Romance Movies 2005 List

Set against the sweeping vistas of Wyoming and Texas, the film tells the story of two young men—a ranch-hand and a rodeo cowboy—who meet in the summer of 1963, and unexpectedly forge a lifelong connection, one whose complications, joys, and tragedies provide a testament to the endurance and power of love. Early one morning in Signal, Wyoming, Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) meet while lining up for employment with local rancher Joe Aguirre (Randy Quaid). The world which Ennis and Jack have been born into is at once changing rapidly and yet scarcely evolving. Both young men seem certain of their set places in the heartland—obtaining steady work, marrying, and raising a family—and yet hunger for something beyond what they can articulate. When Aguirre dispatches them to work as sheepherders up on the majestic Brokeback Mountain, they gravitate towards camaraderie and then a deeper intimacy.

At summer's end, the two must come down from Brokeback and part ways. Remaining in Wyoming, Ennis weds his sweetheart Alma (Michelle Williams), with whom he will have two daughters as he ekes out a living. Jack, in Texas, catches the eye of rodeo queen Lureen Newsome (Anne Hathaway). Their courtship and marriage result in a son, as well as jobs in her father's business. Four years pass. One day, Alma brings Ennis a postcard from Jack, who is en route to visit Wyoming. Ennis waits expectantly for his friend, and when Jack at last arrives, in just one moment it is clear that the passage of time has only strengthened the men's attachment. In the years that follow, Ennis and Jack struggle to keep their secret bond alive. They meet up several times annually. Even when they are apart, they face the eternal questions of fidelity, commitment, and trust. Ultimately, the one constant in their lives is a force of nature—love.

Heath Ledger plays the fabled romantic as a man who, after failing to win the affection of a particular Venetian woman, strives to discover the real meaning of love.

In the tradition of "National Lampoon's Animal House" and "National Lampoon's Van Wilder" comes this wildly hilarious comedy about a guy who wants to date a girl who wants to wait. Adam (Cameron Douglas) is a typical college-aged guy, which is to say he wants sex 24 hours a day. But when he meets, and falls for, Eve (Emmanuelle Chriqui) a scorchingly hot co-ed who's still very attached to her virginity, the waiting game is on! While his college buddies score right and left, and campus hotties make tempting passes, Adam ponders an explosive question: Will Eve say "it's the right time," before he goes completely out of his mind?

Based on Jonathan Larson's award-winning Broadway musical, "Rent" chronicles a group of New York village artists struggling with identity and artistic integrity in an HIV-positive world. Roommates Roger and Mark, a songwriter-recovering addict and a guerrilla filmmaker, respectively, must find a way to pay their former roommate-turned-landlord when he decides to reneg on his promise to provide them rent-free living.

This comic tale, set in a small town in Wales, revolves around a funeral director (Alfred Molina) madly in love with a local woman (Brenda Blethyn), even as he's losing business to a flashy American funeral parlor rival (Christopher Walken).

When New York's hottest nightclub deejay Darrell (Usher) saves a mob boss's life (Chazz Palminteri), he is rewarded for his bravery with the responsibilty of watching over the don's beautiful daughter Dolly (Emmanuelle Chriqui). The sparks soon begin to fly between this attractive couple from very different worlds, against her formidable father's wishes. Meanwhile, the don has other things on his mind—quashing a potential war with an arch-rival and controlling a young, ruthless challenger to his throne. In the end, all's fair in love and gangster warfare in this hip, romantic comedy, "In the Mix".

After his invention causes the Oregon shoe corporation he works for to lose millions of dollars, Drew Baylor (Orlando Bloom) is fired for his mistake, and then dumped by his girlfriend, Ellen. Hopelessly depressed, Drew decides to end his life when he gets a phone call. His father has died, and Drew has to go back to his family's small Kentucky hometown of Elizabethtown to make sure his father's dying wishes are fulfilled. On his trip home, Drew meets a flight attendant, Claire Colburn (Kirsten Dunst), with whom he falls in love, and it seems as if Drew's life may be back on track.

Mirabelle is the "shopgirl" of the title, a young woman, beautiful in a wallflowerish kind of way, who works behind the glove counter at Neiman Marcus "selling things that nobody buys anymore..." Slightly lost, slightly off-kilter, very shy, Mirabelle charms because of all that she is not: not glamorous, not aggressive, not self-aggrandizing. Still, there is something about her that is irresistible. Mirabelle captures the attention of Ray Porter, a wealthy businessman almost twice her age. As they tentatively embark on a relationship, they both struggle to decipher the language of love - with consequences that are both comic and heartbreaking.

