Great Love Stories for the Ages
20 famous couples and great romances from stage, screen, TV, books — and real life
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Everett Collection
Yuri and Lara
En español | Doctor Zhivago
It has been 50 years since we thronged to see the epic film based on Boris Pasternak’s novel, but who can forget Omar Sharif and Julie Christie’s retreat to the winter ice palace? Here are 19 more of a generation’s best-loved romances. -
Everett Collection
Romeo and Juliet
Romeo and Juliet; Romeo + Juliet Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers pack theaters twice within 30 years: Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey in 1968, Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes in 1996. The story also inspires the Broadway musical West Side Story and its film version with Natalie Wood and Richard Behmer.
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Everett Collection
Jenny and Oliver
Love Story Ali MacGraw and Ryan O’Neal are “poor girl/rich boy” Ivy League students in the 1970 tearjerker. Author Erich Segal wrote the screenplay before the best-selling novel. Most memorable line: “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.”
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New Line Cinema/Everett Collection
Noah and Allie
The Notebook The Nicholas Sparks “poor boy/rich girl” tale comes to life on the big screen, told flashback style with James Garner/Gena Rowlands and Ryan Gosling/Rachel McAdams.
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Everett Collection
Tita and Pedro
Like Water for Chocolate More than mole is cooking in this passionate tale of forbidden love in Mexico, based on Laura Esquivel’s best-seller. Lumi Cavazos and Marco Leonardi heat up the screen in the 1992 movie.
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Everett Collection
Robert and Francesca
The Bridges of Madison County A National Geographic photographer (Clint Eastwood) and an Iowa farmer’s wife (Meryl Streep) spend a steamy four days together in this hit 1995 movie, based on a novel by Robert James Waller. Memorable line: “This kind of certainty comes but once in a lifetime.”
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James and Florida
Good Times The working-class husband and wife (John Amos and Esther Rolle) struggle to raise three children in a Chicago project apartment. Love keeps them together, despite the “Dy-no-mite” capers of son J.J.
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Everett Collection
Jeannie and Capt. Tony Nelson
I Dream of Jeannie A NASA astronaut (Larry Hagman) frees a 2,000-year-old genie (Barbara Eden) from a bottle and she becomes his devoted servant in this sitcom. She calls him Master. He tries to hide her existence. The unlikely duo eventually marry.
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Paramount Television/Everett Collection
Sam and Diane
Cheers Playboy bartender (Ted Danson) and brainy barmaid (Shelley Long) have a love-hate relationship in a Boston bar “where everybody knows your name.” Witty repartee is a major part of their off-and-on affair.
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AF archive/Alamy
Synclaire and Overton
Living Single A receptionist (Kim Coles) and lovable handyman (John Henton) are a daffy match made in heaven. The sweetly naive twosome manage to get together among the sextet of single buddies living in Brooklyn, N.Y.
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Everett Collection
Lady and Tramp
Lady and the Tramp It’s puppy love at its best when romance blooms between the privileged cocker spaniel and the streetwise, footloose and collar-free mutt in the 1955 Disney classic.
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Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images
Katie and Hubbell
The Way We Were Played by Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford in the 1973 movie, college classmates who are polar opposites meet again at the end of World War II and begin a rocky relationship. Memorable line: “When you love someone… you go deaf, dumb and blind.”
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Everett Collection
Tracy and Brian
Mahogany After their successful pairing in Lady Sings the Blues, Diana Ross and Billy Dee Williams reunite as a fashion-design-student-turned-supermodel and a social activist in the 1975 movie. Memorable line: “Success is nothing without someone to share it with.”
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Paramount/Everett Collection
Paula and Zack
An Officer and a Gentleman Debra Winger is a factory worker looking for good times with a hotshot flyboy from a Navy aviation officer training school. Richard Gere gives her much more. Memorable line: “I got nowhere else to go!”
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Columbia Pictures/Everett Collection
Harry and Sally
When Harry Met Sally… Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal are longtime friends who take the leap as lovers in the 1989 film. Ryan’s unforgettable fake orgasm scene in a New York deli prompts a diner’s memorable line: “I’ll have what she’s having.”
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Paramount/Everett Collection
Molly and Sam
Ghost Who can forget the sensual pottery-making scene between Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze in the 1990 blockbuster? Few can hear the Righteous Brothers’ Unchained Melody without the pair coming to mind. Memorable lines: “I love you. I really love you.” “Ditto.”
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New Line Cinema/Everett Collection
Quincy and Monica
Love & Basketball Choosing to pursue careers as basketball players takes a toll on the relationship of childhood friends (Omar Epps and Sanaa Lathan). But in the end, passion scores a win for these b-ball lovers in the 2000 romantic drama.
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Orion Pictures Corp/Everett Collection
Jeffrey and Steve
Jeffrey A gay man (Steven Weber) decides to become celibate during the height of the AIDS epidemic but falls for a handsome HIV-positive guy (Michael T. Weiss) in the 1995 romantic comedy. The film’s tagline: “Love is an adventure when one of you is sure … and the other is positive.”
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The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier
Sure, he may have been a womanizer and she met an untimely death. But the Riviera wedding of a bona fide American movie star and the dashing prince of Monaco is the stuff of fairy tales.
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