The Best Onscreen Couples of All Time

Watch it: Casablanca, on Amazon Prime, Google Play, HBO Max, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube​​

Don’t miss this: Grownups In (and Out) of Love: 13 Great Rom-Coms Starring Older Actors

​Katharine Hepburn & Spencer Tracy​

Their best movie: Woman of the Year (1942)​

Why we love them: Off screen, the long-running romance between Tracy and Hepburn was one of the worst-kept secrets in Hollywood. But on screen, they were free to be together, liberated to swap barbed, comic insults and tender “I love yous.” The prickly pair made nine films together, but our favorite is their first — this 1942 gem about a sports reporter (him) who falls for a fiery, influential political columnist (her). Woman of the Year set the rom-com template for this mismatched pair of wonderful actors, with him as a regular-guy grump and her as a haughty snob. Opposites have never attracted better. ​

Watch it: Woman of the Year, on Amazon Prime, Google Play, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube​​

Lauren Bacall & Humphrey Bogart​

Their best movie: The Big Sleep (1946)​

Why we love them: From the moment they first met during 1944’s To Have and Have Not, Bogie and Bacall became inseparable. Despite their 25-year difference in ages, there was something about her patrician poise and smoky voice and his world-weary demeanor and sarcasm that set off white-hot sparks. To Have and Have Not is a swell appetizer, but their best entrée as a duo remains their hardboiled adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s classic (and confusing) mystery, where his private eye Phillip Marlowe falls head over heels for her singing, gambling, tough-talking dame who’s tangled up in something far bigger and deadlier than she knows.​

Watch it: The Big Sleep, on Amazon Prime, Google Play, iTunes, YouTube​

​Doris Day & Rock Hudson​

Their best movie: Pillow Talk (1959)​

Why we love them: As the ’40s segued into the Eisenhower era of the ’50s, Hollywood’s concept of onscreen romance evolved from black-and-white danger to color-saturated wholesomeness. And no one epitomized that new, safe-as-kittens era better than Rock Hudson and Doris Day, who made a trio of delightfully chaste (at least, on the surface) rom-coms together between 1959 and 1964. Pillow Talk is still the standout thanks to its daffy plot about a chaste Day sharing a party line with the Hudson’s playboy when their lines get crossed. As for the movie itself, it doesn’t cross any lines at all, nor does it want to. This is a silly, squeaky-clean Cupid’s arrow story that hits the bullseye. ​

Watch it: Pillow Talk, on Amazon Prime, Google Play, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube

​Carrie Fisher & Harrison Ford​

Their best movie: The Empire Strikes Back (1980)​

Why we love them: The sexual tension was already beginning to smolder in the original Star Wars (although mostly from his side). But in the second chapter (hands down, the best in the series still), the push-pull desire between Harrison Ford’s roguish Han Solo and Carrie Fisher’s regal Princess Leia was finally sealed with a kiss. Fisher would later reveal that the two had a brief affair during filming, but by then who could have been surprised? Like Tracy and Hepburn, theirs is the ultimate opposites-attract love … albeit in a galaxy far, far away. ​

Watch it: The Empire Strikes Back, on Amazon Prime, Disney+, Google Play, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube

​Meg Ryan & Billy Crystal​

Their best movie: When Harry Met Sally… (1989)​

Why we love them: It’s hard to imagine movie romance in the ’80s and ’90s without Meg Ryan. She was the Girl Next Door with a twist. She could be daffy and dizzy, but also spiky and smart. Her characters were searching for storybook love stories, but she also gave off the vibe that she didn’t necessarily need a man to feel complete … which made her all the more attractive. Her rom-coms with Tom Hanks (Sleepless in Seattle and You’ve Got Mail) are beloved, but they haven’t aged nearly as well as this still-sharp satire about the age-old battlefield between men and women and the question of whether it’s possible to just be friends. Billy Crystal was never funnier than he is here, but Ryan steals the show with her “I’ll have what she’s having” fake orgasm in a New York deli.