With a family to consider, the courageous Zorro must now weigh the consequences of his secretive, crime-fighting, swashbuckling life: he has become estranged from both his wife, Elena, and child, Joaquin. His son, only knowing that 'papa is away on business' has a difficult time dealing with his father's absence. And his adventure-loving wife must maintain a level of normalcy for the trio's home-life, much to her frustration. However, while Zorro tries to pull himself away from dangerous crusading, his heart speaks to him of a great darkness, and he prays for the courage and strength to, once again, put on the mask—realizing that there is a major threat brewing in California. However, his family falls into peril as he fights the dark forces, and thus, Zorro, is once again called to save the day against a new nemesis.

"Prime" is a sophisticated, character comedy set in New York City about Rafi (Uma Thurman), a recently divorced 37-year-old career woman from Manhattan, and what happens when Dave (Bryan Greenberg), a talented 23-year-old painter from Brooklyn, falls in love with her.

"Prime" looks at love from everyone's point of view—friends, relatives and in this case, Rafi's therapist (Meryl Streep)—and follows all who come apart, and some who pull it together, when two people fall in love.

A grief-stricken screenwriter unknowingly enters a three-way relationship with a woman and her film executive husband - to chilling results.

When David (Mark Ruffalo) sublet his quaint San Francisco apartment, the last thing he expected—or wanted—was a roommate. He had only begun to make a complete mess of the place when a pretty young woman named Elizabeth (Reese Witherspoon) suddenly shows up, adamantly insisting the apartment is hers. David assumes there's been a giant misunderstanding…until Elizabeth disappears as mysteriously as she appeared. Changing the locks does nothing to deter Elizabeth, who begins to appear and disappear at will—mostly to rebuke David for his personal living habits in her apartment. Convinced that she is a ghost, David tries to help Elizabeth cross over to the "other side." But while Elizabeth has discovered she does have a distinctly ethereal quality—she can walk through walls—she is equally convinced that she is somehow still alive and isn't crossing over anywhere. As Elizabeth and David search for the truth about who Elizabeth is and how she came to be in her present state, their relationship deepens into love. Unfortunately, they have very little time before their prospects for a future together permanently fade away.

Sometimes a girl has to get a little down and dirty before she can find pure love. In the slapstick comedy, "Dirty Love", Jenny McCarthy is gorgeous, goofy, and gross all at once in this hilarious take on one woman's chaotic quest for true love. It's a knowing, funny, trashy, guilty pleasure, in the spirit of "Porky's" and "National Lampoon", only this time, it's through the eyes of one of America's covergirl: Jenny McCarthy.

Blonde bombshell Rebecca (Jenny McCarthy) thinks she is walking on sunshine in the arms of her super hot model boyfriend, Richard (Victor Webster). But one night she comes home from a long day at work and finds Richard engaged in sexual acrobatics with another woman in their bed.

Rebecca's struggle to understand how a good love could turn so bad begins hilariously and appropriately on the Hollywood Walk of Fame when she falls flat on her face among the hookers and the bums. She gets not so helpful words of wisdom from a pushy psychic (Kathy Griffin) who tells her that true love will NOT ride in on a virile white stallion but rather a white pony. Rebecca is bummed out. The psychic tells her that first she has a lot of difficult lessons to learn about the meaning of pure love.

Throughout her series of funny lessons on love, Rebecca finds support from her posse of off- beat friends. Michelle (Carmen Electra), a wanna-be-black girl, breaks the mold as a hip-hop hair-waxing beautician. Carrie (Kam Haskin), a ditsy sexy actress, struggles to navigate around the casting couch. John (Eddie Kaye Thomas), the nicest guy Rebecca knows, harbors secret feelings for Rebecca.

With the help of her friends, Rebecca flails and fails while looking for another man in hopes of making Richard jealous. Their crazy matchmaking schemes backfire. Rebecca travels a strange and wild trip of funny sexual encounters that includes putting basses in asses and pulling hanker-chiefs out. Discouraged by the series of losers she meets, Rebecca swears off finding true love and settles for good old cheap meaningless sex.

