Look, every February 14th the same thing happens: some see only marketing for flowers and chocolates, others feel lonely watching couples everywhere, and then there are those of us who take the excuse to fully immerse ourselves in the world of romantic movies that have evolved so much over the past decades.

The truth is, romantic cinema deserves more respect than it usually gets. It’s not just story decoration; it’s a genre that has radically changed over the years, reflecting how we’ve come to understand love according to the era.

Let’s take the 1930s. Howard Hawks teamed up with Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant to make The Awful Truth, one of those zany comedies that make you laugh nonstop. Hepburn is Susan Vance, a spoiled heiress who chases after Grant’s shy archaeologist. The chaos she and her pet tiger create is simply perfect. It’s the kind of romantic film where chemistry between actors was everything.

Then came Casablanca in the 1940s. Look, it’s probably the most quoted romantic movie in history, but there’s a reason it still works. Bogart and Ingrid Bergman create something that goes beyond romance: heroism, sacrifice, ideals of freedom during wartime. That scene where they sing La Marseillaise in front of the Nazis... that’s not just romantic cinema, that’s art.

In the 1950s, An Affair to Remember arrived to remind us that sometimes reunion hurts more than separation. Grant and Deborah Kerr on an ocean liner, falling in love unintentionally, promising to meet at the Empire State Building in six months. The misunderstandings that keep them apart leave you with a lump in your throat until the very end.

Billy Wilder in the 1960s understood something fundamental: romantic cinema could be sharp, tender, and funny all at once. The Apartment with Jack Lemmon is ambition clashing with love. Lemmon gives up his apartment to his bosses to get ahead, but he’s secretly in love with the elevator girl. The tension between what he wants professionally and what he feels personally is the heart of the film.

The 1970s brought An Unmarried Woman, where George Segal and Brenda Jackson explored that new kind of romance that didn’t believe in monogamy or traditional fidelity. It was a romantic film daring to be different, even if in the end it betrayed its own spirit.

Then came When Harry Met Sally in 1989. Rob Reiner and Nora Ephron solved what no one else could: can a man and a woman be friends? The answer lies in the inspired dialogue, in Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal being perfect, in Manhattan as a character. It rescued the genre from a corner where the industry had left it to die.

Clint Eastwood took The Bridges of Madison County in the 1990s and turned a mediocre novel into a masterpiece. Meryl Streep is Francesca, a housewife who postpones her desires, and Eastwood is Robert, a photographer who finds in her a reason to put down roots. The silences, the glances, an old truck that becomes a symbol of eternal love. That’s real romantic cinema.

Wong Kar-Wai arrived in 2000 with In the Mood for Love, full of contained passion. Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung are neighbors who discover their partners are cheating on them and end up in a platonic affair loaded with more sensuality than any Hollywood romance of that time. It’s delicate, evocative, the kind of film you need to revisit every year.

Carol in 2015 was different. Todd Haynes directed Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara in a love story between women set in the 1950s. Sophistication, desire, the heartbreaking reality of a social environment that keeps them apart. The beautifully shot melodrama that’s unafraid to explore territories that romantic cinema usually avoided.

And now, in 2020, Past Lives was nominated for an Oscar. Celine Song tells of first love, the pain of uprooting, the choices that shape our lives. Greta Lee reunites with Teo Yoo, her childhood love from South Korea, and that past life returns to shake everything she built with her husband in the United States.

What’s fascinating is seeing how romantic cinema has evolved. It went from pure escapism in the 1930s to a reflection on identity, sacrifice, gender, and immigration. Each decade left its mark, its concerns, its ways of understanding love. And that’s what makes revisiting these movies worth doing again and again.