Editors' Picks: Top Romantic Movies for Valentine's Day

We love romantic movies here at BHG.com, so we're sharing our absolute favorites -- from can't-miss classics to newer releases -- plus a few of your suggestions. These flicks are all worthy of watching on Valentine's Day, or any other time you feel like a romantic date night with your loved one. We've picked out our favorite quotes from each movie and paired them with recipe ideas for the ultimate movie-watching experience.

Editor's Tip: Put together a date night in a box with your favorite movie, two small bottles of champagne, and your favorite candy. Include marshmallows and roasting twigs for a romantic evening by the fire.

Starring: Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan

Run Time: 96 minutes

What It's About: Harry (Crystal) meets Sally (Ryan) when she gives him a ride to New York after they both graduate from the University of Chicago. They part ways, deciding that a man and woman can't simply be friends without romantic feelings getting in the way. They run into each other several times over the years, always facing the same question: Are they just friends, or is their relationship something more?

Our Favorite Romantic Quote: "I came here tonight because when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible."

Starring: Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle

Run Time: 300 minutes (TV mini series)

What It's About: In this adaptation of Jane Austen's classical romance, when Elizabeth Bennet (Ehle), from a middle-class family, meets young and wealthy Mr. Darcy (Firth) at a local ball, it is hatred at first sight. Though Mr. Darcy is proud and reserved, his fondness for Elizabeth -- and her attraction to him -- is slowly revealed, despite the prejudice between 19th century classes.

Our Favorite Romantic Quote: "Perhaps I didn't always love him as well as I do now, but in such cases as these, a good memory is unpardonable."

Starring: Ali MacGraw and Ryan O'Neal

Run Time: 99 minutes

What It's About: A wealthy Harvard Law student (O'Neal) falls in love with a music student (MacGraw), despite their opposite backgrounds. His family disowns him when they marry, and they continue to build their life together, only being able to rely on each other.

Our Favorite Romantic Quote: "Love means never having to say you're sorry."

Starring: Richard Gere and Julia Roberts

Run Time: 119 minutes

What It's About: A successful and wealthy lawyer (Gere) travels to Los Angeles for a business trip and hires a female escort (Roberts) to accompany him for a week of swanky parties and business dinners.

Our Favorite Romantic Quote: "When I was a little girl, my mama used to lock me in the attic when I was bad, which was pretty often. And I would pretend I was a princess trapped in a tower by a wicked queen. And then suddenly this knight on a white horse with these colors flying would come charging up and draw his sword. And I would wave. And he would climb up the tower and rescue me. But never in all the time that I had this dream did the knight say to me, 'Come on, baby, I'll put you up in a great condo.'"

Starring: Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard

Run Time: 115 minutes

What It's About: A struggling writer (Peppard) moves into an apartment building on Manhattan's swanky East Side and becomes intrigued by his pretty and quirky socialite neighbor (Hepburn).

Our Favorite Romantic Quote: "You know what's wrong with you, Miss Whoever-You-Are? You're chicken, you've got no guts. You're afraid to stick out your chin and say, 'Okay, life's a fact, people do fall in love, people do belong to each other, because that's the only chance anybody's got for real happiness.' You call yourself a free spirit, a wild thing, and you're terrified somebody's going to stick you in a cage. Well, baby, you're already in that cage. You built it yourself. And it's not bounded in the West by Tulip, Texas, or in the east by Somaliland. It's wherever you go. Because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself."

Starring: Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan

Run Time: 105 minutes

What It's About: A recent widower (Hanks) and his son move from Chicago to Seattle to escape the grief of his wife's death. On Christmas Eve, he calls in to a national radio show and pours his heart out about how much he still misses his wife. This catches the attention of a Baltimore-based newspaper writer (Ryan), who falls in love with him immediately, despite being engaged to be married.

Our Favorite Romantic Quote: "Destiny is something we've invented because we can't stand the fact that everything that happens is accidental."

Starring: Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr

Run Time: 119 minutes

What It's About: A handsome playboy (Grant) and a beautiful nightclub singer (Kerr) have a whirlwind romance on a cruise from Europe to New York -- despite both being engaged to other people. They agree to reunite six months later at the top of Empire State Building, but fate deals them a complicated hand.

Our Favorite Romantic Quote: "There must be something between us, even if it's only an ocean."

Starring: Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, and Julianne Moore

Run Time: 118 minutes

What It's About: A middle-aged husband's (Carell) world is turned upside down when his wife (Moore) unexpectedly asks him for a divorce. He meets a young bachelor (Gosling) at a bar, who teaches him how to rediscover himself by picking up girls at bars. 

Our Favorite Romantic Quote: "I will never stop trying. Because when you find the one ... you never give up."

Starring Ryan Gosling, Rachel McAdams, Gena Rowlands, and James Garner

Run Time: 123 minutes

What It's About: A poor and passionate man (Gosling) meets a wealthy and adventurous young woman (McAdams) at a carnival one night. They fall in love, but are soon separated against their will by social differences. Fate brings them back together years later, and they try to make their summer love transition into lifelong commitment.

