Romantic Classic Movies with Happy Endings
by jordyn_runswithwolves | created - 20 Jan 2014 | updated - 3 months ago | Public- Instant Watch Options
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1. A Majority of One (1961)
Approved | 156 min | Comedy, Drama, Family
A gentle love story about a Japanese businessman and widower, and a Brooklyn widow. But before a happy ending can ensue, they must learn again the lessons of tolerance, kindness, and forgiveness.
Director: Mervyn LeRoy | Stars: Rosalind Russell, Alec Guinness, Ray Danton, Madlyn Rhue
Votes: 1,166
2. Ball of Fire (1941)
Approved | 111 min | Comedy, Romance
A group of professors working on a new encyclopedia while living in a Manhattan mansion take in a mouthy nightclub singer who is wanted by the police to help bring down her mob boss lover.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Oscar Homolka, Henry Travers
Votes: 14,065
3. An Affair to Remember (1957)
Not Rated | 115 min | Drama, Romance
A couple falls in love and agrees to meet in six months at the Empire State Building - but will it happen?
Director: Leo McCarey | Stars: Cary Grant, Deborah Kerr, Richard Denning, Neva Patterson
Votes: 33,084
4. Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)
Approved | 115 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A young New York socialite becomes interested in a young man who has moved into her apartment building, but her past threatens to get in the way.
Director: Blake Edwards | Stars: Audrey Hepburn, George Peppard, Patricia Neal, Buddy Ebsen
Votes: 192,218
5. Calamity Jane (1953)
Passed | 101 min | Musical, Romance, Western
The story of Calamity Jane, her saloon, and her romance with Wild Bill Hickok.
Director: David Butler | Stars: Doris Day, Howard Keel, Allyn Ann McLerie, Philip Carey
Votes: 10,851
6. Sabrina (1954)
Passed | 113 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A playboy becomes interested in the daughter of his family's chauffeur, but it's his more serious brother who would be the better man for her.
Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Audrey Hepburn, William Holden, Walter Hampden
Votes: 70,376
7. Pillow Talk (1959)
Passed | 102 min | Comedy, Romance
An interior decorator and a playboy songwriter share a telephone party line and size each other up.
Director: Michael Gordon | Stars: Rock Hudson, Doris Day, Tony Randall, Thelma Ritter
Votes: 19,180 | Gross: $18.75M
8. Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)
Passed | 113 min | Comedy, Drama, Family
Young love and childish fears highlight a year in the life of a turn-of-the-century family.
Director: Vincente Minnelli | Stars: Judy Garland, Margaret O'Brien, Mary Astor, Lucille Bremer
Votes: 27,689 | Gross: $7.57M
9. Summer Stock (1950)
Approved | 108 min | Musical, Romance
A small-town farmer, down on her luck, finds her homestead invaded by a theatrical troupe invited to stay by her ne'er-do-well sister.
Director: Charles Walters | Stars: Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, Eddie Bracken, Gloria DeHaven
Votes: 4,810
10. Easter Parade (1948)
G | 103 min | Musical, Romance
A nightclub performer hires a naive chorus girl to become his new dance partner to make his former partner jealous and to prove he can make any partner a star.
Director: Charles Walters | Stars: Judy Garland, Fred Astaire, Peter Lawford, Ann Miller
Votes: 11,093 | Gross: $9.03M
11. The African Queen (1951)
PG | 105 min | Adventure, Drama, Romance
In WWI East Africa, a gin-swilling Canadian riverboat captain is persuaded by a strait-laced English missionary to undertake a trip up a treacherous river and use his boat to attack a German gunship.
Director: John Huston | Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn, Robert Morley, Peter Bull
Votes: 84,338 | Gross: $0.54M
12. Gigi (1958)
G | 115 min | Comedy, Musical, Romance
Weary of the conventions of Parisian society, a rich playboy and a youthful courtesan-in-training enjoy a platonic friendship which may not stay platonic for long.
Directors: Vincente Minnelli, Charles Walters | Stars: Leslie Caron, Maurice Chevalier, Louis Jourdan, Hermione Gingold
Votes: 24,508
13. My Fair Lady (1964)
G | 170 min | Drama, Family, Musical
In 1910s London, snobbish phonetics professor Henry Higgins agrees to a wager that he can make crude flower girl, Eliza Doolittle, presentable in high society.
