12 Must-Watch Rom-Com Movies on Netflix Right Now (May 2025)

Tom (Jason Segel) and Violet (Emily Blunt) already love each other and are engaged, but they can’t quite commit to taking the next step — actually getting married. Violet’s fledgling academic career forces them to move from California to Michigan, which causes Tom to give up a position as head chef at a fancy San Francisco restaurant. As the years pass, their engagement soon feels like a prison sentence. Will Tom and Violet ever walk down the aisle? Or will they break off what is seemingly a never-ending engagement?

This sweet rom-com boasts great chemistry between leads Segel and Blunt as well as supporting actors Alison Brie and Chris Pratt, who play another couple who quickly marry and have children, much to Tom and Violet’s annoyance. The Five-Year Engagement is a love story made for those who like their rom-coms a little more realistic than others. Its humor isn’t silly, but rooted in the very real frustrations that arise in a long-lasting relationship.

Nick Evans (Damon Wayans Jr.) is looking for love in all the wrong places. He subscribed to an online dating website called Love, Guaranteed to find companionship, and despite going on over 1,000 dates he’s still single and lonely. Fed up, he hires lawyer Susan Whitaker (Rachel Leigh Cook) to sue them for false advertising, but as the two work on the case they fall for each other. Is love guaranteed for Nick if he pursues Susan? 

Like most 2020 movies, Love, Guaranteed was overshadowed by COVID and lockdown drama. It deserves some love, though, due to its charming leads and unique plot. Everyone can relate to Nick’s frustrations with online dating, and the movie uses that as a way to bring its two reluctant lovebirds together. Love, Guaranteed also gives Wayans Jr. a rare lead role to show off his amazing comedic skills, which most fans of the cult TV show Happy Endings are already acutely aware of and appreciate. 

Lanie Kerrigan (Angelina Jolie) is a successful Seattle news reporter whose life is forever changed when she interviews a homeless prophet who predicts her imminent death. Initially skeptical, Lanie soon believes he’s right and begins to reassess what’s really important to her. That many include cameraman Pete (Edward Burns), who pushes aside his frosty feelings for her to become a source of comfort. Romance blossoms between them, but is it enough to save Lanie’s life?

Life or Something Like It isn’t a rom-com classic like Notting Hill or Two Weeks Notice, but it will satisfy those who want a stereotypical opposites attract romance with a happy ending. You don’t see Jolie make these movies anymore, and she shows a real talent for balancing light comedy with serious romance. It’s a role only a star could make work, and Jolie single-handedly makes the movie worth watching.

Amy Townsend’s (Amy Schumer) life is indeed a trainwreck — she drinks too much, has casual sex just a little too casually and has unresolved daddy issues that still haunt her as an adult. When she meets Dr. Aaron Conners (Bill Hader), though, Amy sees an opportunity to not only improve herself but to genuinely love someone else without the aid of alcohol. However, old habits die hard, and Amy’s past mistakes and bad habits may doom her future with Aaron.

Trainwreck isn’t your typical rom-com — it’s a bit dirtier than, say, your average Sandra Bullock movie, and it probes some serious issues about parental neglect and childhood trauma. But it’s also very funny, with Schumer in top form as a foul-mouthed columnist who views men like Clue’s Mrs. White — they’re soft, strong and completely disposable. The movie has one of the oddest casts ever, with Tilda Swinton, Brie Larson, Ezra Miller, John Cena, Daniel Radcliffe and LeBron James all popping up throughout it. 

Lucy (Lucy Hale) hates Josh (Austin Stowell), and the feeling is mutual. But when their respective publishing companies merge, forcing them to work closely with each other, they make a pact: whoever gets a promotion first stays, while the other has to quit. But their agreement is complicated by their growing affection for each other, turning their hating game into a love connection that neither one is prepared to make.

The Hating Game, based on Sally Thorne’s bestselling novel, doesn’t rewrite the rom-com playbook so much as it faithfully follows it step by step. In this instance, that’s OK as Hale and Stowell are entertaining as enemies who become friends who want to become something more. The movie is a wish-fulfillment fantasy — the world of publishing isn’t romantic at all — but it’s light and fun without being offensively bad. 

Eric (Scott Foley) is a fiftysomething widower who isn’t looking for love. But when he travels to Italy to help his daughter purchase and renovate a neglected villa, he soon falls for the town’s charismatic mayor, Francesca (Violante Placido). Can he learn to love again? And will Francesca, who also lost her spouse, reciprocate Eric’s feelings?

La Dolce Villa doesn’t leave much doubt about the outcome, but what it lacks in originality, it more than makes up for in charm. Foley and Placido are great at playing middle-aged lovers wary of finding romance again and the film’s Tuscan locations are pretty to look at. La Dolce Villa combines love and real estate in a glossy package, and it’s one of the better Netflix original rom-coms on the streaming service.