Our Favorite Romantic Quote: "So it's not gonna be easy. It's going to be really hard; we're gonna have to work at this everyday, but I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, forever, everyday. You and me ... everyday."

Starring: Hugh Grant, Liam Neeson, Colin Firth, Laura Linney, Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, and Keira Knightley

Run Time: 135 minutes

What It's About: During the frantic month before Christmas in London, Love Actually follows eight couples -- all loosely interconnected with each other -- as they fall in and out of love, some finding themselves with the wrong people and others still searching for the right people.

Our Favorite Romantic Quote: "Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion's starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don't see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often, it's not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it's always there -- fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends."

Starring: Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman

Run Time: 102 minutes

What It's About: Rick Blaine (Bogart), a cynical American expatriate, runs a nightclub in the Moroccan city of Casablanca during the early days of World War II. Ex-love Ilsa Lund (Bergman) unexpectedly comes back into his life, but she's now married to a renowned Czech Resistance leader. Eventually Rick discovers he's not so cynical after all, giving up all hope of reuniting with Ilsa by making it possible for her and her husband to safely leave the country.

Our Favorite Romantic Quote:
Ilsa: "I can't fight it anymore. I ran away from you once. I can't do it again. Oh, I don't know what's right any longer. You have to think for both of us. For all of us."
Rick: "All right, I will. Here's looking at you, kid."

Starring: Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore

Run Time: 127 minutes

What It's About: A bank executive (Swayze) is murdered during a botched mugging after a date with his girlfriend (Moore). He then finds himself walking Earth as a ghost, and seeks out help from a spiritualist to communicate to his girlfriend the danger that she is in.

Our Favorite Romantic Quote:
Sam: "I love you, Molly. I've always loved you."
Molly: "Ditto."

Starring: Sandra Bullock and Bill Pullman

Run Time: 103 minutes

What It's About: A lonely young train ticket collector (Bullock) rescues an unconscious commuter (Pullman) from certain death after he falls onto the rails. While visiting him at the hospital, a nurse tells his family that she's his fiancee and she doesn't have the courage to correct them -- will she be able to keep up the charade?

Our Favorite Romantic Quote: "Do you believe in love at first sight? Nah, I betcha don't, you're probably too sensible for that. Or have you ever, like, seen somebody? And you knew that, if only that person really knew you, they would, well, they would of course dump the perfect model that they were with, and realize that you were the one that they wanted to, just, grow old with. Have you ever fallen in love with someone you haven't even talked to? Have you ever been so alone you spend the night confusing a man in a coma?"

Starring: John Cusack and Ione Skye

Run Time: 100 minutes

What It's About: An improbable couple -- the class valedictorian with an overprotective father (Skye) and a well-meaning underachiever (Cusack) -- fall in love after their high school graduation, and have to go against the opinions of their families and friends to be together, in addition to having to make a big decision at summer's end.

Our Favorite Romantic Quote: "What I really want to do with my life -- what I want to do for a living -- is I want to be with your daughter. I'm good at it."

Starring: Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey

Run Time: 105 minutes

What It's About: A privileged doctor's daughter (Grey) falls for a dance instructor (Swayze) while vacationing with her family at a resort in the Catskills. She fills in as his dance partner and they fall in love as he teaches her the routine, a love that is tested by a complicated turn of events and pressures from her family.

Our Favorite Romantic Quote: "Me? I'm scared of everything. I'm scared of what I saw, I'm scared of what I did, of who I am, and most of all I'm scared of walking out of this room and never feeling the rest of my whole life the way I feel when I'm with you."

Starring: Gwyneth Paltrow and Joseph Fiennes

Run Time: 123 minutes

What It's About: A young Shakespeare (Fiennes) is struggling with his latest work and is in search of a muse. A wealthy woman who is about to be married (Paltrow) auditions for his latest play disguised as a man, but he soon sees through it and they wind up caught in a forbidden romance.

Our Favorite Romantic Quote: "Love knows nothing of rank or riverbank! It will spark between a queen and the poor vagabond who plays the king, and their love should be minded by each, for love denied blights the soul we owe to God! So tell my lady, William Shakespeare waits for her in the garden!"

Starring: Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts

Run Time: 124 minutes

What It's About: A travel bookstore owner in Notting Hill (Grant) falls for an extremely popular American actress (Roberts) when she enters his shop. They eventually become friends, with the possibility of romance on the horizon, until her very public life starts to get in the way.

Our Favorite Romantic Quote:
William: "I live in Notting Hill. You live in Beverly Hills. Everyone in the world knows who you are, my mother has trouble remembering my name."
Anna: "I'm also just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her."

Starring: Helena Bonham Carter, Maggie Smith, and Julian Sands

Run Time: 117 minutes

What It's About: A young Englishwoman (Carter) travels to Florence, Italy in the early 1900s with her chaperone (Smith). There, she meets a quiet and eccentric man (Sands). Upon her return to England, she must decide whether to follow through with her marriage to her stoic fiance, or follow her heart and her growing attraction for the man she met in Italy.

