Romantic comedy, aka "rom-com", is a genre in which the development of a romance leads to comic situations.
Since all it says on the tin is "love" and "laughs", the genre provides large meadows for the screenwriters to frolic in. Many writers have pushed and blurred the lines of romantic comedy.
Many rom-coms use a set of certain tropes. Many feature two more or less equal protagonists with one slightly more equal than the other. The story may start with one character being dumped/divorced/widowed. His/her friends and family urge him/her to find someone. The protagonist may agree to go on several blind dates. At some point, they meet our second protagonist. Usually, the second character isn't an obvious match for the first; maybe she's wild and crazy and he's a CPA. Or he's rich and she's poor. A romantic comedy usually provides a victory of love against all odds. A certain amount of overlap with Dramedy is not unusual. Romantic comedies in more recent years have made a concerted effort to subvert some parts of the genre where possible, present the story in a more down to earth or certainly less light and fluffy manner, add raunchier humor, more flawed characters and occasionally elements of self-deprecation, but in most of them there remains a large degree of audience-understood foregone conclusion.
Every story needs a conflict, and since rom-coms are driven by the quest for love, the conflict derives from the obstacles to the quest. This could be the apparent incompatibility of the leads: mutual Love at First Sight is rare. The two characters will spend a good part of the movie fighting their obvious attraction. Eventually, they'll realize they're perfect for each other. Or, something will pop up; maybe a Three's Company kind of misunderstanding, or a revelation in the third act about one of them lying. One of the two characters will storm off in a huff. Or the couple is already married for some reason, and the conflict comes partially from different expectations and misunderstandings.
The climax of a rom-com requires the satisfactory recognition of love: the other chases after the love interest and does something really romantic to win them back. The reconciliation scene ends with the two characters reunited in a romantic embrace. Often ends in a wedding.
Tropes typically employed in a romantic comedy are covered in:
- Attraction Tropes
- Flirting And Courtship Tropes
- Dating Tropes
- Love Tropes
- Sex Tropes
- Wedding and Engagement Tropes
- Marriage Tropes
The usual rom-com main characters are covered in Love Interests. Characters that often occupy the stratosphere around the rom-com protagonists include: Beta Couple, Deadpan Snarker, Pet Homosexual, Plucky Comic Relief. The main characters are typically employed in a Rom Com Job.
See also Romance Arc, Rule of Romantic, and compare with the Bromantic Comedy and Screwball Comedy. Often overlaps with Harem Genre, though those are not always comedic.
Examples
- Anime & Manga has its own sub-index.
- Best Of My Love is listed as this, with the twist that one half of the main couple (Meng Yao) is on the ace spectrum.
- Lampshaded in-universe by Mianmian, who comments that that was a romcom when she sees the two interact.
- Guys Being Dudes: The budding relationship between Spark and Arlo is the main source of humor throughout the fanfic and many common tropes to the genre are lampshaded.
- The Fanfic Knowledge is Power is theoretically this.
- Examples of the genre go all the way back to the silent era, including:
- Films of the Screwball Comedy subgenre of the 1930s-'40s were often these.
- Bringing Up Baby
- Carefree
- The Doctor Takes a Wife
- The Gay Divorcee
- Easy Living
- Hands Across the Table
- I'm Your Man (2021)
- It Happened One Night
- It's a Wonderful World
- It's Love I'm After
- Libeled Lady
- Love Before Breakfast
- Love Is News
- Midnight
- Mr and Mrs Smith
- My Man Godfrey
- Ninotchka
- Shall We Dance?
- Stand-In
- Theodora Goes Wild
- Top Hat
- His Girl Friday adds a curve in that the romantic protagonists are divorced as well as former boss and prize employee (editor and ace reporter). It's an otherwise faithful adaptation of the non-romantic comedy The Front Page, gender-flipping the original play's reporter from male to female to add a romance.
- 1951's Singin' in the Rain was one of the first throwbacks to this genre, set in the late 1920s.
- 1972's What's Up, Doc? was the first significant throwback to be set in the then-present day.
- Arthur (1981)
- Leatherheads
- The Runaway Bride strays deep into screwball territory, although it is more serious in some respects than most - the protagonists' psychological hang-ups are explored and e.g. the father's drinking problem is not done for laughs.
- Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day is a modern incarnation, but the threat of war on the horizon casts a shadow over all the gaiety.
- There are quite a few young adult books that follow this formula, Sarah Dessen's work being a good example. They usually are exactly like the countless movies in this genre, except that they take place in high school. Most of the common stereotypes of rom coms are translated into a high school setting, for example instead of them being not compatible the couple usually will be childhood friends, and usually the girl wants the most popular guy, but realizes she's in love with her best friend.
- Many of the Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers musicals. In addition to the ones mentioned under Screwball Comedy above:
- Every bleeding Kevin James vehicle save Grown Ups.
- Some of Woody Allen's films, most famously Annie Hall. He's more prone to the Bittersweet Ending than most.
- 10
- 10 Things I Hate About You (modernization of The Taming of the Shrew)
- 13 Going on 30
- 27 Dresses
- 40 Days and 40 Nights
- The 40-Year-Old Virgin
- 50 First Dates
- (500) Days of Summer is a deconstruction of the genre.
- About Last Night...
- Adam's Rib
- Addicted to Love
- After Eden
- Alex & Emma
- Along Came Polly
- Alto
- Always Be My Maybe
- Amélie has many elements of the romantic comedy; probably it's not considered so by most people because it's so original in terms of not only its story but also its art direction and acting that it's hard to associate it with the romcom's reputation of formula.
- Anastasia might not be a Romantic Comedy exactly but it does have Meg Ryan voicing the lead who has a typically sparky Rom Com like relationship with the love interest Dimitri (John Cusack). Possibly the closest analogue in animation to this genre, though romantic subplots in contemporary Western animation often invoke its tropes (consider the Shrek films).
- Annie Hall is a subversion in that it's a backward look at a romance that's ended.
- The Apartment is at once a subversion and a straight example of this.
- As Good as It Gets
- Ask Any Girl
- Asteroid City
- Avanti!
- The Bachelor
- Bachelor Mother
- The Back-up Plan
- Barbie (2023)
- Barefoot
- The Baxter
- Bell, Book and Candle
- The Best Man
- Bewitched
- Bicentennial Man
- The Big Sick
- The Big Wedding
- Black Cat, White Cat
- Blame It on Rio
- Blast from the Past
- Blind Date
- Boomerang
- Boxing Day
- The Boyfriend School
- Breakfast at Tiffany's
- The Break-Up is a rom-com with a difference: its Bittersweet Ending.
- Bride Wars
- The Broken Hearts Gallery
- The Callback Queen
- Carry On Loving
- Casanova (the 2005 film with Heath Ledger)
- Chalet Girl
- Chasing Liberty
- Chilly Scenes of Winter
- Christmas in Connecticut
- Cluny Brown
- Come Live with Me
- Confetti
- A Countess from Hong Kong
- Count Your Blessings
- Crazy Beautiful You
- Crazy, Stupid, Love
- Curly Top (a Shirley Temple vehicle where the two main adult characters fall in love)
- Dating the Enemy
- The Dead Inside
- Deep in the Valley
- Designing Woman
- Desk Set
- Desperados (2020)
- Destination Wedding
- The Devil and Miss Jones
- Did You Hear About the Morgans?
- Dirty Love
- The Divorce of Lady X
- Doc Hollywood
- Donovan's Reef
- Down with Love is a parody.
- Drinking Buddies is a rare example that examines the difficulties when you're already in a relationship, rather than simply capturing the beginning of one.
- Drive Me Crazy
- Dr. T & the Women
- Enough Said is a deconstruction of modern rom-coms.
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a deconstruction of the genre.
- The Ex-Mrs. Bradford
- Failure to Launch
- Father Goose
- A Fine Mess
- Fire Island
- The Five-Year Engagement
- The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas
- Flying Down to Rio
- Focus
- Fools Rush In
- A Foreign Affair
- Forgetting Sarah Marshall At least one review for this movie referred to it as a "romantic comedy for guys".