Meanwhile John musters up the courage and professes his love to Rebecca. However, afraid and unsure, Rebecca foolishly finds excuses for why it can't work. A wounded John retreats into the lonely night and wanders the city streets. Now, it's Rebecca's turn to do the chasing. In a send up of the Cinderella story, John loses his shoe and Rebecca retrieves it. To her surprise she finds her white pony in the form of his white Pony brand tennis shoe. Remembering what the psychic told her, she sees the meaning of the shoe and declares her love to John.

New York City is the most romantic place in the world – even if you're only 10 years old and falling in love for the first time. That's what young Gabe discovers as he pursues the object of his affections, his classmate Rosemary, in "Little Manhattan". The romantic comedy is about life, love and the Big Apple, as seen through the eyes of a fifth-grader.

He was a writer. He thought he wrote about the future but it really was the past. In his novel, a mysterious train left for 2046 every once in a while. Everyone who went there had the same intention—to recapture their lost memories. It was said that in 2046, nothing ever changed. Nobody knew for sure if it was true, because nobody who went there had ever come back—except for one. He was there. He chose to leave. He wanted to change.

Stella Raphael, a cultured and elegant but restless young woman, lives with her husband, Max, a forensic psychiatrist, and their small son, Charlie, at a high-security mental hospital in rural England. Isolated from the urban excitement she craves, Stella is unhappy with her husband and her life, and when she comes into contact with the brilliant and attractive sculptor Edgar Stark, a patient who is engaged in rebuilding the asylum's decrepit Victorian conservatory, she begins to fall in love. Her discovery that Edgar was confined to the hospital after he brutally murdered and disfigured his wife in a psychotic, jealous rage fails to deter Stella from her growing passion, and eventually her love for Edgar is pitted against her husband, her child, the institution, and the entire fabric of her society. Finally Stella makes her choice, precipitating an appalling tragedy and changing the course of several lives.

Chronicles the anxiety-ridden two weeks leading to the marriage of Elliot Sherman who is the quintessential Baxter—the nice guy who never gets the girl.

Set in the world of up-and-coming artists, "Undiscovered" is a heartfelt and comic film that tells the story of an aspiring model who falls in love with a struggling musician when they suddenly cross paths on a NY subway train. Having achieved success as a NY model, Brier (James) decides to move to L.A. to launch an acting career. With the support of her acerbic agent and sometimes surrogate mom, Carrie (Fisher), Brier lands a spot in a highly sought after acting class where she befriends another would-be actress, Clea (Simpson). While out on the town discovering the music scene, Brier again crosses paths with Luke (Strait), a singer/songwriter who has been toiling for years without a record deal. Brier and Clea decide to help Luke and unbeknownst to him, they set out to create some L.A. style hype to get him noticed. As Luke's profile rises, so do the demands of his budding new career. When Luke and Brier can't hide the spark that was always there, they both discover that the price of fame may be higher than anyone expected.

In the outrageous comedy," Wedding Crashers", divorce mediators John Beckwith (Owen Wilson) and Jeremy Grey (Vince Vaughn) are business partners and life-long friends who share one truly unique springtime hobby…crashing weddings! Whatever the ethnicity of the wedding party – Jewish, Italian, Irish, Chinese, Hindu – the charismatic and charming duo always have clever back stories for inquisitive guests and inevitably become the hit of every reception, where they strictly adhere to their proven "rules of wedding crashing" to meet and pick up women aroused by the very thought of marriage.

At the tail end of another successful season of toasting brides and grooms, Jeremy learns that the daughter of Treasury Secretary William Cleary (Christopher Walken) and his wife Kathleen (Jane Seymour) is getting married in what is sure to be the Washington, D. C. social event of the year. After infiltrating the lavish affair, John and Jeremy quickly set their sights on bridesmaids Claire (Rachel McAdams) and Gloria (Isla Fisher) Cleary.

With the lavish reception in full swing, Jeremy works his game plan to perfection in seducing Gloria, but John's flirtatious banter with Claire is unexpectedly impeded by her pompous, Ivy League boyfriend Sack (Bradley Cooper). Having uncharacteristically fallen hard and fast for Claire, John convinces a resistant Jeremy to bend the crashing rules and accept an invitation to an extended weekend party at the Cleary family compound.

Once at the palatial waterfront estate, John and Jeremy endure a multitude of comical mishaps at the hands of the hysterically dysfunctional members of the Cleary family, but also learn a few unexpected lessons about love and relationships.