Our Favorite Romantic Quote: "He's the sort who can't know anyone intimately, least of all a woman. He doesn't know what a woman is. He wants you for a possession, something to look at, like a painting or an ivory box. Something to own and to display. He doesn't want you to be real, and to think and to live. He doesn't love you. But I love you. I want you to have your own thoughts and ideas and feelings, even when I hold you in my arms."

Starring: David Duchovny and Minnie Driver

Run Time: 115 minutes

What It's About: A happily married man's (Duchovny) life changes when his wife dies from complications after a car accident. A young woman (Driver) is given a second chance at life with a heart transplant, and helps her grandfather run an Irish-theme restaurant. The two meet at the restaurant and fall in love, but complications ensue when the woman learns her heart transplant came from his wife.

Our Favorite Romantic Quote: "I know that what's happened has been overwhelming. And I know it's going to take a while to sort it all out. But while you're sorting, I want you to remember that all the times I prayed that Gracie would have a second chance at life, I always knew that if God blessed us, the heart she got would have to be from a very special person if it were going to be at home in Grace. When she met you, her heart beat truly for the first time. Perhaps it was meant to be with you always."

Starring: Meryl Streep and Robert Redford

Run Time: 161 minutes

What It's About: A Danish woman (Streep) marries a friend for the title of Baroness and moves with him to an English colony in Africa to start a coffee plantation. There, her husband becomes unfaithful and she becomes taken with a big-game hunter (Redford) who doesn't want to settle down.

Our Favorite Romantic Quote: "I'm with you because I choose to be with you. I don't want to live someone else's idea of how to live. Don't ask me to do that. I don't want to find out one day that I'm at the end of someone else's life."

Starring: Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer

Run Time: 174 minutes

What It's About: In 1930's Austria, a young woman (Andrews) leaves her convent to care for the seven mischievous children of a retired naval captain (Plummer). The two eventually find themselves falling in love, even though he is engaged and she is still a postulant.

Our Favorite Romantic Quote: "You brought music back into the house. I had forgotten."

Starring: Gwyneth Paltrow, James Cosmo, and Greta Scacchi

Run Time: 121 minutes

What It's About: A young woman (Paltrow) in rural 19th century England plays her town's matchmaker in an adaption of Jane Austen's classic novel. Her rather unsuccessful attempts at matchmaking on her unsuspecting friends lead to complications, especially as she finally realizes the person she truly loves.

Our Favorite Romantic Quote: "I rode through the rain! I'd ride through worse than that if I could just hear your voice telling me that I might, at least, have some chance to win you."

Starring: Kevin Costner, Susan Sarandon, and Tim Robbins

Run Time: 108 minutes

What It's About: An aging minor-league baseball player (Costner) is brought to the Class A Durham Bulls to mature the team's pitcher, a wild rookie (Robbins). The team groupie (Sarandon) romances them both, creating a comic love triangle. 

Our Favorite Romantic Quote: "Well, actually, nobody on this planet ever really chooses each other. I mean, it's all a question of quantum physics, molecular attraction, and timing. Why, there are laws we don't understand that bring us together and tear us apart."

Starring: Patrick Dempsey and Amanda Peterson

Run Time: 94 minutes

What It's About: A nerdy high schooler (Dempsey) makes a pricey deal with one of the popular girls (Peterson) to be his girlfriend for a month and help him get noticed by the cool crowd. As the month passes, she slowly starts to fall for him, but he is so consumed with his newfound popularity that he doesn't notice.

Our Favorite Romantic Quote:
Cindy: "The moon looks different now, it's not as mysterious or romantic as before."
Ronald: "I'm sorry I ruined it for you."
Cindy: "You didn't ruin it, you just changed it, I guess."

Starring: Christopher Reeve and Jane Seymour

Run Time: 103 minutes

What It's About: A young writer (Reeve) uses self-hypnosis to will himself to 1912 after seeing a photograph of a beautiful young woman (Seymour) and deciding he must meet her.

Our Favorite Romantic Quote: "There is so much to say... I cannot find the words. Except for these: 'I love you.'"

Starring: Meg Ryan and Kevin Kline

Run Time: 111 minutes

What It's About: Fear of flying keeps a young woman (Ryan) from following her fiance to Paris for a medical convention. While there, he becomes smitten with a French woman and calls off their wedding, so she boards a plane to get him back. A petty French thief (Kline), who sits next to her en route, hides a few things in her bag to get it through customs. An interesting turn of events finds the two traveling together to Cannes -- each with a different motive -- which changes the course of both of their lives.

Our Favorite Romantic Quote:
Kate: Do you believe in love? The kind that lasts forever?
Luc: I loved my mother.
Kate: No, everybody loves their mother. Even people who hate their mothers love their mothers. The question is, one man meant for one woman. That is the question.
Luc: But it is not an interesting question. It is the question of a little girl who believes in fairy tales.