- For Love Or Money 1963
- Forsaking All Others
- The Four Seasons
- Frankie & Johnny
- French Kiss
- Friends with Benefits
- Friends with Kids
- The F Word
- Gigli
- Get Married If You Can
- Get Over It
- Get Your Man
- Ghosted (2023)
- Ghosts Can't Do It
- The Ghost Goes West
- Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
- The Girl Next Door
- Going the Distance
- Good Advice
- The Goodbye Girl
- A Good Year
- Gorgeous
- Government Girl
- Gray Matters
- Green Card
- Gregory's Girl
- Griff the Invisible
- Grumpy Old Men
- Happiest Season
- Happy Accidents
- Having Wonderful Time
- Heartbreakers
- The Heartbreak Kid (1972)
- The Heartbreak Kid (2007)
- Henry's Crime
- He Said, She Said
- He's All That
- He's Just Not That into You
- Hitch
- Holiday
- The Holiday
- Holiday Affair
- Honeymoon in Vegas
- Housesitter
- How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days: With Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey, how could it go wrong?
- How to Marry a Millionaire
- How to Talk to Girls at Parties
- I Could Never Be Your Woman
- I Don't Want to Be a Man
- If a Man Answers
- I Feel Pretty
- I Give It a Year is a twist on the concept in that the story is about the main couple realizing they are not meant for each other, and end up paired with characters that in any other story would be the Romantic False Lead.
- I Know Where I'm Going!
- I Love Trouble
- I Love You Again
- I Love You Phillip Morris is a gay-romantic dramedy.
- I Married a Witch
- Imagine Me & You
- In The Good Old Summertime - The Shop Around the Corner re-imagined as a musical.
- Intolerable Cruelty
- IQ - Meg Ryan again, as Albert Einstein's (probably historically inaccurate) niece, with Tim Robbins as an auto mechanic who winds up with Uncle Albert (hilariously played by Walter Matthau) and his buddies trying to help him get her away from her stuffy psychologist fiance (played by Stephen Fry).
- Irma la Douce
- The Irony of Fate
- Isn't It Romantic
- It Could Happen to You
- I Think I Do (1997)
- I Think I Love My Wife
- It's Complicated
- It Should Happen to You - Jack Lemmon's first feature-film, and Judy Holliday in a great Dumb Blonde role.
- I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With: A bit of a twist on it as the point is that the guy does not get the girl.
- I Want You Back
- Jane Wants a Boyfriend
- Jeffrey
- Jexi
- John Loves Mary
- Julia Misbehaves
- Just Friends
- Just Go with It
- Just Like Heaven
- Just Married
- Just My Luck
- Just the Way You Are
- Kate & Leopold
- Keeping the Faith
- Keep the Change (2017)
- The Kissing Booth
- The Kissing Booth 2
- The Kissing Booth 3
- Kissing A Fool
- Kissing Jessica Stein
- Knocked Up
- Lady and the Tramp was basically a Disneyfied take on the traditional rom-com story, and judging how famous and homaged the movie is more than 60 years later, it worked out pretty well.
- Laggies
- The Last of Mrs. Cheney
- Laws of Attraction
- Leap Year
- Life After Beth
- Life as We Know It
- A Life Less Ordinary
- Little Black Book
- The Little Hut
- Little Manhattan
- Little Nicky
- Long Shot
- Look Both Ways (2022)
- Lost & Found (1999)
- The Lost City is an Affectionate Parody of Mills and Boon-style romance novels as well as pulpy adventure stories; a novelist specializing in adventure-themed romance books gets kidnapped by a billionaire who wants her expertise to help find a lost treasure, the cover model for her books comes to save her and they start falling in love.
- Love Actually: Multiple love stories going on around Christmastime in London. Stars Hugh Grant, Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson, Liam Neeson, Bill Nighy, and some other people.
- Slightly unique in that a few of the couples didn't get together.
- Love Again
- Love at the Christmas Table
- Love Birds
- Love Bites combines this with Vampire Fiction.
- Love Hard
- Love in the Afternoon
- Love in the Villa
- Love Me Tonight
- The Lovebirds
- The Love Parade
- Love Potion Number Nine
- Loves Labours Lost: Kenneth Branagh's version of Love's Labour's Lost, which cross-breeds the original text with the songs and style of 1930s movie musicals.
- Made of Honor
- Magic in the Moonlight
- The Magical Christmas Tree
- Maid in Manhattan with Jennifer Lopez— is "Cinderella"-derived; she's poor, he's rich, obviously.
- The Major and the Minor Starring Ginger Rogers and Ray Milland. Billy Wilder's directorial debut.
