Not all love stories begin with a charming first encounter. In some of the finest ones, the two leads can hardly bear sharing a room, and that is precisely what makes the ending land so powerfully. From old Hollywood classics to recent hits, here are 15 best haters-to-lovers movies of all time:
15. The Proposal (2009)
Margaret Tate is a ruthless book editor facing deportation to Canada. To stay in the country, she forces her overworked assistant, Andrew (Ryan Reynolds), to pose as her fiancé. A weekend with his family in Alaska is where the fake relationship starts getting uncomfortably real.
Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds make the boss-versus-assistant dynamic work, and Betty White steals scenes as Andrew’s grandmother. The Proposal earned more than $317 million worldwide, making it one of the most successful romantic comedies of the late 2000s.
14. Anyone But You (2023)
Bea (Sydney Sweeney) and Ben (Glen Powell) share a great first date, then Bea overhears a remark that ruins everything. Months later, they end up at the same destination wedding in Australia and agree to pretend they’re a couple to keep the peace with their friends and family.
Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney have good chemistry, and director Will Gluck loosely based the story on Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. The film started modestly but kept climbing through word of mouth, eventually earning an impressive $220 million on a roughly $25 million budget.
13. Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005)
John and Jane Smith are a married couple stuck in boredom, and unbeknownst to one another, both work as assassins. Their agencies send them after each other, and the situation quickly turns chaotic. What ensues is a fight that is destructive yet oddly romantic, filled with bullets, grenades, and a house left in ruins.
The on-screen chemistry between Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie became a major talking point while the film was being made, and their real-life romance was all over the tabloids. The movie earned nearly $490 million around the world, making it one of director Doug Liman’s biggest successes.
12. The Notebook (2004)
Allie is a wealthy teenager spending the summer in a small South Carolina town. Noah is a local laborer who pursues her so stubbornly that he hangs from a Ferris wheel until she agrees to a date. The two argue as often as they flirt.
Off screen, Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams reportedly clashed during filming, though it didn’t hurt their chemistry, and they later dated for a couple of years. The film earned over $115 million and became a favorite for rewatches.
11. You’ve Got Mail (1998)
Joe Fox runs a chain of book superstores, and Kathleen Kelly owns the small children’s bookshop he’s about to put out of business. In person, they can barely tolerate each other. Online, they’re anonymous pen pals who share their feelings without knowing who’s on the other end.
Directed by Nora Ephron, the film reunited Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan after Sleepless in Seattle. It’s also a loose remake of the 1940 classic The Shop Around the Corner.
10. 10 Things I Hate About You (1999)
Bianca isn’t allowed to date until her sharp-tongued older sister, Kat, does. So new student Cameron and his friend Michael get Joey Donner to pay the brooding Patrick Verona to take Kat out. Kat sees right through him, but hate slowly turns into something else.
Loosely based on Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, the film helped make Heath Ledger a name in Hollywood. His serenade of “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” in front of a marching band remains one of the most loved teen movie moments.
9. Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001)
Bridget Jones is a lovably disorganized singleton who reconnects with the stiff, snobbish lawyer Mark Darcy at a family gathering, where an unfortunate remark of his makes her cringe. While she juggles a disastrous fling with her boss, Daniel Cleaver, she slowly learns who Darcy really is.
The story is a modern retelling of Pride & Prejudice. Colin Firth, who had played Mr. Darcy in the 1995 BBC adaptation, was cast as Mark Darcy, which was a knowing wink. Renée Zellweger earned an Oscar nomination for Best Actress.
8. Romancing the Stone (1984)
Joan Wilder writes romance novels but has never really lived one. When her sister is kidnapped in Colombia, she travels there and teams up with Jack Colton, an adventurer who’s mostly interested in the money. They bicker through jungles, mudslides, and gunfire before realizing they make a pretty good team.
Robert Zemeckis directed the film shortly before his breakthrough with Back to the Future. Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner were so well received that they returned for a sequel, The Jewel of the Nile, a year later.
7. Much Ado About Nothing (1993)
Benedick and Beatrice trade insults like it’s a sport. Their friends, tired of the nonsense, trick each of them into believing the other is secretly in love. Kenneth Branagh directed and starred as Benedick, with Emma Thompson, his wife at the time, as Beatrice.
Shot in Tuscany, the cast also included Denzel Washington, Keanu Reeves, Michael Keaton, and Kate Beckinsale. Shakespeare wrote the play in the 1590s, and its central couple still sets the template for the trope.
6. Pride & Prejudice (2005)
Elizabeth Bennet makes up her mind to dislike Mr. Darcy the instant she overhears him describe her as merely tolerable at a ball. His pride and her prejudice take up the bulk of the film before they are sorted out, and neither party is inclined to yield readily.
Jane Austen’s novel was adapted for the screen by Deborah Moggach and directed by Joe Wright, and the resulting film received four Oscar nominations, among them Best Actress for Keira Knightley, who was just 20 years old at the time. The proposal in the misty dawn and Matthew Macfadyen’s celebrated hand flex are still counted among the most beloved scenes the genre has to offer.
5. When Harry Met Sally (1989)
Harry and Sally share a long car ride from Chicago to New York right after college and get on each other’s nerves the entire way. Harry insists men and women can’t be friends, and Sally can’t stand it. They keep running into each other over the next twelve years.
Written by Nora Ephron and directed by Rob Reiner, the film is best known for the deli scene where Sally fakes an orgasm. The punchline of that scene was delivered by Reiner’s own mother, Estelle.
4. The African Queen (1951)
Charlie Allnut is a gin-soaked riverboat captain in German East Africa during World War I. Rose Sayer is a prim missionary who persuades him to take his rickety boat down a dangerous river to attack a German warship. Their constant arguments give way to real affection somewhere between the rapids and the leeches.
Humphrey Bogart won the only Academy Award of his career for the role, and Katharine Hepburn was nominated too. John Huston shot much of the film on location in Africa, and Hepburn later wrote an entire memoir about the chaotic production.
3. Bringing Up Baby (1938)
Paleontologist David Huxley is days away from finishing a dinosaur skeleton and securing a donation for his museum when he crosses paths with the wildly chaotic Susan Vance. After a pet leopard named Baby, a missing bone, and one disastrous night, he’s hopelessly in love.
Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn made a perfect screwball duo under director Howard Hawks. Oddly enough, the film flopped on release, and Hepburn was soon labeled box office poison. Decades later, it’s regarded as a comedy classic.
2. Beauty and the Beast (1991)
Belle arrives as the Beast’s captive, and since he is a quick-tempered brute, the situation hardly looks like an auspicious beginning. As time passes, she looks beyond his anger, and he gradually learns how to be kind. This is precisely the slow, gradual warming that the trope depends on.
Disney’s movie made history as the first animated feature to receive a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Picture. It took home two Oscars: Best Original Score and Best Original Song, the latter for its title track.
1. It Happened One Night (1934)
Ellie Andrews is rich, spoiled, and running from her father. Peter Warne is a reporter who just lost his job. When he spots her on a bus, he sees a chance to get his career back, so he offers to help her. Forced to share buses, motels, and a blanket hung between their beds, the two begin to see each other differently.
Frank Capra’s film was the first to win all five major Academy Awards: Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and Screenplay. Only two movies have done it since. Many consider it the film that defined the romantic comedy.
Did we miss any noteworthy haters-to-lovers movies on our list? Let us know in the comments below!