Best Love affair Movies
Ranked by how strongly each film carries the visual signature of love affair cinema — measured across 1,478 indexed frames from 19 films, against a 404,689-frame catalogue baseline. Not by box office, and not by vote.
Love affair films over-index on wine glass, cardigan and books — the objects that make the genre recognisable before a line is spoken.
- 1
The Apartment (1960)
Billy WilderDP Joseph LaShelleIMDb 8.3TMDB 8.2See in full on FrameThrower →
As of November 1, 1959, mild mannered C.C. Baxter has been working at Consolidated Life, an insurance company, for close to four years, and is one of close to thirty-two thousand employees located in their Manhattan head office. To distinguish himself from all the other lowly cogs in the company in the hopes of moving up the corporate ladder, he often works late, but only because he can't get into his apartment, located off of Central Park West, since he has provided it to a handful of company executives - Mssrs. Dobisch, Kirkeby, Vanderhoff and Eichelberger - on a rotating basis for their extramarital liaisons in return for a good word to the personnel director, Jeff D. Sheldrake. When Baxter is called into Sheldrake's office for the first time, he learns that it isn't just to be promoted as he expects, but also to add married Sheldrake to the list to who he will lend his apartment. Dobisch, Kirkeby, Vanderhoff and Eichelberger are now feeling neglected as Baxter no longer needs their assistance in moving up.
- 2
It's Complicated (2009)
Nancy MeyersDP John TollIMDb 6.6TMDB 6.5See in full on FrameThrower →
When brought together at a family event, two exes find themselves oddly attracted to each other after ten years of divorce. Although the couple think that this affair will stay in a different state, it brings itself back to their own city and disrupts their personal lives. While the couple still maintain other romances, they cannot help but to continue with their affair.
- 3
The Reader (2008)
Stephen DaldryDP Roger DeakinsIMDb 7.6TMDB 7.5See in full on FrameThrower →
THE READER opens in post-war Germany when teenager Michael Berg becomes ill and is helped home by Hanna, a stranger twice his age. Michael recovers from scarlet fever and seeks out Hanna to thank her. The two are quickly drawn into a passionate secret affair. Michael discovers that Hanna loves being read to and their physical relationship deepens. Hanna is enthralled as Michael reads to her from "The Odyssey," "Huck Finn," and "The Lady with the Little Dog." Despite their intense bond, Hanna mysteriously disappears one day and Michael is left confused and heartbroken. Eight years later, while Michael is a law student observing the Nazi war crime trials, he is stunned to find Hanna back in his life--this time as a defendant in the courtroom. As Hanna's past is revealed, Michael uncovers a deep secret that will impact both of their lives. THE READER is a story about truth and reconciliation, about how one generation comes to terms with the crimes of another.
- 4
Crazy, Stupid, Love. (2011)
Glenn Ficarra, John RequaDP Andrew DunnIMDb 7.4TMDB 7.3See in full on FrameThrower →
Cal Weaver is living the American dream. He has a good job, a beautiful house, great children and a beautiful wife, named Emily. Cal's seemingly perfect life unravels, however, when he learns that Emily has been unfaithful and wants a divorce. Over 40 and suddenly single, Cal is adrift in the fickle world of dating. Enter, Jacob Palmer, a self-styled player who takes Cal under his wing and teaches him how to be a hit with the ladies.
- 5
American Beauty (1999)
Sam MendesDP Conrad HallIMDb 8.3TMDB 8.0See in full on FrameThrower →
After his death sometime in his 43rd year, suburbanite Lester Burnham tells of the last few weeks of his life, during which he had no idea of his imminent passing. He is a husband to real estate agent Carolyn Burnham and father to high school student Jane Burnham. Although Lester and Carolyn once loved each other, they now merely tolerate each other. Typical wallflower Jane also hates both her parents; the three suffer individually in silence in their home life. Jane tries to steer clear of both her parents. Carolyn, relatively new to the real estate business, wants to create the persona of success to further her career, aspiring to the professional life of Buddy Kane, the king of the real estate business in their neighborhood. Lester merely walks mindlessly through life, including at his job in advertising. His company is downsizing, and he, like all the other employees, has to justify his position to the newly hired efficiency expert to keep his job. Things change for Lester when he falls in love at first sight with Jane's more experienced classmate, Angela Hayes. Both Janie and Angela can see Lester's sexual infatuation with Angela, who courts such attention from any man as a sign that she is model material, she having once appeared in Seventeen and is a career to which she aspires. Lester's infatuation with Angela gives him a reenergized view on life, where he openly doesn't care anymore what anyone thinks about what he does, anyone except Angela. This infatuation coincides with the Fittses moving in next door: homophobic disciplinarian US Marine Colonel Frank Fitts who rules the house with a military fist (that fist being both figurative and literal), his semi-comatose wife Barbara Fitts, and their bright and quietly subversive 18-year-old son Ricky Fitts, who openly abides by his father's rules while behind the scenes lives by his own quite different perspective. Much like Lester's infatuation, Ricky immediately becomes infatuated with Jane; he considers girls like Angela as ordinary. The entry of Angela and the Fittses into the Burnhams' lives ultimately leads to each of the players confronting what is truly in his or her heart.