Director: George Cukor | Stars: Audrey Hepburn, Rex Harrison, Stanley Holloway, Wilfrid Hyde-White
Votes: 101,855 | Gross: $72.00M
14. His Girl Friday (1940)
Passed | 92 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A newspaper editor uses every trick in the book to keep his ace reporter ex-wife from remarrying.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell, Ralph Bellamy, Gene Lockhart
Votes: 63,191 | Gross: $0.30M
15. The Shop Around the Corner (1940)
Not Rated | 99 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Two employees at a gift shop can barely stand each other, without realizing that they are falling in love through the post as each other's anonymous pen pal.
Director: Ernst Lubitsch | Stars: Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart, Frank Morgan, Joseph Schildkraut
Votes: 38,508 | Gross: $0.20M
16. The Sound of Music (1965)
G | 172 min | Biography, Drama, Family
A young novice is sent by her convent in 1930s Austria to become a governess to the seven children of a widowed naval officer.
Director: Robert Wise | Stars: Julie Andrews, Christopher Plummer, Eleanor Parker, Richard Haydn
Votes: 261,170 | Gross: $163.21M
17. Slightly Dangerous (1943)
Passed | 94 min | Comedy, Romance
Peggy is 21 and bored. She has just been awarded a certificate for starting work on time for 1000 days. She decides that she needs a change so she leaves a note, which is taken to be ... See full summary »
Director: Wesley Ruggles | Stars: Lana Turner, Robert Young, Walter Brennan, May Whitty
Votes: 882
18. The Tender Trap (1955)
Approved | 111 min | Comedy, Musical, Romance
Successful theater agent Charlie Reader lives a playboy's life in New York City. When his childhood friend shows up with a desire to leave his wife, the two are awestruck by each other's lifestyle.
Director: Charles Walters | Stars: Frank Sinatra, Debbie Reynolds, David Wayne, Celeste Holm
Votes: 2,863
19. Joy of Living (1938)
Passed | 91 min | Comedy, Musical, Romance
Broadway star Margaret Garrett has spent her whole life working to support her sponging relatives. When she meets carefree Dan Webster, she learns how to have fun for the first time.
Director: Tay Garnett | Stars: Irene Dunne, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Alice Brady, Guy Kibbee
Votes: 919
20. Adam and Evalyn (1949)
Passed | 70 min | Comedy, Romance
When a friend dies, a gambler adopts his daughter. Complications ensue.
Director: Harold French | Stars: Stewart Granger, Jean Simmons, Helen Cherry, Joan Swinstead
Votes: 612
21. The Major and the Minor (1942)
Passed | 100 min | Comedy, Romance
A frustrated city girl disguises herself as a youngster in order to get a cheaper train ticket home. But little "Sue Sue" finds herself in a whole heap of grown-up trouble when she hides out in a compartment with a handsome Major.
Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: Ginger Rogers, Ray Milland, Rita Johnson, Robert Benchley
Votes: 7,646 | Gross: $6.38M
22. Some Like It Hot (1959)
Passed | 121 min | Comedy, Music, Romance
After two male musicians witness a mob hit, they flee the state in an all-female band disguised as women, but further complications set in.
Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, George Raft
Votes: 283,624 | Gross: $25.00M
23. Daddy Long Legs (1955)
Approved | 126 min | Musical, Romance
A wealthy American has a chance encounter with a joyful young French woman, and anonymously pays for her education. She writes letters to her mysterious benefactor, nicknaming him from the description given by some of her fellow orphans.
Director: Jean Negulesco | Stars: Fred Astaire, Leslie Caron, Terry Moore, Thelma Ritter
Votes: 4,287
24. Grease (1978)
PG | 110 min | Comedy, Musical, Romance
Good girl Sandy Olsson and greaser Danny Zuko fell in love over the summer. When they unexpectedly discover they're now in the same high school, will they be able to rekindle their romance?