- Make-Out with Violence is absolutely heartwarming.
- Mannequin
- Man Up
- The Marriage Chronicles
- Marriage on the Rocks
- The Marrying Kind
- Marry Me (2010)
- Marry Me (2022)
- The Mermaid
- A Mermaid In Paris
- Mickey Blue Eyes
- Micki & Maude
- Milk Money
- Min & Max
- Monster-in-Law
- Monte Carlo (1930)
- Monte Carlo (2011)
- Moon over Parador
- Moonstruck
- The More the Merrier
- Morning Glory it's mostly a comedy about Rachel McAdams working as the producer of a morning show, but it still gets categorized as a chick flick. Like IQ, it's story is bigger than just the romance.
- Moscow on the Hudson
- Mr. Right
- Much Ado About Nothing (1993): 1993 film adaptation of the play.
- Much Ado About Nothing (2012): 2012 film adaptation of the play.
- Must Love Dogs
- My Best Friend's Wedding
- My Big Fat Greek Wedding
- My Blue Heaven: The subplot of this movie has Barney Coopersmith and Hannah Stubbs, an FBI agent and a police officer respectively meet with Belligerent Sexual Tension, and as the movie progresses, they fall in love. He even spends the night at her house and throws out her ex-husband the next morning.
- My Boss's Daughter
- My Sassy Girl
- My Super Ex-Girlfriend
- My Worst Nightmare
- Never Been Kissed
- New in Town
- New Year's Eve
- No Strings Attached (2011)
- Notting Hill
- The Object of My Affection
- Obvious Child
- One Touch of Venus
- Only You
- Out at the Wedding about a woman who pays a lesbian to act as her fiancee when she gets caught up in a white lie involving her family.
- Out to Sea
- Overnight Delivery
- Paperback Hero
- Paris When It Sizzles
- Parting Glances a gay film set in New York during the height of the AIDS crisis. Notable for not killing off any of its characters and for being Steve Buscemis feature film debut.
- Penelope (1966)
- Personal Property
- Phffft!!
- The Philadelphia Story
- Pillow Talk
- Pizza My Heart
- Playing It Cool
- Populaire
- Pretty Woman
- Prime (2005)
- The Prince & Me
- The Prince and the Showgirl
- Prince Charming
- Princess O'Rourke
- Promise Her Anything
- The Proposal
- The Quiet Man
- The Rebound
- The Rewrite
- Remember the Night
- Return to Me: David Duchovny plays Bob, an architect whose wife dies in a car crash. Minnie Driver plays Grace, who has a heart transplant early on. About a year later, Grace is waiting tables at her grandfather's restaurant when Bob shows up on an abysmal blind date. Bob and Grace click and all seems to be going well, until Grace finds out just who her heart donor was... Carroll O'Connor (yes, a.k.a. Archie Bunker) gives a solid supporting performance in his final role, playing Grace's kindly grandfather, who proves quite helpful to both parties.
- Roman Holiday
- Rosaline: A humorous take on Romeo and Juliet, where the otherwise shrewish Rosaline falls in love with a rugged suitor.
- Roxanne
- Runaway Bride
- Rye Lane
- Sabrina (1954)
- Sabrina (1995)
- Sam: A Gender Bender romantic comedy in which a Handsome Lech is transformed into a woman, only to develop romantic feelings for his best friend.
- Sam the Man
- Save the Date (2012)
- Saving Face
- Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: a romcom-action Film in which a young man must defeat a womans evil ex-lovers to win her heart.
- Second Act
- Serendipity. It was in fact marketed with this tag line: "Destiny with a sense of humor."
- Serving Sara
- Set It Up
- The Seven Year Itch
- Sex and the Single Girl
- Shakespeare in Love: Shakespeare's own life got fictionalized for Shakespeare In Love.
- Shallow Hal
- Shaun of the Dead is a "romantic comedy with zombies". (A "Rom-Zom-Com", if you will.)
- She's All That
- She's Dating the Gangster
- She's Out of My League
- She's the Man (inspired by Twelfth Night)
- The Shop Around the Corner
- Shotgun Wedding
- Sierra Burgess is a Loser
- Single All the Way
- Singles
- Sin Takes a Holiday
- Skin Deep
- Sleeping With Other People
- Sleepless in Seattle - Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. A kid calls a radio talk show looking for someone to date his widowed dad and a woman on the other side of the country tunes in. She gradually becomes Genre Savvy and finally meets him at the end of the film.
