The truth is with the world at a stop I have found myself watching and overanalysing a lot of movies, and especially, the kiss scenes in these movies. Thus was born this list, purely out of too much spare time and the very public (see Twitter) horniness (I´m sorry mom) that everyone is experiencing at the moment, in which we can´t even get closer than 6 feet away from people we don´t live with. Much less gently brush hands by accident in a supermarket while we´re getting strawberries, the world’s sexiest fruit, in such a charged way we end up flirting, falling in love and getting married in under 5 years.
I wondered first, what makes a good screen kiss good? They have to be yearned for. I´m looking for kisses that make me scream at my screen when they finally happen, I want to hold my breath, frantically grasp the nearest person´s hands in expectation. But I also want it to be pretty. I´m the first to admit I´m gonna be superficial here, it´s not just the attractiveness of the people smushing tongues in the screen that gets me, it´s the position of their heads, if they use their hands (I´m looking at you Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix kiss), if the place where it happens is pretty, or a least a little bit funny, if they smile after, or laugh before in a fit of adorable nervousness.
Disclaimer: This is a list comprised of most of my favorite feel good movie kisses, it is an ever-changing opinion that has only my humble opinion as basis. I´d love to hear suggestions of other good movie kisses, I´m always here for more.
- Penelope (dir. Mark Palansky)
This is the perfect kissing scene, yes even with James McAvoy´s disastrous hair, even with a pig´s mask in the way. It is slow, the music swells, he talks during it because he just can´t stop kissing her. Its only fault is that it´s the old school trope “kiss you to make you shut up” mixed with the “kiss because I just realized I love you and can´t keep my hands away” kind, without any kind of seen consent given, something that probably wouldn´t happen in a movie coming out this decade.
- Stardust (dir. Matthew Vaughn)
I asked for advice on this list form my trustworthy friends, and they had a tough time recalling an actually AMAZING movie kiss. Then, I mentioned this one to them, and the suggestion was met with shocked gasps and words of affirmation. “Yes, how could I forget this one it is PERFECT”. Yes. Yes it is. Perfect and severely underrated. This kiss deserves more. He kisses her forehead before. They recognize he remembers her love confession. She is mortified. I´m mortified. We´re all mortified. They´re both so beautiful and their mouths fit so well together. I must stop because I can talk about it for hours as I have in the past.
- Bridget Jones Diary (dir. Sharon Maguire)
It’s cute, it’s quirky, it’s funny and it is very ridiculous. Renée Zellweger is in a coat and panties in the middle of winter in the snow. Colin Firth is in it.
- The Princess Diaries (dir. Garry Marshall)
The visual of the proper kiss itself is not a big deal. It´s the context, how it happens in a flowery garden, how they´re both dressed in fancy ball clothes, how it perfect in Mia´s eyes: a kiss good enough to make your foot pop. That this dreamy foot pop results in fairy lights coming on just as Robert Schwartzman and Anne Hathaway´s lips touch is the cherry in this extremely cheesy cake, and it completely works.
- The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (dir. Francis Lawrence)
As is true with most pieces of media, the Hunger Games books are better than the movies. But the movies have one thing going for them, this kiss. It´s right after they almost die – more than once – and they look dirty and disgusting and sweaty. They are both presenting their arguments, yet again, as to why the other one should survive, but this time they say it to each other instead of convincing someone else. Josh Hutcherson truly believes he doesn´t matter to anyone else, and Jennifer Lawrence needs him to know that’s not true, with her mouth.
- Jennifer´s Body (dir. Karyn Kusama)
I have to be honest I learned how to kiss watching this movie. It´s sexy without overly sexualizing its female leads – three cheers for female directors – and it´s so mesmerizing you just can´t look away. I didn´t when I was 11, I stared and took copious notes. Thanks, Karyn Kusama.
- To All The Boys I´ve Loved Before (dir. Susan Johnson)
It´s in a hot tub! Lana Condor is on her cute robes and night gown (best teen wardrobe in a recent movie), she´s so charming and Noah Centineo is so charming and they have such amazing chemistry. Their characters like each other so much, they themselves like each other so much. The kiss itself lighted by soft blue light, their awkward smiley faces. Ohmygod.
- Imagine Me and You (dir. Ol Parker)
I am not talking about the last kiss of the movie, after the emotional climax, that happens with full support of the main character´s parents and even her (soon to be ex) husband. It´s the one that happens right in the middle. They´re breathless, they fall onto a pile of roses, they get stung by the thorns, one of them is still married, the other is closed off from romance in her life, and yet they don´t care, they can´t keep away from each other.
- Call Me by Your Name (dir. Luca Guadagnino)
Look, there are things in this movie that shouldn´t be sexy at all and yet here we are. I´ll say nothing more.
Read more: London Film Festival Review: Call Me By Your Name
- High School Musical 2 (dir. Kenny Ortega)
With the added factor that we had to wait a movie and a half for that kiss because of Disney Channel´s clear but unwritten “no kissing between the main couple in the first movie” rule, this had a lot of expectations to live up to. It happened in the middle of a field, with “You are the music in me (acoustic version)” playing in the background, in the fake rain made by the garden hose, after setting lanterns into the sky – which will undoubtedly cause a terrible forest fire somewhere – and there´s literal fireworks. It checks every box! Its the stuff of high school fairy tales! This to say the intense look Zac Efron gives Vanessa Hudgens before the last part of the kiss is not the only reason I´m putting it on this list. I swear.
- Aladdin (dir. Ron Clements and John Musker)
Yes, it is only because you can see Aladdin uses tongue. Don´t believe me? Watch it again. Boy did everything right and deserves a spot here.
Words by Gio Chiconelli