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Summer Romantic Movies Preview 2024

Romance is back — here are the must-watch romances and romantic comedies coming to screens big and small this season

Tim Appelo,

AARP

En español

Published July 05, 2024

Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum standing next to each other in a scene from the film Fly Me to the Moon

(Left to right) Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum in “Fly Me to the Moon.”

Courtesy Apple TV+

Sometime around 2010, cinematic romance ran out of steam. The romantic comedy genre in particular fell out of favor for years. But in 2024, romantic movies are back big-time.

The Sydney Sweeney–Glen Powell rom-com Anyone But You was a $220 million theatrical blockbuster last December, got rereleased with new footage on Valentine’s Day and then became Netflix’s No. 1 streaming hit this April. Hit Man, also starring Glen Powell, which grafts a fictional love story onto the amazing true tale of a professor who moonlighted as a fake assassin for the New Orleans police, has been a top-10 Netflix hit for weeks, and The Idea of You, with Anne Hathaway as a single mom who kindles a fling with the Harry Styles–like 24-year-old lead singer (Nicholas Galitzine) of her teenage daughter’s fave boy band, is a Prime Video smash, especially among AARP viewers.

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All of the above are well worth catching, and our reawakened passion for smooch-intensive movies shows no sign of dying down. Here are some of the promising ones coming up to tug at your heartstrings and/or tickle your funny bone.

Don’t miss this: 12 Classic Older Woman/Younger Man Movies to Watch

Fly Me to the Moon (July 12 in theaters)

This fanciful rom-com about the 1969 Apollo 11 mission to the moon was supposed to be an Apple TV+ streaming original, but over and over, test audiences were so over the moon in their enthusiasm that it became a theatrical release. Channing Tatum stars as a former military pilot who’s in charge of the moon shot. But the White House is nervous that it won’t go well, so a Manhattan ad executive (Scarlett Johansson) gets the job of filming a fake lunar landing, just in case. It’s a send-up of TV’s most-watched event, which also launched a famous conspiracy theory, with bright 1960s colors and pop culture details that may remind viewers of Barbie’s sense of fun. Costars include Woody Harrelson, 62, and Ray Romano, 66, but it’s the stars’ romantic chemistry that’s going to make this one blast off.

Find Me Falling (July 19 on Netflix)

An aging rock star whose comeback album flops (played by not-at-all-flopping singer-actor Harry Connick Jr., 56) takes a break from his fading career, relocating to a remote home on a cliff on the spectacular island of Cyprus. Suddenly, his old flame (Agni Scott, Bridget Jones’s Baby) shows up. Mamma mia! There they go again — how can he resist her? It’s the first Netflix flick shot in Cyprus, where Scott grew up, and Cypriot director Stelana Kliris calls it a love letter to the island: “I hope that it transports audiences and gives them a little bit of magical escapism.”

Twisters (July 19 in theaters)

In the sequel to the 1996 Bill Paxton–Helen Hunt action hit Twister, about storm chasers in Oklahoma’s Tornado Alley, Daisy Edgar-Jones plays a woman haunted by a close tornado encounter who’s out to test a new storm-tracking system. She encounters a charming, reckless guy (movie romance hero of the year Glen Powell), who posts his fate-tempting adventures on social media. “If you feel it — chase it!” he says. The same might be said for romance. One way or another, looks like that gal will get swept off her feet.

*It Ends W**ith Us* (August 9 in theaters)

It’s not a comedy, but romances don’t get more popular than Colleen Hoover’s novels, which have sold more than 20 million copies. Gossip Girl’s Blake Lively stars as Lily Bloom, the heroine of Hoover’s biggest hit (loosely inspired by the author’s own family story), who survives a childhood shadowed by domestic abuse and falls for hunky and charming yet abusive neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid (Justin Baldoni). But when her first love, Atlas Corrigan (Brandon Sklenar), reappears in her life, new sparks fly — some of them scary. For the movie, the characters were aged up from early 20s to pushing 40, which should suit grownup viewers just fine.

Tim Appelo covers entertainment and is the film and TV critic for AARP. Previously, he was the entertainment editor at Amazon, video critic at Entertainment Weekly, and a critic and writer for The Hollywood Reporter, People, MTV, The Village Voice and LA Weekly.

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