Director: Randal Kleiser | Stars: John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John, Stockard Channing, Jeff Conaway
Votes: 300,701 | Gross: $188.76M
25. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)
Approved | 91 min | Comedy, Musical, Romance
Showgirls Lorelei Lee and Dorothy Shaw travel to Paris, pursued by a private detective hired by the suspicious father of Lorelei's fiancé, as well as a rich, enamored old man and many other doting admirers.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Jane Russell, Marilyn Monroe, Charles Coburn, Elliott Reid
Votes: 43,042 | Gross: $12.00M
26. Ninotchka (1939)
Not Rated | 110 min | Comedy, Romance
A stern Soviet woman sent to Paris to supervise the sale of jewels seized from Russian nobles finds herself attracted to a man who represents everything she is supposed to detest.
Director: Ernst Lubitsch | Stars: Greta Garbo, Melvyn Douglas, Ina Claire, Bela Lugosi
Votes: 22,903 | Gross: $1.19M
27. My Man Godfrey (1936)
Approved | 94 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A scatterbrained socialite hires a vagrant as a family butler - but there's more to Godfrey than meets the eye.
Director: Gregory La Cava | Stars: William Powell, Carole Lombard, Alice Brady, Gail Patrick
Votes: 26,461
28. In the Good Old Summertime (1949)
Approved | 102 min | Comedy, Musical, Romance
In turn-of-the century America, Andrew and Veronica are co-workers in a music shop who dislike one another during business hours but unwittingly carry on an anonymous romance through the mail.
Director: Robert Z. Leonard | Stars: Judy Garland, Van Johnson, S.Z. Sakall, Spring Byington
Votes: 4,309 | Gross: $6.30M
29. Johnny Belinda (1948)
Unrated | 102 min | Drama
A kind doctor volunteers to tutor a deaf-mute woman, but scandal starts to swirl when his pupil is raped and falls pregnant.
Director: Jean Negulesco | Stars: Jane Wyman, Lew Ayres, Charles Bickford, Agnes Moorehead
Votes: 5,318
30. Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)
Not Rated | 115 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A unassuming greeting card poet from a small town in Vermont heads to New York City upon inheriting a massive fortune and is immediately hounded by those who wish to take advantage of him.
Director: Frank Capra | Stars: Gary Cooper, Jean Arthur, George Bancroft, Lionel Stander
Votes: 23,226
31. The More the Merrier (1943)
Passed | 104 min | Comedy
During the World War II housing shortage in Washington, two men and a woman share a single apartment and the older man plays Cupid to the other two.
Director: George Stevens | Stars: Jean Arthur, Joel McCrea, Charles Coburn, Richard Gaines
Votes: 7,479
32. Mother Is a Freshman (1949)
81 min | Comedy, Romance
In order to afford her daughter's college tuition, a woman enrolls herself at the same school aided by a rare large bursary but they both fall in love with the same cute English professor.
Director: Lloyd Bacon | Stars: Loretta Young, Van Johnson, Rudy Vallee, Barbara Lawrence
Votes: 457
33. The Mating Game (1959)
Passed | 96 min | Comedy, Romance
An uptight IRS agent is ordered to investigate a rural family in debt to the government...but the family - including lovely daughter Mariette - help him loosen up.
Director: George Marshall | Stars: Debbie Reynolds, Tony Randall, Paul Douglas, Fred Clark
Votes: 1,815
34. Lady Behave! (1937)
Approved | 70 min | Comedy, Romance
It's bad enough that Clarice Kendall Andrews, Paula's irresponsible sister, comes home from celebrating Mardi Gras and drunkenly mentions that she got married during the festivities. What's... See full summary »
Director: Lloyd Corrigan | Stars: Sally Eilers, Neil Hamilton, Joseph Schildkraut, Grant Mitchell
Votes: 264
35. Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949)
Approved | 93 min | Comedy, Musical, Romance
Two turn-of-the-century baseball players, who work in vaudeville during the off-season, run into trouble with their team's new female owner and a gambler who doesn't want them to win the pennant.
Director: Busby Berkeley | Stars: Frank Sinatra, Esther Williams, Gene Kelly, Betty Garrett
Votes: 4,077
36. Lili (1953)
Passed | 81 min | Drama, Musical, Romance
An orphaned young woman becomes part of a puppet act and forms a relationship with the anti-social puppeteer.
