Romantic movies for Valentine's Day and beyond

Here are the best picks for your movie-date night every week this Valentine's month:

Marry Me

Just opened in cinemas

When a famous singer plays a famous singer in a movie - think Lady Gaga in A Star Is Born, Eminem in 8 Mile and Whitney Houston in The Bodyguard - the movie rarely fails.

In Marry Me, Jennifer Lopez plays a glamorous superstar whose headline-hogging engagement to a fellow superstar (played by Latin sensation Maluma) goes south when a video of him canoodling with her assistant goes viral. Standing in a stadium in a dazzling bridal dress before thousands of fans, she spots a random stranger (Owen Wilson) in the crowd carrying the placard "Marry Me" and decides to say: "Yes".

From there on, it's a predictable but pleasing ride in which the bumbling maths teacher-stranger and fabulously wealthy singer learn to love each other, despite very different socio-economic status and exercise routines. Lopez and Wilson make the movie work because of their natural chemistry and the fact that the roles aren't exactly a stretch for either. And the supports (John Bradley as her beleaguered manager and Sarah Silverman as his sassy best friend) are terrific.

Spencer

Just opened in cinemas

This isn't a romantic movie so much as an illusion-shattering drama about all the ways a marriage can go wrong. But it is surprisingly funny and wise about relationships, and - if nothing else - features a captivating, go-for-broke performance by Kristen Stewart, who nabbed her first Oscar nomination for Best Actress with this.

Stewart plays the now-late Princess Diana during an unhappy phase of her marriage to Prince Charles after she discovers his affair with Camilla Parker-Bowles. (Spencer was Diana's maiden name.)

With almost no one to turn to for sympathy - her sons were far too young then - she starts to unravel under the watchful eye of the royal family.

Director Pablo Larrain is an old hand at helming biopics (previous films include Jackie and Neruda) and the film does a fine job of exploring the toll that fame, pressure and expectation take on a woman's mental health.

But ultimately this is Stewart's film: She not only gets Diana's accent and gestures right, but also her rebellious interior when the cameras weren't clicking.

Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash

Opening Feb 17 at The Projector

Winner of Best Film at the 2021 Locarno Film Festival, Vengeance is a whimsical and genre-bending homage to the B-grade Indonesian action films of the 80s, that is at its heart a love story between a man and woman.

Marthino Lio and Ladya Cheryl play a male and female gangster who fall in love at first fight. They wed, but are unable to consummate the marriage because of a childhood trauma that haunts him into adulthood. The only way to cure him is to revisit his past.

Based on a best-selling novel by Eka Kurniawan, the film is a calculated mishmash of retro camerawork, brutal fight sequences and semi-stilted acting. It's Eka's fantastical plot, replete with sex, mayhem and ghosts, that keeps you intrigued and entertained.

The Worst Person In The World

Opening Feb 24 at The Projector

If you can wait till Feb 24 for your Valentine's movie-date, we recommend you skip the rest and watch only this.

Reminiscent of the smartest, sweetest rom-coms Woody Allen made in his prime (such as Annie Hall and Manhattan), The Worst Person is a Norwegian gem starring Renate Reinsve as an indecisive young woman trying to find herself through work, art, friendships and love. Nothing goes as planned, of course, but she learns to find beauty in the chaos.

There are so many honest and relatable moments here, as well as laudable attempts to grapple with contemporary issues such as climate change, mansplaining, woke politics and #MeToo.

When the film ends at the 2-hour mark, you understand the protagonist so well, you see her as anything but the worst person in the world. The best rom-coms always make their characters' romantic follies seem all too similar to your own.