According to an article on the Time-out website from July 2016 the top 10 (it is a list of 100, but I’ll only concentrate on the top 10) love stories in movies are.

1. Brief Encounter (1945) Dir. David Lean
2. Casablanca (1942) Dir. Michael Curtiz
3. In the Mood for Love (2000) Wong Kar-Wai
4. Annie Hall (1977) Dir. Woody Allen
5. Harold & Maude (1971) Dir. Hal Ashby
6. Brokeback Mountain (2005) Dir. Ang Lee
7. The Apartment (1960) Dir. Billy Wilder
8. A Matter of Life & Death (1946) Michael Powel / Emeric Pressburger
9. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) Dir. Michel Gondry
10. Punch Drunk Love (2002) Dir Thomas Paul Anderson

The list goes on and includes some real gems and surprisingly lowly positions including a few of my favorites:

Wild at Heart (1990) Dir. David Lynch

Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) Dir. Blake Edwards

When Harry Met Sally (1989) Dir. Rob Reiner

An Officer and a Gentleman (1992) Dir. Taylor Hackford.

Pretty Woman (1989) Dir. Gerry Marshall

It hard to produce a list like this of your own I agree with many of the ten . However, I think if I were to add what would call favorites together I would suggest.

1. Love Actually (2003) Dir. Richard Curtis

While Four Weddings and a funeral might be more bitingly incisive, it is just the Christmas setting that softens the impact of this film. It’s not a traditional love story is several some successful some very much unsuccessful. It is a delightful insight into the human existence. Showing blossoming romance, the awkwardness of first dates how long term relationship and hit problems.

Does the story need the glut of stars to tell it? No, this is a story that will run and run.

2. Casablanca (1942) Dir Michael Curtiz

A simple story well told, well acted. Although, the principle actor are I feel irreplaceable in this film. There is a slight unlikeliness to all the pairings, but they are believable.

3. Brokeback Mountain (2005) Dir. Ang Lee

A film that so sympathetically deals with what is, a tough subject for many audiences. Gay characters in movies are still not fully accepted and are often portrayed as effeminate. However, this feel clearly shows the male side to male homosexuality but also clearly shows the torture that is lost, love.

4. When Harry Met Sally (1989) Rob Rienner

Like “Love Actually” this is a film that is insightful in how it portrays the life of ordinary people. This is a romance that grows from a friendship it shows their lives outside of the relationships. Again it is the casting of 2 people Meg Ryan & Billy Crystal how can portray the everyman character.

5. Brief Encounter (1945) Dir. David Lean

Set in the 1930’s this tells the story of a doomed affair, which never really is an affair, just a few cups of tea and a trip to the movies. It a spellbindingly gripping story and like many of the films above it an about perfectly reasonable people.

6. Pretty Woman (1990) Dir. Gerry Marshall

Pygmalion for the modern age. A simple story well told and somewhat believably given it the premise of fabulously wealthy businessman with a “hooker with the heart of gold”.

7. An officer and a gentleman (1982) Dir. Taylor Hackford

I remember watching this film when I was around 13 or 14, expecting a trite soft “girls movie” how wrong it was. This is a movie, which is built around star quality Richard Gere is amazingly believable as the cocky officer cadet and Debra Winger as the local factory working looking for a ticket out of the backwater town. The simple story is again well told, love over obstacles and the movie that taught me not to classify films before I watch it.

8. Wild at Heart (1990) Dir. David Lynch

A very singularly David Lynch movie but the tale of self-destructive lovers is portrayed fantastically especially by the underrated Nicholas Cage.

9. Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) Dir. Blake Edwards

10. In the Mood for Love (2000) Dir. Wong Kar – Wai

Looking at the list above that I have complied I believe that what I look for in a romantic film is a film with believable, realistic characters and show a close approximation to real life,

As discussed in earlier post a star is many things to many different people for example:

• Thye are someone to admire
• They are object of fantasy
• Provider of escapism – either through their films or out desire to copy them
• They are the living embodiment of our fantasy’s and desires.

Cinema (and other media TV Music) is a major part of everyone’s lives and takes over everyone to some degree. The desire to fill our lives with the lives of the rich and famous varies from person to person, but in general, everyone looks to a degree; even, if they are not obsessive and filling their bedroom walls with posters.

A magazine such as “Hello?” feed on and feeds, our desires for celebrity gossip and information. They pay stars sometimes as much as they would receive for a movie for fights to the wedding, child christening or just and interview.

Our desire to follow the famous feeds their wealth but does our desire strain their private lives. Having every second under the microscope?

The original fanzines were full of studio press shots and where magazines such:

The paparazzi have grown and grown any one can be paparazzi with a digital camera, but the professional paparazzi can swoop at a minutes notice on celebrities when they are spotted. And these images don’t have to wait 24 hours or more to hit the newspapers they can be on social media in seconds.

This does not say that previous to social media there was gossip the life on Joan Crawford was full of tabloid rumours although perhaps not to the detail contained in this article from the Daily Mail.

I’m not a follower of any celebrity on twitter or facebook partial I’m not a fan of twitter and fell it is a potential rabbit hole you could vanish down and never be seen of again. However, it is a valuable tool for stars to air what they are thinking and also fight off the rumours trigger by the gossip and paparazzi.

Autographs vs. Selfie: it just progress, I don’t it is in any way more intrusive to the life of the celebrity – you just need to be respectful when you ask.