As published in Bravo Magazine

If you survived the first Friday the 13th of 2026 and are not exactly in the mood for Carnival street parties, balls, or parades, and would rather spend Valentine’s Day — the “day of lovers” everywhere except Brazil — in a more contemplative mode, I have a suggestion: ten films to comfort your heart. Because something is revealing about the fact that, in a world saturated with real-time catastrophes, anxious algorithms, and endless arguments, the genre that has returned to console us is precisely the one that for years was dismissed as “minor.”

Romantic comedies never fully disappeared, but they were displaced from theaters to streaming, from the grandeur of multiplexes to the intimacy of the couch, and in that shift, they found a new purpose. Today, watching a comfort rom-com is not merely entertainment. It is a form of cultural self-care.

These films demand little effort, promise no aesthetic reinvention, and aspire to no prestige. They offer something rarer: emotional predictability with charm. We know the characters will drift apart, we know they will hurt each other, we know they will find their way back. And yet we want to watch. Perhaps precisely because we know.

For a contemporary Valentine’s Day — which may be romantic, melancholic, solitary, or simply exhausting — this is a selection of recent romantic comedies, or ones still vivid in the collective imagination, perfect for watching without anxiety, cynicism, or guilt.

Anyone But You (2023) — Amazon Prime Video

Probably the genre’s biggest recent theatrical success, driven by the chemistry between Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell and a viral social media campaign. It is a classic romantic comedy wrapped in contemporary aesthetics and explicit sexuality, fully aware that its audience has grown up.

The Idea of You (2024) — Amazon Prime Video

An adult romance about female desire, fame, and age-gap relationships that treats its characters with surprising delicacy. Anne Hathaway delivers a vulnerable, luminous performance, transforming what could have been pure escapist fantasy into something emotionally recognizable.

People We Meet on Vacation (2024) — Netflix

The friends-to-lovers archetype is framed by travel, nostalgia, and shared time. Ideal for those who believe that the deepest love grows from intimacy built slowly rather than from lightning-strike encounters. Not flawless, but you know what? It works.

Materialists (2025) — HBO Max

A rom-com that directly engages with the contradictions of love in the age of emotional capitalism. Part love triangle, part social commentary, it examines desire, status, and compatibility as a kind of negotiation — more sophisticated than comforting, yet deeply contemporary.

What Happens Later (2023) — Netflix

The queen of the genre, Meg Ryan, returns to the territory she helped define, now with the soft melancholy of someone who understands that love is also memory and lost possibility. Less frenetic and more contemplative, it plays almost like an elegy for classic rom-coms.

Imperfectly Perfect (2026) — Disney+

Created by acclaimed writer-director James L. Brooks and starring Emma Mackey, the film follows Ella McCay, a young woman whose professional life reaches a new peak just as her family conflicts become impossible to ignore. It relies less on escapist formulas and more on the emotional complexities of real life, where love, ambition, and responsibility rarely move in harmony.

Eternity (2026) — Apple TV+

A contemplative romance that examines love through the lens of time and permanence. Less lighthearted, but deeply comforting in its belief that certain connections endure beyond circumstance.

My Oxford Year (2025) — Netflix

A university romance with a bittersweet tone and European atmosphere. More emotional than comedic, yet deeply comforting in its delicate predictability.

Letters to Juliet (2010) — Netflix

Travel, Italian landscapes, and the irresistible idea that love can span decades. A modern classic of romantic escapism. The story is charming, but do you know what I love most? It was during this on-screen reunion that Vanessa Redgrave and Franco Nero fell in love again, more than 40 years after first dating. Yes — they married, at ages 69 and 65, and have been together ever since. Life imitating art, and a perfect justification for including this film on the list.

Jane Austen Wrecked My Life (2024) — Apple TV+

A literary, self-aware romantic comedy about expectations shaped by classic novels. By playing with the myth of Austenian perfection, the film questions how fiction influences — and sometimes sabotages — contemporary romantic life.