5 Upcoming Rom-Coms You Cannot Miss

3 weeks ago 34

Heartstopper's Joe Locke & Kit Connor laughing together outside

Published May 3, 2026, 2:50 PM EDT

In over three years at Collider, senior author Jake has now penned over 2500 articles covering a wide range of TV and film for the resources, lists, utilities, news, and interview teams. Alongside interviewing stars such as Selin Hizli, Rose Ayling-Ellis, Harlan Coben, and Chelsea Peretti, Jake was lucky enough to visit the set of Aardman and Netflix's Wallace and Gromit: A Vengeance Most Fowl in 2024, getting the chance to chat with four-time Academy Award winner Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham. Jake has also worked for other publications, including Agents of Fandom.

They say romance is dead, but romantic comedies certainly aren't. Cinema's fuzzy, heartwarming genre first burst into feature-length life in 1918 with the movie Mickey, which dominated global screens, leaving long queues for entry outside theaters and eventually becoming that year's highest-grossing movie. Adjusted for inflation, the film made nearly $400 million in today's money, a total that most modern rom-coms could only dream of.

The rom-com has changed a bit since then, going through several stages of evolution without ever losing its core principles. Important to every romantic comedy success is, well, romance and comedy, anchored by a pair of lovable and, crucially, flawed leads who will steal both each other's hearts and ours. Every great rom-com is anchored by two people with electric chemistry, with the very best including 13 Going on 30's Jenna (Jennifer Garner) and Matt (Mark Ruffalo), the Before trilogy's Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Céline (Julie Delpy), and more.

So with the genre in a great place right now, with some of the best rom-coms of the 21st century coming in the last couple of years, what's next on this hilarious, tearjerking agenda? What has cinema got lined up for us hungry rom-com fans? With this question in mind, here's a look at five upcoming rom-coms you simply can't miss.

1 'Heartstopper Forever'

Release Date: July 17, 2026

One of Netflix's best teen shows, the final chapter in the blossoming young love story between Nick (Kit Connor) and Charlie (Joe Locke) is taking shape in the form of a feature film. Alice Oseman's young-adult series, which has earned rave reviews across its three seasons to date, tells a tale of modern representation through a YA lens, becoming one of the most important shows on streaming in the process.

Titled Heartstopper Forever, the upcoming movie is directed by Wash Westmoreland, who most famously co-directed the moving feature film Still Alice alongside his husband. The film will follow Nick and Charlie as they balance on the cusp of adulthood, having to deal with the reality of potentially going their separate ways. William Gao, Yasmin Finney, Corinna Brown, Kizzy Edgell, Tobie Donovan, Jenny Walser, Rhea Norwood, and Leila Khan also star in a movie set to be one of the most wholesome and heartwarming of the summer.

2 'One Night Only'

Release Date: August 6, 2026

The highest-grossing live-action William Shakespeare adaptation of all time, Anyone But You, is to many the gold standard of 2020s rom-coms, offering a cheeky, chemistry-fueled tale with a killer soundtrack. Now, director Will Gluck is coming back with another in the genre, this time starring Top Gun: Maverick's Monica Barbaro opposite Masters of the Air star Callum Turner.

Set for theaters this summer, One Night Only is set in an alternate reality where pre-marital sex is only legal on one night a year. It is on this very night that two New Yorkers, Turner's Owen and Barbaro's currently unnamed character, find love. Like the rom-com genre met The Purge, this intriguing tale is sure to be packed with both fresh ideas and classic genre tropes, certainly if Gluck's Anyone But You is anything to go by.

Collider Exclusive · Oscar Best Picture Quiz Which Oscar Best Picture
Is Your Perfect Movie? Parasite · Everything Everywhere · Oppenheimer · Birdman · No Country

Five Oscar Best Picture winners. Five completely different visions of what cinema can be — and what it can do to you. One of them is the film that was made for the way your mind works. Ten questions will figure out which one.

🪜Parasite

🌀Everything Everywhere

☢️Oppenheimer

🐦Birdman

🪙No Country for Old Men

FIND YOUR FILM →

What kind of film experience do you actually want? The best movies don't just entertain — they leave something behind.

ASomething that pulls the rug out — that makes me think I'm watching one kind of film and then reveals I'm watching another entirely. BSomething overwhelming — funny, sad, absurd, and genuinely moving, all at once. CSomething grand and weighty — a film that makes me feel the full scale of what I'm watching. DSomething formally daring — a film that pushes what cinema can even do. ESomething lean and relentless — pure tension with no wasted frame.

NEXT QUESTION →

Which idea grabs you most in a film? Great films are driven by a central obsession. What's yours?

AClass, inequality, and what people are willing to do when desperation meets opportunity. BIdentity, family, and the chaos of trying to hold your life together when everything is falling apart. CGenius, moral responsibility, and the catastrophic weight of a decision you can never take back. DEgo, legacy, and the terror of becoming irrelevant while you're still alive to watch it happen. EEvil, chance, and whether moral order actually exists or if we just tell ourselves it does.