Director: Charles Walters | Stars: Leslie Caron, Mel Ferrer, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Zsa Zsa Gabor
Votes: 3,935
37. The Richest Girl in the World (1934)
Passed | 76 min | Comedy, Romance
An heiress switches places with her secretary in order to find a man who will love her for who she is and not for her money.
Director: William A. Seiter | Stars: Miriam Hopkins, Joel McCrea, Fay Wray, Henry Stephenson
Votes: 1,019
38. That Funny Feeling (1965)
Not Rated | 93 min | Comedy, Romance
Sandra Dee stars as Joan Howell, a young and pretty maid-for-hire, who begins dating wealthy New York City businessman Tom Milford (Bobby Darin) in That Funny Feeling.
Director: Richard Thorpe | Stars: Sandra Dee, Bobby Darin, Donald O'Connor, Nita Talbot
Votes: 1,006
39. Bells Are Ringing (1960)
Not Rated | 126 min | Comedy, Musical, Romance
A Brooklyn answering service operator becomes involved in the lives of her clients, including a struggling playwright with whom she begins to fall in love.
Director: Vincente Minnelli | Stars: Judy Holliday, Dean Martin, Fred Clark, Eddie Foy Jr.
Votes: 3,812 | Gross: $6.16M
40. Born Yesterday (1950)
Not Rated | 103 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A tycoon hires a tutor to teach his lover proper etiquette, with unexpected results.
Director: George Cukor | Stars: Judy Holliday, William Holden, Broderick Crawford, Howard St. John
Votes: 12,422
41. Desk Set (1957)
Approved | 103 min | Comedy, Romance
Two extremely strong personalities clash over the computerization of a television network's research department.
Director: Walter Lang | Stars: Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Gig Young, Joan Blondell
Votes: 9,540
42. Holiday (1938)
Passed | 95 min | Comedy, Romance
A young man in love with a girl from a rich family finds his unorthodox plan to go on holiday for the early years of his life met with skepticism by everyone except for his fiancée's eccentric sister and long-suffering brother.
Director: George Cukor | Stars: Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Doris Nolan, Lew Ayres
Votes: 18,254
43. The Apartment (1960)
Approved | 125 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A Manhattan insurance clerk tries to rise in his company by letting its executives use his apartment for trysts, but complications and a romance of his own ensue.
Director: Billy Wilder | Stars: Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Fred MacMurray, Ray Walston
Votes: 196,928 | Gross: $18.60M
44. Bachelor Mother (1939)
Passed | 82 min | Comedy, Romance
An unemployed woman discovers an abandoned baby on the steps of an orphanage, and accepts an offer to take responsibility for the child in return for a job.
Director: Garson Kanin | Stars: Ginger Rogers, David Niven, Charles Coburn, Frank Albertson
Votes: 4,610
45. Fifth Avenue Girl (1939)
Approved | 83 min | Comedy, Romance
Feeling unwanted by his wife and children, a wealthy industrialist hires an unemployed young woman to pose as his mistress.
Director: Gregory La Cava | Stars: Ginger Rogers, Walter Connolly, Verree Teasdale, James Ellison
Votes: 1,795
46. Lover Come Back (1961)
Approved | 107 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A series of misunderstandings leaves an advertising executive with a campaign for a product which has not yet been invented, while he romances his rival in the guise of its inventor.
Director: Delbert Mann | Stars: Rock Hudson, Doris Day, Tony Randall, Edie Adams
Votes: 8,767 | Gross: $16.94M
47. I'll Be Seeing You (1944)
Approved | 85 min | Drama, Family, Romance
A soldier suffering from combat fatigue meets a young woman on Christmas furlough from prison and their mutual loneliness blossoms into romance.
Directors: William Dieterle, George Cukor | Stars: Ginger Rogers, Joseph Cotten, Shirley Temple, Spring Byington
Votes: 2,522
48. Butterflies Are Free (1972)
PG | 109 min | Comedy, Drama, Music
A blind man moves into his own apartment against the wishes of his overprotective mother and befriends the freethinking young woman next door.
Director: Milton Katselas | Stars: Goldie Hawn, Edward Albert, Eileen Heckart, Paul Michael Glaser
Votes: 5,962 | Gross: $0.25M
49. White Christmas (1954)
Not Rated | 120 min | Comedy, Musical, Romance
A successful song-and-dance team become romantically involved with a sister act and team up to save the failing Vermont inn of their former commanding general.
