Last year greeted us with a barrage of delightful romantic comedies, including some memorable ones from Netflix such as Always Be My Maybeand Someone Great. But don't worry, 2020 will certainly keep up with that head-over-heels momentum. From classic teen love to wild murder mysteries, there's plenty of love to go around this year! Lana Condor is back at it in P.S. I Still Love Youas the dreamy-eyed Lara Jean of the To All the Boys trilogy. Issa Rae is also having a big year with love on screen, starring across from sexy leads such as Lakeith Stanfield in The Photographand Kumail Nanjiani in The Lovebirds.
While not all of these movies fall squarely in the romantic-comedy camp, they're the closest movies we have to fitting the bill in a cinematic landscape sorely lacking in traditional rom-coms.
1Elsewhere
The quirky indie movieElsewhere slipped under the radar this year, but it's available through video on demand. The story follows Aden Young as Bruno, a man still mourning the death of his wife. When his in-laws evict him, he moves back in with his parents and meets their new tenant, Marie (Parker Posey), who takes him by surprise.
Insecure's Issa Rae and Atlanta's Lakeith Stanfield (who is secretly in everything) star in the sweet Valentine's Day flick The Photograph. In the film, Rae plays Mae Morton, a woman who discovers a photograph in her estranged late mother's safe-deposit box, which then leads to a romance with Stanfield's Michael Block.
Release date: Feb. 14
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4Emma
Following in Gwyneth Paltrow's footsteps, Anya Taylor-Joy portrays the title character in the 2020 adaptation of Jane Austen's Emma. While fancifully playing matchmaker, Emma Woodhouse doesn't realise she's starting to fall for her neighbour George Knightley, who is played by Johnny Flynn.
Release date: Feb. 21
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5The Lovebirds
Part rom-com and part murder mystery, The Lovebirds feature Issa Rae (again!) and Kumail Nanjiani as a couple who are basically on cloud nine . . . until a man takes over their car and runs over a biker. Just watch the trailer, which goes from gooey to bonkers in less than 30 seconds.
Release date: April 3
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6The High Note
Image Source: Getty / Aaron J. Thornton/FilmMagic
Keen on another romantic musical comedy? Featuring Dakota Johnson, Tracee Ellis Ross, Ice Cube, and Bill Pullman, The High Note is being marketed as a love story set in the Los Angeles music industry.
Release date: May 8
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7The French Dispatch
Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch, a film that's inspired by The New Yorker, is currently being promoted as a romance, comedy, and drama. We don't know how much of the film will have those classic rom-com elements, but the cast is stacked nonetheless — keep an eye out for performances from Benicio Del Toro, Saoirse Ronan, Timothée Chalamet, and many others!
SNL's Kristen Wiig and her Bridesmaids cowriter Annie Mumolo star as BFFs in Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar. As the title suggests, the pair hit up Vista Del Mar in Florida, where they get caught up in romance as well as a villain's diabolical plan to kill everyone in town.
In Happiest Season, Kristen Stewart plays Abby, a woman planning to propose to her girlfriend (Mackenzie Davis) at her parents' annual holiday party, only realising her girlfriend hasn't come out to her conservative family yet. The cast is pretty stacked, featuring performances from Ana Gasteyer, Dan Levy, Aubrey Plaza, and more.
Right off Hustlersand the Super Bowl, Jennifer Lopez will star in Marry Me as a pop star who finds out that her husband-to-be cheated on her, so she picks a random guy (Owen Wilson) from the audience to wed instead. There's going to be a soundtrack from Lopez and Colombian singer Maluma as well!
Release date: TBA
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11Chemical Hearts
Image Source: Getty / Jon Kopaloff / Stringer
Riverdale's Lili Reinhart stars in this teen romance film based on Krystal Sutherland's novelOur Chemical Hearts. She plays a high-school transfer student who meets the editor of her school paper on the first day of school. (And of course, they learn a thing or two about love!)
The Prom is yet another one of Ryan Murphy's upcoming projects on Netflix. This time, he'll be taking the reins as director for this musical comedy starring Nicole Kidman, James Corden, Meryl Streep, Andrew Rannells, and Keegan-Michael Key. The premise of the story is that a group of musical-theatre veterans devote themselves to helping a lesbian couple in Edgewater, IN, go to prom.