- Smiles of a Summer Night says right after the title: "en romantisk komedi av INGMAR BERGMAN."note Yes, that Ingmar Bergman.
- Somebody I Used to Know
- Something Borrowed
- Something's Gotta Give
- Spin Me Round
- Splash
- Splash Too
- Straight Up
- Strange Bedfellows
- The Strawberry Blonde
- Summer Lovers
- The Sure Thing
- The Swan
- The Sweetest Thing
- Sweet Home Alabama
- Swept Away
- Swiped
- Teacher's Pet (1958)
- The Test (2012)
- That Touch of Mink
- There's Something About Mary
- They Came Together: A film parodying several tropes typical of this genre.
- Think Like a Man: In which Steve Harvey releases a book telling women how men think, women read, and men react.
- Third Finger, Left Hand
- This is the Night
- Three to Tango
- Ticket to Paradise
- A Ticklish Affair
- TiMER
- Tin Cup
- To All the Boys I've Loved Before
- Too Many Husbands
- Tootsie
- Too Young to Kiss
- Trainwreck
- Trouble in Paradise
- The Truth About Cats & Dogs
- Two-Faced Woman
- Two Weeks Notice (the quintessential Hugh Grant romantic comedy, stars Sandra Bullock, another Rom Com staple)
- The Ugly Truth: Stars Gerard Butler as a foul-mouthed, sexist TV personality and Katherine Heigl as his producer.
- Vacation from Marriage
- Valentine's Day
- View from the Top
- Virtual Sexuality
- The Voice of the Turtle
- Walk, Don't Run
- Walking on Sunshine
- Wedding Season
- The Wedding Singer: One of Adam Sandler's most critically acclaimed movies.
- Wedding Wars
- The Wedding Year
- What's Love Got to Do with It? (2022)
- What's Your Number?
- What Women Want
- When Harry Met Sally... was far from the first Romantic Comedy; it was filmed in 1989. But it has wit and humor and a nice soul, and as such is generally regarded as the model for the genre.
- When in Rome
- While You Were Sleeping
- Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed?
- Why Be Good? is a silent film from 1929 that has many elements that would later be associated with Romantic Comedies. Misunderstandings galore!
- Why Him?
- Wimbledon
- Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!
- With Six You Get Eggroll
- The Woman in Red
- Woman of the Year
- Working Girl
- You've Got Mail - Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan again. This time she runs a small bookshop, he's one of the owner/execs of a big bookstore chain threatening Meg's store, and while they're hostile in real life, they're close friends online. A remake of a the Jimmy Stewart movie, The Shop Around the Corner (1940).
- Zerophilia
- About a Boy
- The Kiss Quotient
- Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, where Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy start out acting contemptuously toward one another. Given the conventions of Romantic comedy, isn't the ultimate outcome of their relationship inevitable?
- The Bold Type
- Butterflies
- Cinderella Chef
- The Eternal Love combines this genre with Time Travel and Sharing a Body.
- The Eternal Love 2
- The Eternal Love 3
- Go Princess Go combines this genre with Time Travel and gender-bending.
- Hold The Sunset
- The King 2 Hearts
- The Last Empress
- Love O2O
- Manhattan Love Story is a Romantic Comedy TV series.
- No Tomorrow
- Sirene
- W Two Worlds
- Cactus Flower
- The Importance of Being Earnest
- In the '50s musical comedy Kiss Me, Kate, the divorced protagonists falling back in love are, respectively, the director and leading lady in a modern adaptation of an earlier example of the Romantic Comedy genre, Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew.
- A Midsummer Night's Dream and several other William Shakespeare plays.
- The Moon is Blue
- Much Ado About Nothing: Old school Romantic Comedy.
- Doki Doki Literature Club!, though the story goes through an abrupt genre shift to psychological horror partway through.
- Groovy, Kinda Is a webcomic that follows Larry Pye, his girlfriend Edison Lighthouse, and Anya Langerak as they try to make a three way relationship work.
- Let's Get Divorced!
- Let's Play
- Ojisan And Marshmallow
- See You in My 19th Life
- Til Debt Do Us Part
- To Love Your Enemy