Mamie is being blackmailed. This filmmaker named Nick claims to know Mamie's son—the one she gave up for adoption—but Nick won't introduce her to him unless he can film the reunion. Enter Javier, Mamie's massage therapist boyfriend, who convinces Nick to film him instead. Now they're all making a movie about massage. And ‘happy endings'…

Charley has a longtime boyfriend named Gil. Their best friends, Pam and Diane, once tried using Gil as a sperm donor. They said his sperm didn't take, but Charley thinks those selfish, control-freak lesbians are lying. Pam and Diane's two-year-old son looks exactly like Gil. And it's time to set the record straight…

Jude is pissed. Not at anyone in particular. Just in general. When her cousin kicks her out of the house, Jude shacks up with Otis, who's still trying to convince his father, Frank, that he's straight. Frank's a widower. And he's rich. So Jude decides to sleep with him, too. Really. The last thing she expected was to fall in love…

John and Jane Smith are an ordinary suburban couple with an ordinary, lifeless suburban marriage. But each is hiding something the other would kill to know: Mr. and Mrs. Smith are actually highly paid, incredibly efficient assassins--and they work for competing organizations. Mr. and Mrs. Smith both discover a new source of excitement in their marriage, when they're hired to assassinate each other--and that's when the real fun starts. The result is a total action spectacle, as Mr. and Mrs. Smith put their formidable skills to work and their marriage to the ultimate test.

In "The Perfect Man", teenager Holly Hamilton (Hilary Duff) is tired of moving every time her single mom Jean (Heather Locklear) has another personal meltdown involving yet another second-rate guy. To distract her mother from her latest bad choice, Holly conceives the perfect plan for the perfect man...an imaginary secret admirer who will romance Jean and boost her shaky self-esteem. When the virtual relationship takes off, Holly finds herself having to produce the suitor, borrowing her friend's charming and handsome Uncle Ben (Chris Noth) as the face behind the e-mails, notes and gifts. Holly must resort to increasingly desperate measures to keep the ruse alive and protect her mom's newfound happiness. . . almost missing the real perfect man when he does come along.

Just when his career hits an all-time low, a conceited and frustrated movie star, Jack Wyatt, gets one last shot when he's cast to do a remake of a cult TV series, Bewitched, playing the lead role of 'Darren'. In search of his leading lady, 'Samantha', the competitive, insecure Wyatt makes it pretty clear to his producers that his co-star needs to be an unknown, so as not to steal his thunder. Finally, after weeks of searching, he finds the perfect witch in the shy Isabel Bigelow, but he has no idea just how 'perfect' she really is. So, as the script for the popular show is being re-tooled to, instead, center around Darren's character, the actor Wyatt soon discovers that his increasingly annoyed new leading lady, Isabel—who begins to wreak havoc on set—is an actual witch, who can truly cast spells.

Set during the 12th century in the holy city of Jerusalem, a young Muslim peasant and blacksmith, Salaq Ul-Hul (Orlando Bloom), becomes a knight so that he may help repel the Crusaders who took control of the city in 1099. Meanwhile, the young knight also falls in love with the city's beautiful princess...

Charlotte "Charlie" Honeywell (Jennifer Lopez) is a professional dog walker who has a hard time finding any good men to date, with her social life mostly composed of continually disastrous blind dates. Her dreams seem to come true, however, when she meets Kevin, the perfect guy... until she meets his mother (Jane Fonda), who thinks no girl is good enough for Kevin, and *especialy* not Charlie. With her mother-in-law trying to sabotage the relationship, can Charlie's dream of a perfect wedding and marriage ever happen?

A romantic comedy-of-manners where the single mother of a young Chinese-American woman arrives on her doorstep unannounced... and pregnant.

Story revolves around the relationship between an American teen, portrayed by Boorem, who travels to China as part of a charitable org, and a Chinese counterpart who receives surgery to correct a facial deformity.

A young drifter enters strangers' houses - and lives - while owners are away. He spends a night or a day squatting in, repaying their unwitting hospitality by doing laundry or small repairs. His life changes when he runs into a beautiful woman in an affluent mansion who is ready to escape her unhappy, abusive marriage.

Set on a world populated entirely by robots, this is the story of a young genius, Rodney (Ewan McGregor), who wants to make robots capable of making the world a better place, but he finds his dream challenged by a corporate tyrant and a master inventor, Big Weld (Mel Brooks), while also being seduced by a sexy corporate robot, Cappy (Halle Berry).

