Five Heartbreakingly Romantic Movies

Many great stories of love are tinged with the memory of what might have been as well as what was. From broken hearts to lost lovers to impossible dreams, the course of true love never does run smooth.

For Valentine’s Day, we’ve put together a list of achingly beautiful love stories about the ones who got away. Whether alone or with your beloved, let your heart soar with these touching romances.

Touch

In Baltasar Kormákur’s Touch, an older man, Kristofer (Egill Olafsson), leaves his native Iceland to find the love of his life that he lost decades ago. As he travels to England, Kristofer remembers his younger self (Pálmi Kormákur) falling in love with Miko (Kōki) in London. In an exclusive FocusFeatures.com interview, director Kormákur recalls how wanting “to make a love story that was compelling and complex” made him adapt the best-selling novel on which the film is based. “I loved the way it played with memory and closure, especially as you get older.” The film explores the theme of lost love, “elegantly crafting an achingly poignant story centered on an elderly man searching for his true love amidst a time of uncertainty,” writes Variety.

Watch Touch now on Apple TV or Amazon!

Lisa Frankenstein

In Lisa Frankenstein—directed by Zelda Williams from a script by Academy Award®-winner Diablo Cody—an awkward teen (Kathryn Newton) finds undying love when she accidentally awakens a 19th-century corpse (Cole Sprouse). As she tries to help put her beautiful corpse’s life—and body—back together, she begins to find her own identity. “This Victorian man who never really got a chance to live his life is literally rebuilding himself and his body by helping Lisa rebuild her self-esteem,” says Carla Gugino (who plays Lisa’s controlling stepmother) in a FocusFeatures.com exclusive interview. While, just like its namesake, things don’t go as planned for either monster or maker, The Wrap writes that the film “works wonders with a modern take on Mary Shelley’s classic.”

Watch Lisa Frankenstein now on Apple TV or Amazon!

Of An Age

Writer-director Goran Stoleski’s Of An Age explores how much difference a day makes for a young man in love. Set in Melbourne during the summer of 1999, the film, the San Francisco Chronicle writes, presents “a universal, thought-provoking story that explores the enduring nature of first love.” When 17-year-old Kol (Elias Anton) meets Adam (Thom Green), the brother of his ballroom dance partner, his life is turned inside out. With only a day before Adam flies out of the country, Kol experiences feelings that will linger long past this unexpected encounter. “Elias Anton and Thom Green will still steal hearts, with a central romance equally uplifting as it is heartbreaking,” writes Flickering Myth.

Watch Of An Age now on Apple TV or Amazon!

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

The fact that Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind begins on February 14 is no accident. Boarding a train to Montauk, Joel (Jim Carrey) tells himself, “Valentine's Day is a holiday invented by greeting card companies to make people feel like crap.” Little does he know that the love of his life, Clementine (Kate Winslet), is just a few seats ahead of him. In this Möbius-strip romance, the two have already met two years before but have erased each other from their memories—or, at least, they have tried to. The utterly inventive tale in which love is constantly slipping in and out of the couple’s grasp is, for The Huffington Post, “truly the love story of our time.”

Watch Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind now on Apple TV or Amazon!

Brokeback Mountain

Ang Lee’s American masterpiece Brokeback Mountain is a haunting tale of love realized but never fully claimed. After Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) fall in love while herding sheep on Brokeback Mountain one summer, they spend the rest of their lives hoping to regain the freedom and safety they once felt. “I think most of the emotions or love within Ennis is purely potential,” Heath Ledger told MovieWeb. “That's the tragedy of this story.” Entertainment Weekly writes, “The glory of Brokeback Mountain is that in tracing their fates, treating their passion as something unprecedented—a force so powerful it can scarcely be named—the movie makes love seem as ineffable as it really is.”

Watch Brokeback Mountain now on Apple TV or Amazon!