From swoon-worthy Korean series to heartbreaking tear-jerkers, romance-filled reality shows, and endearingly sweet movies and series about relationships, Netflix has no shortage of content to enjoy with your partner this Valentine’s Day. With the big day drawing closer, we’ve put together a list of nine titles, including both Netflix shows and movies, that are perfect to stream if you find yourself in a romantic mood. This list covers a range of different genres and interests — and, while you can certainly enjoy any of them along with Valentine’s Day chocolates and roses, they’re also the perfect complement to, really, any date night.
We’ll take a closer look at each of them below, starting with a high-profile British series that just hit the streaming giant.
One Day
Nicole Taylor’s new Netflix limited series One Day is based on the bestselling novel by David Nicholls that was adapted into a 2011 feature film starring Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess. Across the span of this 14-episode British series, Emma Morley and Dexter Mayhew, two attractive and obviously likable singles, speak to each other for the very first time on graduation night in July of 1988. They go on to connect and build a relationship that endures for years.
Crash Landing on You
Netflix has invested in and commissioned a massive pile of Korean language originals, and in my opinion, this 2019 series is the best of the best. It’s about a rich South Korean heiress who, in a hang gliding accident, gets swept across the border into North Korea. She ends up stuck in a tree, and she literally crash lands into the arms of a handsome and elite North Korean soldier.
I don’t need to tell you what happens next. Love, adventure, likable characters, an epic soundtrack, great action scenes — Crash Landing on You has it all. In fact, I love it so much that I bought it on DVD, just in case Netflix ever loses its mind and removes it from its library.
Dash & Lily
In that same vein, we turn next to Dash & Lily — one of the sweetest romances I’ve come across yet on Netflix. Its main characters are the uber-cynical Dash and perpetually bubbly Lily, both of whom fall in love before meeting in person by swapping messages and dares in a notebook that they each leave for the other all over New York City. It sort of prefaces their real relationship with a romantic, get-to-know-each-other scavenger hunt.
Love is Blind
It should go without saying that Netflix’s most bingeable content doesn’t have to be, like, Citizen Kane-level. Love is Blind is a great example of this. One of Netflix’s most popular and longest-running shows, its fans can’t get enough of it, while critics often pan it as low-brow garbage. But it does scratch an itch, watching these people operating under the delusion that you can fall in love with someone before ever laying eyes on them.
It’s not the best that the streaming giant has to offer. But I can see a couple maybe having fun laughing at it, or just leaving it on in the background, or maybe even getting caught up in the unfolding romances as they watch on a date night, so that’s why it’s included here.
From Scratch
Tembi Locke’s 2019 memoir From Scratch begins by leaping forward in time, with a recounting of the author driving along a winding country road through a small Sicilian village in a rusted Fiat, her husband’s ashes in a small box tucked between her legs. “In Sicily,” she writes, “every story begins with a marriage or death.”
In her case, the story starts with both, though it certainly doesn’t end there.
Her memoir, adapted into a Netflix series of the same name starring Zoe Saldana, is based on her story about studying abroad in Italy years ago, and falling in love with a Sicilian chef. It dramatizes Locke’s memoir by presenting a whirlwind romance between two people with very different cultural backgrounds, while also seasoning it with humor and lightheartedness to balance out the drama. Eventually, the Italian chef (named Lino in this series) confronts an unimaginable health challenge, and the two lovers and their extended families come together to prove that love conquers all and can certainly cross any border.
Love at First Sight
This next Netflix title is built around one of the oldest tropes in the genre of romance — the idea of sparks between two people leading to love at first sight. And as eye-rollingly cheesy as the prospect sounds, the fact that this release is a romantic comedy that comes from the producers of the streamer’s hugely popular To All the Boys franchise is reason enough to give it a try.
Based on Jennifer E. Smith’s novel The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight and starring Haley Lu Richardson and Ben Hardy as the pair of lovebirds, the story finds the characters of Hadley and Oliver slowly starting to fall in love on their flight from New York to London. Until, that is, they lose each other at customs, their hopes dashed, and feeling like the odds are too great that they’ll ever find the other again.
“After missing her flight from New York to London, Hadley (Haley Lu Richardson) meets Oliver (Ben Hardy) in a chance encounter at the airport that sparks an instant connection,” explains the official Netflix synopsis. “A long night on the plane together passes in the blink of an eye but upon landing at Heathrow, the pair are separated, and finding each other in the chaos seems impossible. Will fate intervene to transform these seatmates into soul mates?”
To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before
I’ll confess: Age-wise, I suspect I’m way outside the target demographic of this adaptation by director Susan Johnson of Jenny Han’s novel of the same name. Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before and feel like it’s a pretty delightful and wholesome YA movie that almost anyone can appreciate. It’s thanks in part to the fantastic cast, led by an impossible-to-dislike Lana Condor, while the plot involves protagonist Lara Jean Song Covey’s unsent love letters getting delivered to all her crushes at once.
The movie, by the way, proved successful enough that it gave birth to a larger franchise for Netflix. There are two additional movies (To All The Boys: P.S. I Still Love You, and To All The Boys: Always and Forever) as well as a spinoff series, XO, Kitty.
Love on the Spectrum
From the official Netflix synopsis, the “Emmy Award-winning docu-reality series Love on the Spectrum U.S. is an insightful and warm-hearted series following people on the autism spectrum as they navigate the world of dating and relationships. In its second season, this U.S. based series tells the stories of a unique and diverse cast of characters — including new romantic hopefuls and familiar faces — searching for something we all hope to find, love.”
Always Be My Maybe
Last but not least, I can’t leave out 2019’s Always Be My Maybe. Ali Wong and Randall Park star as childhood friends Sasha and Marcus, who reunite in adulthood. They do so when Sasha, now a celebrity chef, returns to her hometown to open a new restaurant and runs into Marcus (who’s a happy yet complacent musician who still lives at home and works for his dad). “Though the two are reluctant to reconnect,” Netflix explains, “they soon find the old sparks — and maybe some new ones — are there.”
