Bloodless Coup

Ah... Spike, my favorite vampire with a soul. I'll say that I definitely didn't like Down With Love (I know, you are shocked). Love Actually would probably be tops on my list, and yes, who doesn't love Brokeback just for that final scene? It made the whole movie for me, mainly because I was so angry at Heath allowing himself to be strung along for so long.

Well I tend to see that as Heath reacting to the loss he's brought upon himself (if only the 20-something guys I know who are acting like Heath's character does wouldn't put themselves on that heartbreaking path). But however you read it, that's a great scene.

And Love Actually is just too much for me (you are shocked, I know).

Armand, you and I definitely have similar taste in romantic movies. Eternal Sunshine (but not Science, if only because for some reason I didn't find it memorable enough); P-D L; 2046; and maybe Brokeback (it's definitely close to my top 10, if not in it). Excluding Brokeback, then that leaves me needing 7. Off the top of my head, I've got: Synecdoche, NY (it's bigger than Eternal Sunshine, more metaphysical maybe, but it's still a romance at its core, if also a sort of ontological meditation); Solaris (yes, the Soderbergh one, if only because I haven't seen the original); Open Your Eyes / Vanilla Sky (I liked the remake more than most people, but might go with the original if I watched them both again); The Fountain; Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (I wouldn't have come up with this in an hour on my own, but when I saw it in the comment thread I realized that's a brilliant pick); and then some combination of two from the following intractable list:

On the offbeat side: Secretary; Tideland (that's just twisted, I know, but if you strip away the freight that Gilliam really wanted you to strip away and view it through fresh eyes, it's terribly romantic in its way and in multiple dimensions).

And then on the standard-issue but well executed side: Upside of Anger; and (the only movie I haven't seen anyone mention) Spanglish, which for whatever reason I really really enjoy, even having seen most of it multiple times.

Being it's what I watch mostly, I'd have to start with my romantic action movie picks: Star Wars episode 2 (I know, boo and hiss all you like about Hayden), Spiderman 2, LOTR 2, The Bourne Identity, Gladiator, and my oddball picks, Sin City and Hannibal. Then I'd have to throw in with Shrek, Ocean's 11, and The Count of Monte Cristo. And if you're including TV, the Baltar/Six relationship from BSG.

I've always been fond of the Australian film Bliss, based on a Peter Carey novel. Been a long time since I've seen it, but the fellow in it plants a grove of trees and waits for the love of his life to taste the flavor of the mature trees' blossoms in her bees' honey. And that's his declaration of love.

Nothing like a slow-developing, thick-with-meanings metaphor. Wrapped in an eccentric comedy.

Morris and I have very different ideas about what qualifies as romantic. I don't think I find a single one of those things romantic. Even Baltar/Six - that is one of my favorite things on tv this decade, but I don't think of it as romantic.

Yah, my wife feels the same way, but I've always been a sucker when it comes to someone who cares for another in a struggle to serve something greater, balancing (or imbalancing) their attachment and their ideals. Take Gladiator, he takes on an emperor out of love for his wife from whom he is separated by death. Even Hannibal risks capture, torture, and death to protect his love from a world that is ugly.

I would have agreed with you about the Baltar/Six relationship not being romantic until we find out that Six has been having visions of Baltar just as Baltar has been having visions of Six; for all the separation they endure, they remain connected with one another in some mysterious way, providing each other enough guidance and comfort to overcome their own circumstances.

I'd like to add Heaven to my list.

The Blanchett/Ribisi movie? Awww - I like that one.