The Best Anne Hathaway Rom-Coms, Ranked
We are so lucky to be living in an Anne Hathaway renaissance. With The Devil Wears Prada 2 (2026), Mother Mary (2026), and more, the Academy Award-winning actress is taking over the big screen like it’s the early 2000s. As someone who has always been a fan of her work, it’s more than exciting to see her get the appreciation she deserves which will only continue with The Odyssey (2026) later this year. Hathaway’s resume this year spans genres, with her parts taking her everywhere but a romantic comedy. But the year’s nowhere near over!
Anne Hathaway shines in the rom-com genre. She knows how to play a romantic lead with the kind of earnestness that the genre requires. So much so that people often confuse some of her projects, like The Devil Wears Prada (2006) and The Intern (2015), as romantic comedies. The truth is that Anne Hathaway has plenty of rom-coms in her filmography, some of which are practically load-bearing pillars in the genre. In others, she has such great chemistry with her co-stars that I’m still impatiently waiting for them to team up for another project. You can watch 7 of Anne Hathaway’s rom-coms, including some underrated ones listed below on Disney+, Prime Video, and more.
Anne Hathaway’s Liz is one of many, many people in this romantic comedy. The Garry Marshall-directed movie has one of the biggest ensembles in film history and has a plot of interconnected stories, just like Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011). Liz is a temporary receptionist at a talent agency who also works as a phone sex operator to pay off her student loans. She falls for Jason (Topher Grace), who works in the mail room at the agency. Their relationship is anything but easy to root for, especially compared to all the other romances that Valentine’s Day explores.
Jason is mostly judgmental when he’s not taking the relationship seriously. The movie tries but fails to earn a Happily Ever After for them. During which, Liz even says, “When you found out something about me you didn’t like, you judged me and bailed. I don’t think that’s a promising foundation for a relationship,” and she’s right. That’s where the relationship should end, but it doesn’t. He apologizes after realizing that you have to accept the parts of the one you love that aren’t always easy, which feels like a cop out, where she’s still the one in the wrong. So, this couple isn’t the best when it comes to Anne Hathaway’s rom-coms, but Valentine’s Day is still one of the best to watch for the nostalgia and the romance—just from everyone else.
Compared to its sequel, The Princess Diaries isn’t all that much of a romantic comedy. It’s more of a coming-of-age story with a romantic subplot. If you’re looking for a double-feature in that realm, Amanda Bynes is fantastic in What a Girl Wants (2003), where her character finds out her father is a British aristocrat running for political office. The Princess Diaries is similar in that Mia Thermopolis learns that she is the Princess of Genovia, since her father was the Prince of Genovia. Clarisse Renaldi (Julie Andrews) is the Queen of Genovia, who comes to San Francisco to tell Mia the news and to train her, so that she can one day become Queen.
Through endearing and tense lessons in etiquette, Mia gains confidence that tests her friendship with her best friend, Lily (Heather Matarazzo), gives her confidence to stand up to her high school bully, Lana (Mandy Moore), and tell her crush and Lily’s brother, Michael (Robert Schwartzman), that she likes him. The latter results in the incredibly romantic moment where Mia’s foot finally pops when she kisses Michael. It’s a heartwarming movie that I will always turn on when I want to feel a little better about, well, everything. It’s only becoming more endearing to me over the last 25 years, even if Michael isn’t my favorite of Mia’s love interests.
As far as traditional romantic comedies go, Love & Other Drugs is not one, and that’s what makes it work for me. It’s rated R, like Anyone But You (2023), which is rare for the genre. The plot itself is rather heavy. Jake Gyllenhaal plays Jamie, a pharmaceutical representative during the height of Viagra sales in the ‘90s. Anne Hathaway stars as Maggie, an artist who is living with early-onset Parkinson’s disease. He’s a womanizer who she doesn’t want to fall for because she’s trying to avoid falling for anyone. As rom-coms are known for, they fall in love, and they do end up together. It’s just one of those romantic comedies, like While You Were Sleeping (1995), that will have you crying even with the happy ending. Or, maybe that’s just me.
Jamie falls for Maggie so hard that he spends the night at a bus stop so as not to miss her when she returns from a trip. If that’s not the yearning that rom-com fans are looking for, then what is? That love confession is such a knockout for me. Hathaway’s performance when Maggie says, “I’m going to need you more than you need me,” is breathtaking. Notably, Hathaway and Gyllenhaal previously starred together in Brokeback Mountain (2005), so their on-screen reunion is exciting for fans of that movie’s cast, too. Honestly, I’m still waiting for them to play romantic leads again, because their chemistry in Love & Other Drugs is too good not to utilize in another rom-com.
