The
10 worst date movies ever
20 House
of Flying Daggers
Zhang Yimou, 2004
Love is a dangerous game in this martial-arts spectacular. In Tang dynasty
China, a handsome young warrior rescues a beautiful blind woman allied with
a rebel army. As they flee the pursuing government officers, inevitably they
fall in love. But both are harbouring secrets from each other – can love
survive the truth? The breath-taking battle sequences make this the perfect
date movie for people who like a little fight in their relationships.
WENDY IDE
19 An
Officer and a Gentleman
Taylor Hackford, 1982
A rare chick-flick-guy-movie hybrid, this tale of a wannabe aviator, Zack Mayo
(Richard Gere), and his agonising year in flight-school, has bar brawls,
punch-ups and endless scenes of “Mayonaaaise” being abused by gunnery
sergeant Emil Foley (Louis Gossett Jr). Yet it’s also loaded with love
stuff, courtesy of Mayo’s local hottie (Debra Winger). Despite the rousing
final scene, note that the real romance is between Mayo and Foley.
"Odd
combination of new-fangled performers": how The Times reviewed it, 1983
KEVIN MAHER
18 Shortbus
John Cameron Mitchell, 2006
A bit of a baptism of fire, this one. If you can get past the opening titles –
a riot of unsimulated sexual acts – this film has an emotionally satisfying
core that transcends the orgies and erect members. The adventures of a group
of carnally creative New Yorkers, Shortbus provides an inclusive,
unexpectedly romantic look at unconventional relationships.
WENDY IDE
17 Dark
Water
Hideo Nakata, 2002
Horror films make great date movies – what better excuse to grab part of your
date’s anatomy than some hell-spook lunging at you from the screen? And they
don’t get much creepier than this Japanese ghost story about a single
mother, her little girl and an apartment block with a sinister damp patch.
Rather than the repeated jumps of an American horror, the film relies on a
gradual build-up of unbearable tension.
WENDY IDE
16 Jerry
Maguire
Cameron Crowe, 1996
Crowe’s sports movie romance is ideal for date-movie virgins. Just slushy
enough to jerk some tears, it bounces the sports agent Tom Cruise (at his
most appealing) between Cuba Gooding Jr’s ambitious American footballer and
Renée Zellweger’s idealistic assistant. Yes, the comedy is understated, and
the football scenes are only vaguely exciting. But the payoff is Cruise
facing Zellweger across the living room, baring his soul. “I love you.”
Sniffle. “You, complete, me!”
KEVIN MAHER
15 Crazy/Beautiful
John Stockwell, 2001
Stockwell’s ostensibly formulaic movie is about a rich Pacific Palisades wild
child (Kirsten Dunst) falling for a hard-working Latino (Jay Hernandez) from
the wrong side of LA. And yet, beneath the star-crossed premise lies a
remarkable ability to tap into the pain, the confusion and the sheer
eye-moistening beauty of first teenage love. When Dunst blubs, half in
shock, half in wonder, to Hernandez, “I think I’m in love with you!” it’s a
cue to entwine fingers with your partner.
KEVIN MAHER
14 Monsoon
Wedding
Mira Nair, 2001
Picking a movie about a wedding might set the alarm bells ringing,
particularly if this is a first date, but what the heck. Vibrant and messy,
joyful but with an honest approach to the characters’ problems, Monsoon
Wedding is a delight. And amid the chaos of a big Punjabi wedding a
heartswelling love blossoms between the wedding planner P. K. Dubey and the
family maid Alice. Pure romance.
WENDY IDE
13 Ghost
Jerry Zucker, 1990
A date-movie heavyweight, Ghost contains the tragic death of a
paramour, love from beyond the grave, and Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore
getting jiggy by the potter’s wheel. Thus, when Swayze’s dead accounts
manager eventually tells Moore’s blubbing artist, in the ghostly climax: “I
love you, Molly”, it’s hard not to go gooey inside. An evening of slush
beckons as you and your date promise to haunt each other after death.
KEVIN MAHER
12 Eternal
Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Michel Gondry, 2004
Gondry’s movie is strong medicine for couples unsure of their long-term
prospects. It charts the implosion of the relationship between nerdy Joel
Barish (Jim Carrey) and idiosyncratic Clementine Kruczynski (Kate Winslet).
It also posits a brutal world where sexual betrayal and manipulation are the
norm. Nonetheless, in there lives the notion that we return to the romantic
battle-field because the prospect of feeling love is greater than any pain.
Which is kind of cute.
KEVIN MAHER
11 Dirty
Dancing
Emile Ardolino, 1987
This fantastically preposterous movie about a group of rebel dancers lead by
Patrick Swayze’s Johnny Castle is a dual purpose date flick. Johnny’s
bad-ass attempts at liberating Baby Houseman (Jennifer Grey) through the
power of dance and awful dialogue (“Nobody puts Baby in the corner!”) can be
enjoyed with a wild ironic sneer, or as a cosy warm-up to a night of
beginner’s salsa. Either way, you’re on to a winner.
KEVIN MAHER
10 Scream
Wes Craven, 1996
Just because Wes Craven’s self-aware teen slasher movie mischievously
references numerous Hollywood horror movies it doesn’t mean that there
aren’t some real scares in this smart-aleck revamping of the serial killer
flick. The combination of date-grabbing narrative shocks, edge-of-the-seat
tension and some very funny in-jokes make this an ideal date flick for fans
of popcorn horror.
