7 Best Valentine's Day Movies to Watch in 2024 | CinemaWorld Asia
This Valentine’s Day, CinemaWorld reminisces on the myriad ways that love can be expressed, felt and shared through the theme This must be love…
Love is complex – This must be love… is both a confirmation and a question. The 7 films selected with love by Team CinemaWorld reflect the multifaceted nature of love, showing both its tenderness and its uncertainties.
Whether they relive the awkward youthfulness of budding romance or rediscover the warmth of kinship, these 7 films will certainly tug at your heartstrings.
The Kiss (2022) – Denmark
"Where aesthethic and moral – the visually fantastic and the life affirming drama – come together in a larger, ubiquitous entity, a matchless filmic universe." – Bille August, Director's Statment
Not your fairy-tale love story, but a love story nevertheless.
Oscar and double Palme d’Or winning Danish director, Bille August, stuns with yet another beautifully tragic romance in The Kiss. Amidst the terrors of World War I in 1913 Denmark, a passionate yet ill-fated love blossoms between a young cavalry officer, Anton (played Esben Smed who also starred in August’s 2018 romance drama, A Fortunate Man), and a baron’s handicapped daughter, Edith (Clara Rosager). Pressured by social expectations and various voices around him, Anton becomes increasingly uncertain about the authenticity of his feelings that leads him down a spiral of false promises and guilt.
Love At First Fight (2014) – France
“... a guaranteed crowd-pleaser” – The Hollywood Reporter
French director Thomas Cailley’s award-winning first feature film reminisces the awkwardness and charms of young love between two polar opposite characters, Arnaud (Kévin Azaïs) and Madeleine (Adèle Haenel). After meeting one summer, the easy-going Arnaud follows the intense and apocalyptic Madeleine into an army boot camp where they are confronted by the tough military training. Against the unforgiving wilderness, the two learn the ways of love as they tread the uncertain grounds of adulthood.
Love At First Fight clinched an astonishing 6 nominations and 3 wins at the Cesar Awards 2015, including Best First Film, Best Actress and Most Promising Actor for Azaïs. At the Cannes Film Festival 2014, the film also secured 4 wins and 2 nominations.
Run To You (2022) – Italy
Can a serial womaniser fall in love? Run To You is a 2022 Italian Box Office Hit, starring Pierfrancesco Favino, the multi award-winning Italian actor whose impressive list of film credits include World War Z (2013), Angels & Demons (2009), Rush (2013) and The Traitor (2019).
Gianni, played by Favino, is a successful businessman who can seduce any woman he desires but soon finds his life overturned when he meets Chiara, a beautiful woman with paraplegia. An audience favourite on CinemaWorld, this Italian rom-com proves that love knows no bounds.
The Peace And Love Process (2022) – France
“The screenplay is impeccable, and Damien Bonnard and Camille Chamoux deliver one of their best performances ever.” – Sortir a Paris
“... it’s the story of a couple who are trying to hang on… to try to come through it, to go beyond themselves and do what it takes to make it work, rather than just giving up." – Ilan Klipper
Love isn’t always sunshine and roses. This French rom-com offers a candid take on a couple’s struggle with marriage and parenthood. Long past the rose-tinted, honeymoon stage of love, Marie (Camille Chamoux) and Simon (Damien Bonnard) are desperate to find a way to resolve their differences. By following a list of 10 rules, they attempt to save their marriage from falling apart – but they must work together through compromise and forgiveness.
The multi-talented French actress Chamoux, also the film’s writer, has starred in films such as Class Act, 6 Women and The Starry Sky Above Me. Fellow cast member, the actor and director Bonnard, was nominated Best Actor at the Cesar Awards 2020 for Les Misérables and again in 2022 for The Restless. His most recent acting feat is his role as The Father in the acclaimed Poor Things (2023) by Yorgos Lanthimos.
Standing Up For Sunny (2019) – Australia
Filled with witty humour and sweet romance, Standing Up For Sunny is the go-to feel-good film for your valentine’s day movie-night.
Travis, played by RJ Mitte (Breaking Bad), is a comedian with cerebral palsy who finds love with a bartender, Sunny (Philippa Northeast), when he comes to her defence before a heckler during a comedy night show. Light-hearted and refreshing, the simplicity of Travis’s and Sunny’s love makes you want to fall in love too.
The film won Best Indie Film at the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA) Awards in 2020.
Cloud Under The Roof (2022) – Germany
Love between a father-daughter duo lies at the core of this German drama. Based on the true story of screenwriter Chris Silber (Good Bye, Lenin!), Cloud Under The Roof is a cry of hope from the depths of grief.
When Paul’s wife, Julia, passes away suddenly, Paul is thrown into the double-role of father and mother to his young daughter, Lilly. Despite his overwhelming parental duties and problems at work, Paul and Lilly bond over their shared grief and learn to seek solace through family.
Their heart-warming father-daughter bond reminds us to send some love to those back at home this Valentine’s.
Paul is played by Frederick Lau who amongst multiple achievements, clinched Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role for Victoria (2015) at the German Film Awards 2015. Hannah Hersprung, who plays Julia, received the esteemed European Shooting Star award at the 2008 Berlin International Film Festival.
A Little Lesson in Love (2021) – France
With a hint of a taboo love affair, A Little Lesson In Love is a whimsical comedy about an unlikely coupling birthed through one woman’s (Laetitia Dosch) discovery of a troubling love letter written by a high school student to her charming teacher – played by Pierre Deladonchamps with notable roles in Eiffel (2021) and Notre Dame (2019).
Though vastly different, each film in Team CinemaWorld’s Valentine’s curation has something unique to say about love. From the most unexpected places – between lovers, friends, family and even strangers – fondness blossoms and grows, and we wonder to ourselves, this must be love…
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