NEXT QUESTION →

How do you like your story told? Form is content. The way a story is shaped changes what it means.

AGenre-twisting — I want it to start in one lane and migrate into something completely different. BMaximalist and genre-blending — comedy, action, drama, sci-fi, all in one ride. CEpic and non-linear — cutting between timelines, building a mosaic of cause and consequence. DA single unbroken flow — I want to feel like I'm living it in real time, no cuts to safety. ESpare and precise — every scene doing exactly what it needs to do and nothing more.

NEXT QUESTION →

What makes a truly great antagonist? The opposition defines the protagonist. What kind of opposition fascinates you?

AA system — invisible, structural, and almost impossible to fight because it has no single face. BThe self — the ways we sabotage, abandon, and fail the people we love most. CHistory — the unstoppable momentum of events that no single person can stop or redirect. DThe industry — the machinery of culture that chews up talent and spits out irrelevance. EPure, implacable evil — a force so certain of itself it becomes almost philosophical.

NEXT QUESTION →

What do you want from a film's ending? The final note is the one that lingers. What do you want it to sound like?

AShock and inevitability — a conclusion that recontextualises everything that came before it. BEarned emotion — I want to cry, laugh, and feel genuinely hopeful, even if the world is a mess. CDevastation and grandeur — an ending that makes me sit in silence for a few minutes after. DAmbiguity — something that leaves enough open that I'm still thinking about it days later. EBleakness — an honest refusal to pretend the world is tidier than it actually is.

NEXT QUESTION →

Which setting pulls you in most? Where a film takes place shapes everything — mood, stakes, what's even possible.

AA gleaming modern city with a hidden underside — beauty masking rot, wealth masking desperation. BA collapsing suburban life that opens onto something infinite — the multiverse of a single ordinary person. CThe corridors of power and science at a world-historical turning point — where decisions echo for decades. DThe grimy, alive chaos of New York and Hollywood — fame as both destination and trap. EVast, indifferent landscape — desert and highway where violence arrives without warning or reason.

NEXT QUESTION →

What cinematic craft impresses you most? Every great film has a signature — a technical or artistic element that makes it unmistakable.

AProduction design and mise-en-scène — every frame composed to carry meaning beneath the surface. BEditing and tonal control — the ability to move between registers without losing the audience. CScore and sound design — music that becomes inseparable from the dread and awe of what you're watching. DCinematography as performance — the camera not recording events but participating in them. ESilence and restraint — what's left unsaid and unshown doing more work than any dialogue could.

NEXT QUESTION →

What kind of main character do you root for? The protagonist is the lens. Who you choose to follow says something about you.

ASomeone smart and resourceful who makes increasingly dangerous decisions under pressure. BSomeone overwhelmed and ordinary who turns out to be capable of something extraordinary. CA brilliant, tortured figure whose gifts and flaws are inseparable from each other. DA self-destructive artist whose ego is both their superpower and their undoing. EA quiet, principled person trying to make sense of a world that has stopped making sense.

NEXT QUESTION →

How do you feel about a film that takes its time? Pace is a choice. Some films sprint; others let tension accumulate slowly, deliberately.

AI love a slow build when I know the payoff is going to be seismic — patience for a devastating reveal. BGive me relentless momentum — I want to feel breathless and emotionally spent by the end. CEpic runtime doesn't scare me — if the material demands three hours, give me three hours. DI want it to feel propulsive even when nothing is technically happening — restless energy throughout. EDeliberate and unhurried — I want dread to accumulate in the spaces between the action.

NEXT QUESTION →

What do you want to feel walking out of the cinema? The best films leave a mark. What kind of mark do you want?

AUnsettled — like I've just seen something I can't fully explain but can't stop thinking about. BMoved and energised — like the film reminded me what actually matters and gave me something to hold onto. CHumbled — like I've been in the presence of something genuinely important and overwhelming. DExhilarated — like I've just seen cinema doing something it's never quite done before. EHaunted — like a cold, quiet dread that stays with me for days.

REVEAL MY FILM →

The Academy Has Decided Your Perfect Film Is…

Your answers have pointed to one Oscar Best Picture winner above all others. This is the film that was made for the way your mind works.

Parasite

You are drawn to films that operate on multiple levels simultaneously — that begin in one genre and quietly, brilliantly migrate into another. Bong Joon-ho's Parasite is a film about class, desire, and the architecture of inequality that manages to be darkly funny, deeply suspenseful, and genuinely shocking across a single extraordinary running time. Your instinct is for cinema that hides its true intentions until the moment it's ready to reveal them. Parasite is exactly that — a film that rewards close attention and punishes assumptions, right up to its devastating final image.

