OUR TOP 5 LOVE STORIES

The love story of poor artist Jack Dawson and Rose DeWitt Bukater went into the annals of great motion picture love stories when James Cameron released his record-breaking award-winning feature film, Titanic in 1997.

To celebrate the release this week of the 3D Blu-Ray set of Titanic, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, The Hoopla is pulling together our favourite period romances and our favourite screen pairings.

Here are our top five.

1. Gone with the Wind
Oh Rhett. Oh Scarlett. Why couldn’t you have just put your enormous egos aside and loved each other in the way you should? That is, at the same time?

Rhett loved Scarlett but Scarlett loved that sop Ashley. Then Scarlett loved Rhett but at that moment Rhett thought Scarlett was an unfaithful brat. It ended in tears, but the salient moments keep this 1939 movie, directed by Victor Fleming and starring Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable, on the list of best period romances… Forever.

2. The Age of Innocence
This lush, tension-ridden drama based on the book of the same name by Edith Wharton pitted the dark, simmering sexuality of Daniel Day Lewis against the brittle sensuality of Michelle Pfeiffer and her heaving, though modest, decolletage.

Director Martin Scorcese excavated 19th Century New York high society with forensic attention to detail. Day Lewis played Newland Archer, engaged to May Welland (Winona Ryder) but when he meets May’s cousin Countess Olenska (Pfeiffer) their attraction cannot be denied. Scandalous.

3. The Young Victoria
This is such a delightful love story about the deep and abiding love between Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Emily Blunt is radiant as the young Victoria in her first turbulent years of her reign, while Rupert Friend plays the German Albert, who is her true soul mate (not to mention her cousin).

Blunt and Friend have good on-screen chemistry – the proposal scene is truly enchanting. Gorgeous costumes, stunning locations, a great Julian Fellowes script about political influence at court, and true love. What more could you want?

4. Sense and Sensibility
In the Jane Austen stakes, it’s a photo finish between Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility, but this one wins by a nose by sheer virtue of Ang Lee’s direction. The incredibly versatile Taiwanese-American director (The Ice Storm, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) brought the best out of a wonderful cast including Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant and Kate Winslet. The love between Elinor Dashwood (Thompson) and Edward Ferrars (Grant) is wonderfully suppressed, natch, until an excellent proposal scene that finds Grant at his endearing, stuttering best.

And, of course…

5. Titanic
He came from below decks, she was a privileged first class passenger, but their late night meeting on the bow of the great ship sparked a legendary motion picture romance as well as the iconic vision of them standing on the railings of the stern in which Leo/Jack screams “I’m the king of the world!”. The movie opens with Rose at age 101, looking back on the fateful night in April 1912 when the RMS Titanic hit an iceberg in the Atlantic Ocean, causing the death of 1502 people. Rose, one of the (fictional) survivors tells her story of the enduring love of her life.

What are your favourite period romantic movies?

Who are the great screen lovers of our time? Tell us why you love them…