This Valentine’s, stream this top romcoms

Critics and awards bodies agree: these five films are some of the best romantic comedy films to come out of the 2010s.

The Big Sick (2017)

Pakistan-born comedian Kumail (Emmy nominee Kumail Nanjiani from The Twilight Zone and Silicon Valley) and grad student Emily (Emmy nominee Zoe Kazan) fall in love but struggle as their cultures clash. When Emily contracts a mysterious illness, Kumail finds himself forced to face her feisty parents, his family’s expectations, and his true feelings.

Kumail wrote this classic with his real-life wife Emily V Gordon, based on their own love story. “A classic boy-meets-girl, girl-falls-into-coma, boy-and-girl-write-Oscar-nominated-movie-about-it rom-com, in other words,” according to Rolling Stone, who included this “true tale of true love” in their roundup of the 50 best romantic comedies of all time.

Oscar winner Holly Hunter and triple Emmy winner Ray Romano (Everybody Loves Raymond) co-star as Emily’s parents.

As Mike McGranaghan wrote in Indiewire’s critics’ survey of the Best Romantic Comedies of the Last 10 Years, where The Big Sick came up repeatedly, “it’s both romantic and funny… What really elevates it, though, is that it rings true… There are no false moments. Consequently, the romance plays with sincerity and the laughs hit harder.”

Similarly, in naming The Big Sick the best romantic comedy of the 2010s, Decider praised it as “relentlessly warm and funny (has anyone ever done a better 9/11 joke?) and romantic… Damn near impossible not to fall in love with. Easily one of the best rom-coms – and just plain comedies – of the last 10 years, if not the last 20.”