Everything Everywhere All at Once

You want it all — and this film gives you all of it. The Daniels' Everything Everywhere All at Once is one of the most maximalist films ever made: action comedy, multiverse sci-fi, family drama, existential crisis, and a genuinely earned emotional core that sneaks up on you amid the chaos. You are someone who responds to ambition, who doesn't want cinema to choose between being entertaining and being meaningful. This film refuses that choice entirely. It is overwhelming by design, and its overwhelming nature is precisely the point — because the feeling of being crushed by infinite possibility is exactly what it's about.

Oppenheimer

You are drawn to cinema on a grand scale — films that understand history not as a backdrop but as a force, and that place their characters inside that force and watch what happens. Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer is a film about the terrifying gap between what we can do and what we should do, told with the full weight of one of the most consequential moments in human history behind it. You want your films to feel important without feeling self-important — to earn their ambition through sheer craft and the gravity of their subject. Oppenheimer does exactly that. It is enormous, complicated, and refuses easy comfort.

Birdman

You are drawn to films that foreground their own construction — that make the how of the filmmaking part of the what it's about. Alejandro González Iñárritu's Birdman, shot to appear as a single continuous take, is cinema examining itself through the cracked mirror of a fading actor's ego. You respond to formal daring, to the feeling that a film is doing something that probably shouldn't be possible. Michael Keaton's performance and Emmanuel Lubezki's restless camera create something genuinely unlike anything else — a film that is simultaneously about creativity, relevance, self-destruction, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing if your work means anything at all.

No Country for Old Men

You are drawn to cinema that trusts silence, that refuses to explain itself, and that treats dread as a form of meaning. The Coen Brothers' No Country for Old Men is a film about the arrival of a new kind of evil — implacable, arbitrary, and utterly indifferent to the moral frameworks we use to make sense of the world. It is one of the most formally controlled films ever made, and its controlled restraint is what makes it so terrifying. You want your films to haunt you, not comfort you. You are not interested in resolution if resolution would be dishonest. No Country for Old Men is honest in a way that most cinema never dares to be.

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3 'Practical Magic 2'

Release Date: September 11, 2026

Nicole Kidman and Sandra Bullock in Practical Magic 2

One of the most exciting sequels of 2026, we've now been waiting nearly 30 years for a second helping of star-studded fantasy from the '90s favorite, based on Alice Hoffman's 1995 novel, Practical Magic. It might have faced a mixed critical reception in 1998, but the film has since become a cult classic, with both Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman back to star as sisters Sally (Bullock) and Gilly Owens (Kidman).

Set 25 years after the events of the original, the sequel follows the sisters as they continue their fight to break the multi-generational curse that has haunted their family. However, it's taken another step forward, as Sally's daughter, played by Joey King, begins to develop her own threatening powers and learns of dark secrets in the family. Susanne Bier replaces Griffin Dunne in the director's chair for the sequel, following her work with Bullock on Bird Box and Kidman on The Perfect Couple.

4 'Verity'

Release Date: October 2, 2026

Over recent years, there have been few in this realm to deliver bigger box office hits than Colleen Hoover, as her adaptations have pulled in many hundreds of millions worldwide. Albeit sacrificing much of the comedy and adding psychological thriller elements, Hoover's adaptations just about count in this category, with her latest, Reminders of Him, earning nearly $90 million at the box office.

Next on the agenda is an adaptation of Verity, Hoover's 2018 novel that tells the tale of an acclaimed writer who, after becoming unable to finish her bestselling series, requires the help of another in her field. However, this new writer stumbles across a manuscript that raises questions about the titular Verity's well-being. The cast is led by Anne Hathaway, who is re-teaming with director Michael Showalter following their collaboration on Prime Video’s The Idea of You, and also features the likes of Dakota Johnson, Josh Hartnett, Ismael Cruz Cordóva, and Brady Wagner.

5 'Sense and Sensibility'

Release Date: October 16, 2026

Brenda Lafferty (Daisy Edgar-Jones) in a scene from 'Under the Banner of Heaven.'

A list of exciting upcoming rom-coms would be unfit for purpose without a period drama, and who better to adapt than the iconic Jane Austen, just one year after the world celebrated her 250th birthday? This time, it isn't a big-screen version of Pride & Prejudice or Emma about to bless our eyes and ears — it's Sense and Sensibility, with Focus Features at the helm, marking the fifth time the classic tale has been adapted in feature length.

Directed by Georgia Oakley, who impressed with her breakout debut Blue Jean in 2022, Sense and Sensibility will take an eye-catching cast and thrust them into the well-known tale of sisters Elinor and Marianne Dashwood's move to the countryside following the death of their father. The cast includes Daisy Edgar-Jones (Where the Crawdads Sing), Esmé Creed-Miles (The Thicket), Fiona Shaw (Killing Eve), and more, with the film first debuting in the UK in September, before moving across the pond to U.S. theaters a month later.