Ah, the season of love!  And with such a season comes the wonderful films that encompass it.  While I'm not normally a massive fan of such movies, I cannot deny how deeply they endear themselves to me!  Namely because they are just really, really good films with great casts and terrific direction.  My favorites flicks that endeavor to capture that most inescapable of all emotions are:

10) The Seven Year Itch

With top notch performances from Tom Ewell, Evelyn Keyes, Oskar Homolka, and Marilyn Monroe as "The Girl", came Billy Wilder's 1955 comedic drama about love, cheating, guilt, and all the things that come along when your significant other is "out of sight, out of mind".  An indelible story, it proves that sometimes what losing what you've got is often far worse than getting what you want.

9) Pretty Woman

The classic love story about two mismatched people who transcend titles and boundaries.  A fish-out-of-water romance that gave us a bubbly Julia Roberts and Richard Gere as the guy everyone wants to be.  A sexy and emotional romp through the upper crust of New York, this one will always a love story to remember.

8) Titanic

Few tales can endure as well as the endless love that brought Jack and Rose together on the decks of the greatest cruise liner to ever grace the ocean, on the eve of one of the greatest sea tragedies of the last century.  Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio bring James Cameron's epic to glorious life, leaving us hanging onto that plank as desperately and emotionally breathless as the love-struck couple.

7) The Wedding Singer

Never before have I quite nearly rolled myself onto the theater floor with peals of laughter, as I did the first time I saw Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore's take on the '80's, in this cute and wonderful tribute to a time of blazers with rolled sleeves and $700.00 CD players.  Overflowing with hysterical references, undeniable chemistry between its leads, and some of the best comedic actors in Sandler's camp, "The Wedding Singer" should be booked for every Valentine's Day celebration.

6) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

As creepy and surreal as it can be at certain points, Jim Carrey delivers one of his best dramatic performances to Eternal Sunshine.  As the hopeless romantic desperately trying to forget his roller-coaster relationship with the kooky, brash, and wild-at-heart Kate Winslet, Eternal Sunshine goes to show the true lengths one will strive for to hold on to his true love.  Full of all the manic passion, fear, anger, and energy that comprise the whole of the greatest human emotion, this is one for all lovers who sometimes just can't put those powerful feelings into words.

5) The Notebook

Based on the acclaimed novel by Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook is one of the few romantic stories that truly brought me to tears.  With deeply passionate performances from Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams, The Notebook strives to bring the epic tale behind an epic love to life and does so in this fantastic and heart-wrenching piece about two lovers torn apart by their social statures.  Bring the kleenex for this one, it'll truly take you there.

4) Brokeback Mountain

Not only a film that surprised me, but enchanted me due to the brave performances of the late Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhall and the top notch direction of Ang Lee.  A story of a forbidden love that develops between two cowboys as they tend to a rancher's flock, Brokeback showed in earnest what it meant to accept and deny a love that could never be accepted by social norms of the time.  Hopeful and yet eerily haunting, this tale is one of the best showings of unbridled passion and defines the limitless nature of love itself.

3) Love Actually

Quite possibly my favorite ensemble piece of the past decade, Love Actually weaves the stories of several indirectly associated couples and the events in their ever-complicated relationships in the two weeks before Christmas.  Full of heart, humor, and intelligence, Love Actually's stellar cast, including Laura Linney, Emma Thompson, Keira Knightly, Colin Firth, Bill Nighy, Liam Neeson, Alan Rickman, Hugh Grant, Billy Bob Thornton, and Rowan Atkinson, shows us that despite what you may believe, love actually is all around.

2) The Princess Bride

What list would be complete without the tale of the greatest love story in the history of love stories ever?  Full of "fencing, fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, and miracles", Rob Reiner's fantasy epic brought out not only the tender lover in all of us but the immortal child as well.  With a smashing cast and terrific scenery, this one has earned it's place in every collection.  So when your beloved asks you to buy it for them, all you need say is, "As you wish."

1) Ghost

Who can deny the incredible passion, sexiness,  heartfelt emotion of love beyond death.  With some of the most incredible effects of the time and some of the most deeply sensual moments in cinematic history, Ghost brought couples together to experience Patrick Swayze's afterlife fight to protect his one true love, the always beautiful and real Demi Moore, from those who would intend her harm.  From learning about his ghostly abilities to connecting to his lover through Whoopie Goldberg's gutsy and no-nonsense psychic, Ghost remains a love story that proves that the most powerful and vivid emotion of humankind can transcend even life itself, a feeling so gripping, it can separate the boundaries of existence to bring two intended lovers back together again, if only for one final touching moment.

Whew, going back over these timeless classics has brought back some very powerful memories and emotions.  These incredible tales of the most inspiring facet of the human condition are ones made, not only with love as the subject matter, but with love themselves.  You can feel it between the leads, you can see it through the eyes of the director.  True love does exist and these great films go to show the great sway it has over us all.

-Jarod Warren