WENDY IDE
9 North
by Northwest
Alfred Hitchcock, 1959
It’s all about the power of suggestion here. After two hours of frenetic
pursuits and international espionage, the mild-mannered advertising
executive Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) and the hot blonde super-spy Eve
Kendall (Eva Marie Saint) finally get steamy on a transcontinental love
train. They kiss, they embrace and, just before the final credits, their
phallic train plunges proudly into a gaping tunnel. You then turn, smiling,
to your date. Yup, it’s that time of the night.
"Expert
bit of film-making": The Times 1959 review
KEVIN MAHER
8 A
bout de souffle
Jean-Luc Godard, 1960
This French New Wave standard bearer about a Bogart-obsessed criminal
(Jean-Paul Belmondo) and his idealistic American moll (Jean Seberg) sets the
perfect tone for ironic hipster romantics. Chunks of narrative time are
spent in a Parisian bedroom, where the seminaked Seberg and Belmondo debate
happiness, freedom and intimacy. It remains fresh today, just on the right
side of sexy-cool.
"A
film that holds the imagination": read The Times review from 1960
KEVIN MAHER
7 In
the Mood For Love
Wong Kar Wai, 2000
Languid, lush, balmy and undercut with an exquisite melancholy – this has to
be one of the most visually gorgeous cinema romances of all time. In Hong
Kong, 1962, a journalist, Mr Chow (Tony Leung), and Mrs Chan (Maggie Cheung)
are neighbours who discover that their spouses are having an affair with
each other. Flung together by the betrayal, the pair fall for each other.
The buttoned-up repression of their feelings triggers a smouldering,
slow-burning build-up of sexual tension. Phew.
WENDY IDE
6 Before
Sunrise/Before Sunset
Richard Linklater, 1995/2004
Watch either film on its own or treat yourself to a double bill of the wordy,
witty banter between Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Celine (Julie Delpy), strangers
in the night whose stolen moments together spark with shared ideas and
mutual yearning. The sequel, set ten years after the pair’s first meeting,
is even more poignant: experience has tempered the boundless optimism of
youth; there’s less pretension and more genuine feeling in the snatched
conversations during their daylong adventure in Paris. Gorgeous stuff.
WENDY IDE
5 Sideways
Alexander Payne, 2004
This is the perfect date movie for diehard cynics who, deep down, want to
believe in the transformative power of love. Oh, and alcoholics. Ostensibly
a darkly comic portrait of the friendship between the tortured divorcé Miles
(Paul Giamatti) and ladies’ man Jack (Thomas Haden Church), the film gathers
some romantic momentum when sad-sack Miles meets a fellow wine buff Maya
(Virginia Madsen). Maya’s treatise on her favourite grape varieties is a
devastatingly sexy coded message to hapless Miles; the film’s ending gives a
glimpse of hope to us all.
WENDY IDE
4 Say
Anything . . .
Cameron Crowe, 1989
I defy anyone not to melt at the scene where John Cusack serenades his former
sweetheart Ione Skye by playing Peter Gabriel’s In Your Eyes on
his ghetto-blaster beneath her window. And while Cusack’s choice of portable
stereo equipment certainly dates the movie, the story and the engaging
performances are as fresh as ever. A love story with integrity, this movie
sets a benchmark for high school romances that cinema all too rarely
reaches.
WENDY IDE
3 Brokeback
Mountain
Ang Lee, 2005
The emblematic quote, “I wish I knew how to quit you”, has become something of
a punchline now, thanks to the endless Brokeback parodies that
followed in the movie’s wake. Yet Lee’s film remains a sucker-punch
testament to the power of love against the odds (in this case two tough
hired hands, Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, who fall for each other). The
gay-bashing finale, plus the recent loss of Ledger, is a downer, but you’ll
certainly have plenty to talk about over starters.
KEVIN MAHER
2 Annie
Hall
Woody Allen, 1977
The course of true love never did run smooth, but in Allen’s wry comedy of
sexual manners it’s a minefield of neuroses. It’s perhaps counter-intuitive
that a film about the breakdown of a mismatched relationship between the
sarky pessimist Alvy Singer and ditsy Annie Hall should be such a terrific
date movie. But there’s something so joyfully transcendent about sharing the
pitch-perfect comedy of, for example, the lobster scene with a loved one
that you forget that Alvy and Annie’s romance was doomed and concentrate on
the quicksilver banter and mercurial wit.
"The
very best of friends": what The Times said in 1977
WENDY IDE
1 The
Philadelphia Story
George Cukor, 1940
A wedding movie before the concept became a cliché, and a rom-com before the
genre was invented, The Philadelphia Story is the original and the
definitive date flick. Genuine screen chemistry and rapid-fire badinage
abound, as the boozy reporter James Stewart, the smoothie exhusband Cary
Grant and the acridly witty bride-to-be Katharine Hepburn bicker, flirt and
smooch around a Long Island mansion on the eve of the latter’s society
wedding. Smart and romantic, without being saccharine, it is the giddy
mood-setter par excellence for any date.
KEVIN MAHER
