Matthew McConaughey. Heath Ledger. Tom Hanks. Hugh Grant. You’d be hard-pressed to find an A-list actor in the ’80s, ’90s or early aughts who didn’t dip his toe in the rom-com pool. Films like You’ve Got Mail, Notting Hill and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days dominated the film landscape, garnering box office success, critical acclaim and guaranteed “It Boy” status for anyone playing the complicated and/or misunderstood knight in shining armor.
But the 2010s brought about a major drought for the genre. Raunchy sex comedies — No Strings Attached and Bad Teacher, for example — replaced earnest romance, love stories that were once celebrated became a premise for parody and just the whisper of the term “rom-com” had the most serious actors running for the hills.
There were, of course, a few breakaway hits, like Emma Stone’s 2010 female-forward Easy A, or 2011’s Crazy, Stupid, Love (featuring Ryan Gosling’s crazy, stupid abs). But mostly, the landscape was dotted with low-budget attempts that were DOA.
It wasn’t until 2018 that a new romantic hero emerged. Glen Powell defied the odds with a breakthrough performance in the criminally underrated Netflix rom-com Set It Up opposite Zoey Deutch. Five years later, he remained loyal to his roots with 2023’s box office juggernaut Anyone But You. The movie, loosely based on Much Ado About Nothing, surpassed Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 Romeo + Juliet as the highest-grossing Shakespeare adaptation of all time (take that, Leo!). That same year, Powell had Hit Man, which — despite its lack of a nationwide theatrical run — earned him Golden Globe and Critics’ Choice nominations. Two months later, he delivered yet another blockbuster romance with Twisters.
Rom-Coms You Forgot About and Need to Watch Right Now
When it comes to the secret sauce of rom-com success, the actor has said that two things are necessary: fun and chemistry. Powell, of course, is one of those amalgamations who seems to create fireworks with all his leading ladies — Sydney Sweeney, Adria Arjona and Daisy Edgar-Jones, to name a few — but also understands the impact a well-executed romantic comedy can have on pop culture at large. Now other actors are following suit, once again dying to sink their teeth into these once-avoided roles.
When Renée Zellweger returned as Bridget Jones in last year’s Mad About the Boy, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Leo Woodall — two of today’s most in-demand actors — played her love interests. This summer, Pedro Pascal and Chris Evans fight for Dakota Johnson’s heart in Celine Song’s latest venture, Materialists, centered on a complicated love triangle that has spawned endless online conversations.
Younger rising stars also want in on the romantic action. Tom Blyth said he was “actively looking and reading a lot of rom-com scripts” just months before being cast as the lead in the adaptation of Emily Henry’s bestseller People We Meet on Vacation. And Dylan O’Brien confessed that he’d love to be part of a rom-com after growing up in an age where studios “put money” into the genre. “And then I also watched them go extinct, so to see them start to come back, it’s great,” he said while teasing the possibility of starring in another one of Henry’s upcoming films.
So who do we thank for the rom-com resurgence? Kate Hudson said during a 2024 appearance on The View that sparking interest is about “investing” in the right story, so perhaps Hollywood was listening. Others (like me) may credit Powell and Gosling for sticking by the genre despite its years of unpopularity, or the increase in book-to-screen adaptations that have a guaranteed built-in audience and ready-made source material. Perhaps life has become so hard, sweet escapism is what we crave most these days.
It doesn’t really matter why it’s happening — it’s just good news that it’s happening! Whoever you are, love remains a universal experience. It meets us where we are. Whether that’s healing from heartbreak, navigating our first real romance or finding the courage to try again, there is a rom-com for every person’s story. And that is something worth being a part of.