Watch it: When Harry Met Sally…, on Amazon Prime, HBO Max, iTunes, YouTube

​Kate Winslet & Leonardo DiCaprio​

Their best movie: Titanic (1997)​

Why we love them: Just reading the title Titanic, it’s hard not to picture Leonardo DiCaprio’s steerage-class Romeo Jack holding Kate Winslet’s privileged and restless Rose as she spreads her arms at ship’s prow. Is it corny? Sure. But it’s also iconic and pretty damn effective unless, of course, you’re made of stone. James Cameron’s epic captured the hearts and minds of swooning teenage romantics around the world, tapping into a generational mood that turned out to be a lot less jaded than Xers were credited for. Thanks to the undeniable chemistry between Winslet and DiCaprio, Titanic proved that a well-told love story — even a doomed one — can transport us. ​

Watch it: Titanic, on Amazon Prime, Google Play, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube​

​Jennifer Lopez & George Clooney​

Their best movie: Out of Sight (1998)​

Why we love them: Steven Soderbergh’s jazzy crime caper is as twisty as a bagful of pretzels, but the thing that really makes it soar is the palpable erotic heat given off by George Clooney (at his post-E.R. heartthrob peak) and Jennifer Lopez (who transformed from actress to movie star during the film’s 123-minute running time). He’s a charismatic bank robber, she’s an ambitious U.S. marshal, and when the two of them are locked in the trunk of a car together, it felt like someone yelled “Fire!” in movie theaters across America. ​

Watch it: Out of Sight, on Amazon Prime, Google Play, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube​

Sanaa Lathan & Omar Epps​

Their best movie: Love & Basketball (2000)​

Why we love them: Gina Prince-Bythewood’s first film as a director remains one of the great filmmaking debuts of the 2000s. Omar Epps and a luminous Sanaa Lathan play two L.A. neighbors who both grow up dreaming of playing professional basketball. There’s plenty of romance, to be sure, but what makes Love & Basketball more than just the story of two easy-on-the-eyes people and their hoop dreams is how deftly it tackles issues of race and sexual politics. That, and the fact that Epps and Lathan are absolutely unforgettable together, on the court and especially off. ​

Watch it: Love & Basketball, on Amazon Prime, Google Play, HBO Max, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube​

Maggie Cheung & Tony Leung

Their best movie: In the Mood for Love (2000)

Why we love them: Sometimes stories of agonizing unconsummated love can be just as swoon-inducing as those in which the bedsprings get a workout. Take The Remains of the Day or, better yet, this gorgeous import from director Wong Kar-Wai. Set in Hong Kong in 1962, the story centers on neighbors (Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung) who discover that their spouses are having an affair, and slowly begin on a path toward a love affair far more powerful than anything they imagined. Every frame of In the Mood for Love could be paused, framed and hung in a gallery. It’s that beautiful. But the film’s real power comes from its two magnificent stars and their sensual duet of repressed passion.

Watch it: In the Mood for Love, on HBO Max

​Heath Ledger & Jake Gyllenhaal​

Their best movie: Brokeback Mountain (2005)​

Why we love them: Twenty years ago, it would have been hard to find a same-sex cinematic couple that measured up to the other pairings on this list. Now, thankfully, there’s a number to choose from. Still, Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain remains the most artful, affecting and humane. Jake Gyllenhaal’s Jack Twist and Heath Ledger’s Ennis Del Mar are two ranchers who meet and immediately form a deep connection that becomes a secret romance spanning years of fishing trips away from their straight lives back home. The characters wrestle with coming out of the closet, but ironically the film’s most poignant scene takes place inside of a closet as their two cowboy shirts are intertwined on hangers like tragic lovers who will never be allowed to be their true selves in the open. ​

Watch it: Brokeback Mountain, on Amazon Prime, Google Play, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube

Chris Nashawaty, former film critic for Entertainment Weekly, is the author of Caddyshack: The Making of a Hollywood Cinderella Story and a contributor to Esquire, Vanity Fair, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.