Pride & Prejudice is typically categorized as a costume drama, but it’s actually one of the first — and best — rom-com stories ever written. Jane Austen’s classic novel has been adapted plenty of times over the years, but this 2005 iteration ranks as the best. It’s alive and vital in a way few period movies are, and lead star Keira Knightley gives one of her best performances ever as Elizabeth Bennet, the prototype for all the genre’s single ladies looking to put a ring on it.

It’s the early 19th century in England, and Mr. and Mrs. Bennet are looking to marry their five daughters to socially appropriate and financially secure suitors. One of them, Mr. Darcy (Matthew Macfadyen), is initially drawn to Jane and can’t stand Elizabeth. But as time passes and each daughter finds a husband, Elizabeth and Darcy realize their mutual hatred for one another hides a dormant desire that proves impossible to ignore. Can they find their happily ever after? Or will their stubbornness ruin what could be a long and lasting love affair?

Eat Pray Love, eat your heart out! In Lonely Planet, yet another older woman travels abroad and finds unexpected romance. In this movie, that woman is Katherine Lowe (Laura Dern), who ventures to a beautiful Moroccan resort for a writer’s retreat. Once there, she bonds with Owen (Liam Hemsworth), a finance bro who is there with his novelist girlfriend, Lily (Diana Silvers). As their connection deepens, Katherine and Owen’s friendship turns into something more, but can they overcome their differences to allow a romance to blossom?

Lonely Planet isn’t all that original, but it makes up for it by casting Dern and Hemsworth in the lead roles. Dern isn’t your typical rom-com star, and she gives her character a nice edge that makes Katherine more interesting to watch. Hemsworth is pretty to look at, and he convincingly showcases Owen’s softer side that could pull in a woman like Katherine.  

It wouldn’t be a best rom-com list without Sandra Bullock. The actress first made her mark in the genre with 1995’s While You Were Sleeping, but Two Weeks Notice is probably her best one. She stars as Lucy Kelson, a brilliant lawyer who is fed up working for her boss, selfish real estate tycoon George Wade (Hugh Grant). She gives her two weeks’ notice, but when faced with a life that doesn’t include Lucy, George realizes his feelings for her go beyond the professional.

No one can play a cad quite like Grant, and he’s particularly exasperating and charming as the narcissistic George. But he makes you see why Lucy likes him, and Bullock convinces you her liberal lawyer could fall for someone like him. It’s a classic love/hate relationship that makes Two Weeks Notice worth watching.

Fresh off a bad breakup, Alice (Dakota Johnson) moves to New York City to live with her doctor sister, Meg (Leslie Mann). She begins her new single life by befriending wild Australian party girl Robin (Rebel Wilson) and womanizing bartender Tom (Anders Holm). Together, they navigate the occasional highs and frequent lows of modern dating in a big city.

When it was released in 2016, How to Be Single was dismissed by some as a shallow Sex and the City clone, but time’s been kinder to it. Johnson is great as the indecisive Alice, and Mann has one of her best roles as the older sister who isn’t as wise as Alice thinks she is. Wilson provides the Bridesmaids-style laughs, while all of the NYC locations will make you want to move there. 

Now known as Deadpool and/or Blake Lively’s husband, Ryan Reynolds in 2008 was just another actor looking for rom-com gold. He found it in Definitely, Maybe, a movie that’s better than it has any right to be. Reynolds is Will Hayes, a successful advertising exec who is going through a divorce. His 10-year-old daughter Maya (Amber Breslin) wants to know how her parents met, and Will proceeds to tell her about not one, not two, but three special women in his life: Summer (Rachel Weisz), Emily (Elizabeth Banks) and April (Isla Fisher).

Who is Sarah’s mother? And which one is Will still smitten with? Definitely, Maybe keeps you guessing, and it’s a genuine surprise to find out who is who. Reynolds pulls off the difficult task of having great chemistry with all three female leads, and he’s a surprisingly convincing dad, too. (He was still in his Van Wilder era in ‘08.) The movie wins you over honestly, and it’s a keeper.

Cyrano de Bergerac gets a modern update in The Half of It, the rare teen rom-com that eschews cheap humor and plays it relatively straight. (Well, sort of.) Bookish Ellie (Leah Lewis) likes the beautiful Aster (Alexxis Lemire) but is too shy to do anything about it. Inarticulate jock Paul (Daniel Diemer) likes Aster too, and convinces Ellie to write love letters and texts for him to send to Aster. Love connections are made, but not in the way any of them imagined, and a complicated love triangle soon becomes something messier and meaningful as each teen learns hard lessons about growing up.

The Half of It doesn’t star anyone you’d know, and maybe that’s why it feels so authentic. There have been riffs on this kind of story before, but few have been this affecting. The unlikely friendship between Ellie and Paul is given as much space and depth as the romance between Ellie and Aster, making The Half of It a memorable rom-com about the power of love and friendship. Most of the time, you need both in life, and the movie argues that you can find them with the people you’d least expect.