Director: Michael Curtiz | Stars: Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, Vera-Ellen
Votes: 51,141 | Gross: $30.00M
50. Christmas in Connecticut (1945)
Approved | 101 min | Comedy, Romance
A food writer who has lied about being the perfect housewife must try to cover her deception when her boss and a returning war hero invite themselves to her home for a traditional family Christmas.
Director: Peter Godfrey | Stars: Barbara Stanwyck, Dennis Morgan, Sydney Greenstreet, Reginald Gardiner
Votes: 12,028
51. Carefree (1938)
Passed | 83 min | Comedy, Musical, Romance
A psychiatrist falls in love with the woman he's supposed to be nudging into marriage with someone else.
Director: Mark Sandrich | Stars: Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Ralph Bellamy, Luella Gear
Votes: 4,316
52. Rafter Romance (1933)
Passed | 73 min | Comedy, Romance
A man and a woman share an apartment on a shift basis, never seeing each other; she dislikes him until they actually meet.
Director: William A. Seiter | Stars: Ginger Rogers, Norman Foster, George Sidney, Robert Benchley
Votes: 887
53. It Had to Be You (1947)
98 min | Comedy, Fantasy, Romance
A woman is noted for leaving her bridegrooms at the altar until a dashing fireman walks into her life.
Directors: Don Hartman, Rudolph Maté | Stars: Ginger Rogers, Cornel Wilde, Percy Waram, Spring Byington
Votes: 824
54. The Cowboy and the Lady (1938)
Approved | 91 min | Western
A lonely socialite masquerades as a maid and meets an unpretentious, plain-spoken cowboy who is unaware of her true identity.
Directors: H.C. Potter, Stuart Heisler, William Wyler | Stars: Gary Cooper, Merle Oberon, Patsy Kelly, Walter Brennan
Votes: 1,820
55. Rhythm in the Clouds (1937)
Approved | 62 min | Comedy, Music, Musical
Struggling songwriter Judy Walker talks her way into the apartment of a famous composer, and finds that he's on vacation. Homeless and without any money, she decides to stay at his place, making use of all his belongings.
Director: John H. Auer | Stars: Patricia Ellis, Warren Hull, William Newell, Richard Carle
Votes: 240
56. Vivacious Lady (1938)
Approved | 90 min | Comedy, Romance
A professor marries a nightclub singer, much to the consternation of his family and friends back home.
Director: George Stevens | Stars: Ginger Rogers, James Stewart, James Ellison, Beulah Bondi
Votes: 4,186
57. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947)
Approved | 110 min | Comedy, Fantasy, Romance
A clumsy daydreamer gets caught up in a sinister conspiracy.
Director: Norman Z. McLeod | Stars: Danny Kaye, Virginia Mayo, Boris Karloff, Fay Bainter
Votes: 6,868
58. Bringing Up Baby (1938)
Passed | 102 min | Comedy
While trying to secure a $1 million donation for his museum, a befuddled paleontologist is pursued by a flighty and often irritating heiress and her pet leopard, Baby.
Director: Howard Hawks | Stars: Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Charles Ruggles, Walter Catlett
Votes: 66,113
59. The Crimson Kimono (1959)
Approved | 82 min | Crime, Drama, Mystery
Two detectives seek a stripper's killer in the Japanese quarter of Los Angeles, but a love triangle threatens their friendship.
Director: Samuel Fuller | Stars: Victoria Shaw, Glenn Corbett, James Shigeta, Anna Lee
Votes: 3,114
60. Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974)
PG | 112 min | Drama, Romance
A recently widowed woman is on the road with her precocious young son, determined to make a new life for herself as a singer.
Director: Martin Scorsese | Stars: Ellen Burstyn, Kris Kristofferson, Mia Bendixsen, Alfred Lutter III
Votes: 27,483 | Gross: $18.60M
61. The Devil and Miss Jones (1941)
Approved | 92 min | Comedy, Romance
A tycoon goes undercover to ferret out agitators at a department store, but gets involved in their lives instead.
Director: Sam Wood | Stars: Jean Arthur, Robert Cummings, Charles Coburn, Edmund Gwenn
Votes: 4,774
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