This heartwarming comedy centers on two brothers, John Joe and Jimmy, who haven't seen each other in twenty years. Having parted on bad terms, they meet at the All Ireland traditional music finals as leaders of rival Irish dance bands. Romance ensues between Anne (Andrea Corr), a beautiful fiddle player, and Teddy, a brilliant young flute player, members of the rival bands leading to more than just a musical rivalry.

This comedy focuses on a man (Ashton Kutcher) marrying a black woman whose father (Bernie Mac) is having a difficult time dealing with the interracial relationship.

Kat Ellis is looking for the right man. NOW. The position comes with a few requirements: willingness to travel, keen social skills, good looks, suave demeanor, sharp mind—and a tux. The qualified candidate should also have the ability to make ex-boyfriends jealous, to turn heads whenever entering a room and to reduce any woman within eye-and earshot to a week-kneed, besotted admirer. Kat wouldn't be so urgently in need were in not for her spoiled half sister's wedding where the best man happens to be Kat's handsome ex-boyfriend. What's worse, the currently single Kat has to schlep all the way from New York to London, where her wildly dysfunctional family lives. And since the wedding is happening next week, Kat does what any enterprising single woman would do—she hires a professional. So what if her solution crosses a few morally dubious lines plus costs her a tidy six thousand bucks which she'll have to drain from her 401K? And so what if her escort happens to be—well, an escort? Lucky for her that her hiring skills are pitch-perfect and she zeroes in on smooth heart-stopper Nick Mercer, one of New York's better known and in-demand professional male escorts. Once in England, the insightful and charismatic Nick—part actor/part shrink/part bon vivant—helps Kat navigate the choppy waters of her screwy family and caddish old flame Jeffrey and convinces everyone he meets that he and Kate are an item. As Nick charms Kat's parents, Bunny and Victor Ellis, her self-absorbed half sister Amy, Amy's fiancée Edward, as well as every living, breathing woman within a 100-kilometer radius, Kat too finds herself feeling things she's never felt before. For Kat, what begins as merely a face-saving ruse with a dashing guy-for-hire quickly starts to become more than she ever expected.

The determined Mrs. Bakshi sets out to find marriage matches for her four beautiful daughters while there's a lavish wedding party in town. Right away, the smart and headstrong Lalita (Aishwarya Rai) announces she will only marry for love, giving her mother nightmares. Then Lalita meets the wealthy American Will Darcy (Martin Henderson) and sparks immediately fly. But is it love or hate? Darcy comes off to Lalita as an arrogant California snob. Lalita looks to Darcy like a small-town Indian beauty who knows nothing of the world. Alternately enchanted by and suspicious of one another, Lalita and Darcy nearly fall prey to assumptions, gossip and a comedy of errors . . . until pride is humbled and prejudice overcome so that love can triumph.

Will Smith plays a "date doctor" who claims to be able to find customers their perfect romantic match in three dates or less. Eva Mendes may star as a skeptical reporter who, while investigating Smith's dubious claim, finds herself falling for him. After a chance meeting with Hitch, Sara (Eva Mendes), a gossip reporter for a daily tabloid, finds her professional life and personal life on a collision course. She makes Hitch re-evaluate his game and teaches him that love is not a feeling, it's an action.

A successful community theatre company is turned upside down when the director of an upcoming production of "Cyrano" casts an inexperienced young man with no apparent talent in the lead. The young man, Peter Rooker (Marcus Thomas), soon becomes caught up in the various intrigues of the "theater people," including the charming but mercurial Michael (John Corbett), the beautiful leading lady Grace (Amy Smart), and a colorful cast of eccentric players (including Sean Astin, Patty Duke and Alan Corduner). Peter soon discovers that in the world of theater the normal rules do not apply–but in the end there is a role for everyone.

In the wake of a painful estrangement from his daughter, boxing trainer Frankie Dunn (Clint Eastwood) has been unwilling to let himself get close to anyone for a very long time—then Maggie Fitzgerald (Hilary Swank) walks into his gym. In a life of constant struggle, Maggie's gotten herself this far on raw talent, unshakable focus and a tremendous force of will. But more than anything, she wants someone to believe in her. The last thing Frankie needs is that kind of responsibility—let alone that kind of risk—but won over by Maggie's sheer determination, he begrudgingly agrees to take her on. In turns exasperating and inspiring each other, the two come to discover that they share a common spirit that transcends the pain and loss of their pasts, and they find in each other a sense of family they lost long ago. Yet, they will both face a battle that will demand more heart and courage than any they've ever known.

The new teacher at a severely administered boys' boarding school works to positively effect the students' lives through music.