8 High-Concept Romance Movies To Watch After One Night Only
Watching Callum Turner bat eyelashes with Monica Barbaro in One Night Only—a movie that’s been described as The Purge meets Before Sunrise—got us thinking about other high-concept cinematic romances of the last few decades.
Since the golden age of the rom com in the 1990s—when movies like Pretty Woman and Sleepless in Seattle could land among the highest earners of their respective years—filmmakers have strived to go a little further afield when dreaming up romantic conceits. Sometimes, that means going raunchy (as in the Sydney Sweeney and Glen Powell movie Anyone But You, or more suggestively, as in Olivia Wilde’s The Invite). But more often it means a high-concept cocktail—with a splash of supernatural, sci-fi or, as in the case with One Night Only, dystopian elements thrown into the heady mix.
In the list below, we’ve rounded up eight of the most interesting high concept romances of the last few decades—an eclectic bunch, some older, some newer, but any one of which would pair nicely with a One Night Only viewing.
The urtext of high concept romances and a genuine '90s classic, Groundhog Day pretty much walked so that the other movies on this list could run.
Like all the best high concepts, the setup can be described in very few words: a big city weatherman travels to a small town for work, only to get caught in a time loop as the same day repeats again and again.
The genius of the movie is how much mileage the writers get out of that idea, as Bill Murray’s Phil Thomson goes through the various stages of grief—from excess to depression to enlightenment.
Along the way, he, of course, falls in love with his producer (Andy McDowell). The question is, can a woman who’ll only ever know him for a few hours love him back?
If you’ve seen Groundhog Day, you probably know that there’s a whole subgenre of movies that can basically be described as “Groundhog Day meets X”.
We’ve seen Groundhog Day meets Tom Cruise in Edge of Tomorrow. We’ve seen Groundhog Day meets crime comedy in Russian Doll. The best Groundhog Day copycat we've seen so far, however, is the delightfully entertaining 2020 movie Palm Springs.
If you’ve heard one thing about this movie, it’s probably that it's an under-appreciated gem—which leads to the age-old question of how many times a movie can be called under-appreciated before it's officially accurately appreciated.
Either way, Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti are both great as time-looping wedding attendees. It’s a total blast.
If One Night Only opened your eyes to Callum Turner’s charms, Eternity is the next high-concept rom-com you should add to your list. Written and directed by David Freyne, the story takes place in what looks like a convention for package holidays, but turns out to be a waiting room for the afterlife.
The central idea is that the recently deceased get the chance to shop around before choosing one place they'll spend their forever after (offers include Party Eternity, Golf Eternity and Smoking Eternity). If you're not in a rush, you can also wait for your significant other to arrive so that you can decide together.
The movie centres on a love triangle between a long-married couple (Elisabeth Olsen and Miles Teller) who arrive in the afterlife around the same time only to find that the woman's long dead boyfriend (Callum Turner) has been waiting there for her.
Less of a blast, perhaps, but a good bit more romantically moving is About Time—a movie in which a pleasant young fella (played by pleasant Domhnall Gleeson) discovers that the men in his family have the ability to travel through time.
As you might imagine, this leads to all kinds of fun and complications, as well as a truly heart-wrenching subplot involving his dad. It also leads to a sweeping romance with a young woman played by Rachel McAdams.
If you like the idea of a high concept romance that lets its freak flag fly, Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Lobster is a great place to start.
The Poor Things director’s English-language debut imagines a world in which people unlucky enough to not find partners are turned into an animal of their choosing.
If that all sounds a little cutesy, don’t worry; Lanthimos is anything but a sentimentalist, and even if The Lobster could be interpreted as having a happy ending, it’s the most jagged happy ending imaginable. If you’ve liked his more recent efforts, like Bugonia, make sure to give it a go.
Romantic indies in the early 2000s are still infamously associated with the trope of the manic pixie dream girl—an impossibly quirky and beautiful woman who the introverted male lead gets to fall in love with. This, among other things, is what made Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (a movie that deconstructs that trope) such a breath of fresh air at the time and why it still works a treat all these years later.
Jim Carrey stars (alongside Kate Winslet) as a heartbroken dude who decides to sign up for an experimental procedure that will erase the memories of his recent relationship. Naturally, he soon finds out there are more than a few worth keeping.
Her probably can’t fully beat the manic pixie allegations, but it’s a wonderfully realised sci-fi romance that only gets more relevant with each passing year.
The lead character is once again a heartbroken dude (Joaquin Phoenix), only this time the character copes by downloading a girlfriend app with the voice of Scarlett Johansson.
Credit to Spike Jonze: Her is a far less creepy movie than it could have been in another director's hands. For the most part, it’s touching, sincere, and wonderfully imaginative.
You could easily describe Maria Schrader’s I’m You Man as a gender-swapped Her, but it's actually a different beast.
The heroine, played by the great German actress Maren Eggert, is a practical person: a research scientist with more interest in finding funds than finding love. To make a little cash, she agrees to test out a live-in helper robot (played by Dan Stevens) programmed solely to make her happy. Cue an endearing and off-beat romance.
More often than not, support robots in movies have usually been thought of in worst-case scenarios—either that the programmed humanoids will love us too much, like in Spielberg’s A.I., or that humans will abuse the privilege, as we've seen in movies like Companion. Schrader instead approaches it with curiosity and joy to deliver a genuinely romantic movie.
