Romantic comedies were once a major box office draw, defining the 90s and early 2000s with hits like Notting Hill, When Harry Met Sally, or my personal favourite, Love Actually. Yet today, they rarely achieve blockbuster success.
Traditional tropes of miscommunication and grand gestures are less convincing in an era where a quick text can clear things up. Staples of the genre, like the persistence-as-romance trope, now seem outdated, almost coming across as stalking to a modern audience. Rewatching Sleepless in Seattle, for example, hiring a private investigator to track down someone you are interested in now feels more like a red flag than a romantic gesture.
Alongside these cultural shifts, Hollywood has moved away from focusing on rom-coms. This is clear in the decline of star-driven films; rom-coms used to rely on A-listers, seen as a launchpad for actors like Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts, but the genre no longer attracts today’s biggest stars. Leading actors tend to favour action franchises or dramas, bypassing rom-coms entirely.
Instead, many recent rom-coms rely on nostalgic casting, like Ticket to Paradise, starring George Clooney and Julia Roberts, or Our Little Secret, with Lindsay Lohan, highlighting the lack of a new generation of actors emerging from rom-coms. But what has caused this shift?
Rom-coms used to be seen as tentpole movies, regularly generating large revenues and dominating award line-ups. However, large studios now prioritise high-budget franchises that guarantee long-term success and recurring profits. Meanwhile, low-budget films tend to be more experimental, leaving little room for the mid-budget rom-com.
This is compounded by streaming, as many rom-coms thrive on Netflix but do not generate the same cultural dominance or critical recognition as the theatrical releases of the 90s once did. The rise of the Hallmark-style romance film has led to a feeling of tackiness associated with the genre, with many shifting into a lower-budget, formulaic style. Most modern romance films that seem to do well beyond streaming lean towards “dramedies” or are simply dramas that contain some romance, like Crazy Rich Asians or La La Land, incorporating more realism and depth than the idealised love of classic rom-coms, reflecting a shift in audience preferences.
The visual style of modern films may also be to blame for the decrease in rom-com popularity, as today’s movies feel more digital, losing the warm, grainy texture that gave older rom-coms their charm, feeding into the perception that those films were more magical.
Rom-coms have not disappeared but have evolved into something different. Is there still a demand for these films beyond the cliché, feel-good streaming formula? As a genre, it remains a staple, perhaps in need of reinvention.