- 6
Steven SoderberghDP Walt LloydIMDb 7.2TMDB 6.9See in full on FrameThrower →
John and Ann Mullany, a junior partner at a law firm and a housewife respectively, are a young, upwardly mobile couple, who most would deem to have a perfect life. Ann's outward perfection belies the fact that she is in therapy, dealing with the stress over worrying about global issues with which she has little to no control. She does not see certain things with which she does have control being problems in her life, namely her sexual repression or her disinterest in sex as an activity, that is until it manifested itself in this stress which in turn is having, what she believes, a negative impact on her marriage. What she is unaware of is that, long before her stress began, John embarked on an affair with her sister, bartender Cynthia Bishop, who she doesn't admire as being too "loud". John reconnects with a close friend from college named Graham Dalton, who, to John, appears to have lost his way in life in the years that they have not been in touch. Graham, via the method in which he deals with his emotional and sexual problems - which is also believes is being totally forthright to all concerned - has a profound effect on Cynthia, John and Ann, who in turn, especially Ann, have a profound effect on him.
- 7
Brief Encounter (1945)
David LeanDP Robert KraskerIMDb 8.0TMDB 7.7See in full on FrameThrower →
Returning home from a shopping trip to a nearby town, bored suburban housewife Laura Jesson is thrown by happenstance into an acquaintance with virtuous doctor Alec Harvey. Their casual friendship soon develops during their weekly visits into something more emotionally fulfilling than either expected, and they must wrestle with the potential havoc their deepening relationship would have on their lives and the lives of those they love.
- 8
Bound (1996)
Lilly Wachowski, Lana WachowskiDP Bill PopeIMDb 7.3TMDB 7.2See in full on FrameThrower →
Corky, a lesbian ex con hired to work in an apartment as a plumber, meets neighbors Caesar, who launders money for the Mafia, and his girlfriend Violet. The two women have a love affair and decide to steal $2,000,000 that Caesar has in custody before he gives them back to Mafia boss Gino Marzone. Caesar is set up by the two scheming women as a scapegoat but things start to go wrong when he reacts in an unexpected way...
What love affair films are made of
How much more often each element appears in a love affair frame than in an average frame from the catalogue. A ratio, not a share — wine glass is not in most frames, it is simply far more common here than anywhere else.
- wine glass3.3×
- cardigan3.1×
- books3.1×
- trench coat2.7×
- sofa2.5×
- necktie2.3×
- bed2.3×
- table lamp2.2×
How love affair films are shot
Weaker signals than the objects above, and worth saying so: most dramatic genres skew dark and night-heavy, so these numbers separate love affair from the catalogue far more than they separate it from its neighbours.
- 14%widevs 20% baseline
- 91%eye levelvs 69% baseline
- 15%high keyvs 12% baseline
What breaks the pattern
Avatar (2009) is the least typical film here — it carries the least of what the rest of this list is made of. Which is either a failure of the genre label, or the most interesting film on the page.
Method
Every frame in the FrameThrower catalogue is tagged for shot size, lighting, time of day, camera angle, colour and the objects visible in it. This page aggregates those tags across 1,478 frames from 19 films carrying the love affair label, and compares each figure to the same measurement across the whole catalogue (404,689 frames). Films are ranked by how closely they match the theme’s over-indexed elements, weighted by how distinctive each element is; one film per series. Only films with at least 20 indexed frames and 500 TMDB votes are listed.
Machine-readable: /api/list/love-affair
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