As someone who grew up watching and loving Stuck in the Suburbs (2004) and Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen (2004), where a girl meets the musician she likes, I knew I had to see The Idea of You when I heard that Anne Hathaway was attached. Since an everyday person, Hathaway’s Solène, meets and falls for boyband star, Hayes Campbell (Nicholas Galitzine), this movie draws natural comparisons to the beloved and elite rom-com Notting Hill (1999). Honestly, I think that’s where the comparisons end because of the additional context of The Idea of You. Solène is a 40-year-old mother, and Hayes is a 24-year-old popstar—that alone creates a different story with different expectations for the movie to push back against.
For that reason, I like that The Idea of You discusses the double standard about an older woman dating a younger man, which makes it feel like a modern rom-com. So much so that those external factors have a lasting impact on Solène and Hayes’s relationship. Hathaway delivers a grounding performance as Solène, someone who puts her daughter first, delaying any chance with Hayes for 5 years. When the time comes, the couple ends up together. They get that Happily Ever After that feels like it will last, which is not always true for couples in romantic comedies.
In all honesty, the romance part of Bride Wars is the least important part of this romantic comedy for me, and the movie itself. The romance is almost an afterthought because the real love story is between best friends Emma (Anne Hathaway) and Liv (Kate Hudson). By this point in both Hathaway and Hudson’s careers, they have both become beloved leading ladies in romantic comedies. Hathaway for those on this list and Hudson for the likes of How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003). None of us will ever forget that yellow dress! So, pairing these two women up is a recipe for success, and Bride Wars absolutely delivers.
Emma and Liv are childhood best friends who want their weddings to take place at the Plaza Hotel one day. When their weddings accidentally get scheduled on the same day, and neither will budge, chaos ensues as they try to sabotage the other’s special day. It’s hard to root for Emma’s wedding because her fiancé, Fletcher (Chris Pratt), is the worst. Bride Wars has a much better love story in Emma and Liv’s brother, Nate, but they don’t get nearly enough screen time. On the other hand, Liv and Daniel (Steve Howey) are fine. The biggest emotional beats, like Emma and Liv seeing each other before their weddings, are between the best friends rather than with their love interests.
Ella Enchanted is not only a great romantic comedy, but it’s also a creative Cinderella retelling, like Ever After (1998). Therefore, it’s entirely underrated, though it has received renewed interest amid an appreciation of the early 2000s medieval aesthetic, like in A Knight’s Tale (2001). Anne Hathaway stars as Ella, who is cursed with the gift of obedience from her fairy godmother, Lucinda (Vivica A. Fox). Ella spends most of the movie trying to find a way to break the curse, only to realize that it’s been inside of her all along. Ella Enchanted is a jukebox musical movie that exists in a fantastical realm with ogres and a man trapped inside a book.
The kingdom’s leadership is corrupted by Sir Edgar (Cary Elwes), the King Regent and Prince Char’s uncle (Hugh Dancy). Hathaway and Dancy’s chemistry is excellent. From the meet-cute when Ella holds Char accountable for any reductive political views he may hold to Char’s absolute heart eyes when Ella performs “Somebody to Love,” this couple deserves more love. I don’t think I’ve watched this movie and not cried during the scene in the room of mirrors. It resonates because of Ella’s strong arc and the believability of Char and Ella’s romance. It’s no wonder their romance is at the heart of this fairy-tale retelling—they’re pure magic together.
Anne Hathaway returns as Mia Thermopolis in The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement, where Mia learns that she must get married before she can become the Queen of Genovia. She enters into an arranged proposal with Andrew Jacoby (Callum Blue). Only as I get older do I realize how sweet their relationship is, and some part of me almost wishes that they made it work because they are such great friends. Then again, Mia and Nicholas Devereaux (Chris Pine) are on another level—they invented enemies-to-lovers greatness in this movie.
Hathaway and Pine have such electric chemistry that Mia and Nicholas’s “I loathe you” argument by the fountain has been seared in my mind since 2004. Really, all of their scenes stand out because it’s so obvious that these two characters are magnetically drawn to one another. I love that they get the Happily Ever After that’s best for them—they’re together but not married, so Mia can be the Queen of Genovia without being forced into a marriage. The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement also tells a beautiful, second-chance romance between Queen Clarisse and her loyal bodyguard, Joe (Hector Elizondo). It’s actually thrilling to see them finally get their Happily Ever After as well, after years of Clarisse putting herself on the back burner. Hopefully, these couples are still happily together whenever we finally get The Princess Diaries 3.
