a love story between skilled warriors Yu Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh) and Li Mu Bai (Chow Yun-Fat).

Bai entrusts his machete-wielding lover to transport his treasured sword, Green Destiny, but when she’s robbed of the precious artifact, their relationship is pushed to the limit in this action-packed adventure. As Lee put it himself, “Sense and Sensibility, but with kick-ass.” —L.B.

Where to watch Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Amazon Prime Video (to rent)

Howards End (1992)

Here’s another period piece theme: Merchant-Ivory movies. The first one directed by James Ivory and produced by Ismail Merchanton on our list is Howards End, which stars period piece regulars Emma Thompson and Helena Bonham Carter.

The actresses play sisters Margaret and Helen Schlegel, who become involved in the lives of the wealthy Wilcox family as they navigate relationships and the new ownership of a country estate called — you guessed it — Howards End. —L.B.

Where to watch Howards End: Tubi

Where to watch Howards End: Peacock

If Beale Street Could Talk (2018)

Barry Jenkins’ lyrical adaptation of James Baldwin’s novel is a swoon-worthy yet urgent expression of love during trying times. Set in ’70s New York, the film follows Tish (KiKi Layne) and Fonny (Stephan James), a couple whose lives are disrupted when Fonny is wrongfully arrested, leading Tish to fight to prove his innocence. —K.J.

Where to watch If Beale Street Could Talk: Amazon Prime Video (to rent)

Loving (2016)

Loving tells the story of Mildred and Richard Loving who, following two arrests, won the 1967 landmark Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia, which invalidated laws prohibiting interracial marriage. While the film does focus on the lawsuit, their defiant love is at the center of the narrative, thanks in part to the stellar performances by Ruth Negga and Joel Edgerton. —L.B.

Where to watch Loving: Amazon Prime Video (to rent)

Maurice (1987)

By now, Hugh Grant and romance pretty much go hand in hand, but neither he — nor that majestic, windswept hair — has ever shined quite like he did in Maurice, the Merchant-Ivory sleeper adaptation of E.M. Forster’s once-controversial novel. In only his second film role, Grant stars opposite James Wilby as one-half of a star-crossed pair of Cambridge undergraduates who fall in love during Edwardian England, a repressive era when homosexuality was still criminalized.

Like all great period romances, Maurice places aching desire at the forefront, with the men’s palpable yearning made all the more soul-shattering by the fetters of their time. And while the film features all the exquisite period detail, it also carries a quiet radical charge — subversive for its time and tender in its defiance. —James Mercadante

Where to watch Maurice: Tubi

Moulin Rouge! (2001)

No period romance has ever been quite so “spectacular, spectacular!” Set in Paris at the turn of the 20th century, Moulin Rouge! follows idealistic writer Christian (Ewan McGregor) and courtesan Satine (Nicole Kidman) as they express their doomed romance through modern pop songs against the backdrop of the famed titular windmill-roofed cabaret. —K.J.

Where to watch Moulin Rouge!: Apple TV (to rent)

My Fair Lady (1964)

Based on the George Bernard Shaw play Pygmalion, Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison star in the classic musical My Fair Lady as Eliza Doolittle and Henry Higgins. You know the story: She’s a woman living in poverty and selling flowers; he’s a wealthy professor who bets he can make her into a high-society lady. Romance ensues, obviously. —L.B.

Where to watch My Fair Lady: Amazon Prime Video (to rent)

The Notebook (2004)

Moving things forward a couple of centuries, there’s the romance to end all romances: The Notebook. Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams (who, by the way, hated each other at first) star as a couple, Noah and Allie, who begin a tumultuous relationship in the 1940s before the two are separated by World War II, though that’s far from the end of their love story.

The older versions of their characters are played to a full-on sobbing effect by James Garner and Gena Rowlands. —L.B.

Where to watch The Notebook: Amazon Prime Video (to rent)

Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)

In Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Noémie Merlant plays an artist who is sent to paint a wedding portrait for a woman (Adèle Haenel) who does not want to enter an arranged marriage.

The eerie, sensual French film was described by EW’s critic as “an 18th-century lesbian love story set almost entirely within the windswept parameters of a remote seaside villa, with reams of meditative dialogue and almost no male roles to speak of.” Consider us sold. —L.B.

Where to watch Portrait of a Lady on Fire: HBO Max

Pride & Prejudice (2005)

Before any Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle stans get up in arms, remember: This is a movies-only list. So, 2005’s Pride & Prejudice is the clear favorite to represent Jane Austen’s classic 1813 novel.

This adaptation from Joe Wright stars Keira Knightley as the ever-defiant Elizabeth Bennet and Matthew Macfadyen as the moody Mr. Darcy. Period drama enthusiasts will be interested to know that Wright set the movie in the late-18th century instead of the early-19th century in part because of his hatred of empire waist dresses. —L.B.

Where to watch Pride & Prejudice: HBO Max

A Room With a View (1986)

Merchant-Ivory’s 1986 film stars Helena Bonham Carter as the young Lucy Honeychurch, who visits Florence with her older cousin (Maggie Smith) and meets an array of fellow guests at their hotel. Of course, this includes an intriguing romantic interest played by Julian Sands, plus plenty of kissing in open fields. —L.B.

Where to watch A Room With a View: HBO Max

Sense and Sensibility (1995)

Directed by Ang Lee, Sense and Sensibility tells the story of the Dashwood sisters, Elinor (Emma Thompson) and Marianne (Kate Winslet), as they deal with 19th-century-style relationship issues involving Colonel Brandon (Alan Rickman), Edward Ferrars (Hugh Grant), and John Willoughby (Greg Wise).

Many credit this essential dowry drama for launching Austen adaptations into the mainstream, and we’re all forever in debt. —L.B.

Where to watch Sense and Sensibility: Amazon Prime Video

Shakespeare in Love (1998)

Sure, there is some controversy surrounding Shakespeare in Love‘s enthusiastic Oscars campaign, but that doesn’t mean it’s not an acclaimed romantic period movie. (It just maybe wouldn’t have won quite so many awards…)

Either way, the film stars Joseph Fiennes as William Shakespeare in a (fictional) affair with a merchant’s daughter, Viola de Lesseps (Gwyneth Paltrow). It’s set during the time he wrote Romeo and Juliet, and indulges in more than a few literary parallels. —L.B.

Where to watch Shakespeare in Love: Pluto TV

The Sound of Music (1965)

There’s so much going on in The Sound of Music — catchy songs, rambunctious children, day-saving nuns, and a world war — that the romantic aspect moves down the list of things that come to mind.

But the love between a strict naval officer (Christopher Plummer) and his carefree governess (Julie Andrews) is at the center of the story. What more is there to say? It’s only been regularly airing on TV for the past several decades… —L.B.

Where to watch The Sound of Music: Disney+

Titanic (1997)

Titanic is famous for James Cameron’s special effects that sent hundreds of passengers realistically hurtling from the side of a giant ship, but it’s mainly remembered for the timeless love story between soulful vagabond Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) and repressed socialite Rose (Kate Winslet). After all, it was their whirlwind romance that forever changed how we look at fogged-up windows. And floating doors. And drawing. —L.B.

Where to watch Titanic: Amazon Prime Video