23 romantic comedies worth watching this Valentine's Day

The Graduate (1967)

Love can prove complicated at best but perhaps not quite as complicated as it does for college graduate Benjamin Braddock, who finds himself stuck in an affair with Mrs Robinson ("Are you trying to seduce me?"), wife to his father's business partner. Braddock then ends up falling in love with Mrs Robinson's daughter Elaine – cue a big soppy ending that's been parodied in everything from The Simpsons to Wayne's World 2.

Some Like it Hot (1959)

You shouldn't need much convincing to watch director Billy Wilder's Some Like it Hot. It features Marilyn Monroe, for starters, and it's one of the funniest rom coms around. When Chicago musicians Joe and Jerry witness a massacre on Valentine's Day, it becomes necessary to hide away from gangster tough guy Spats Colombo. How best to hide, you ask? By dressing disguising themselves as Josephine and Daphne, two replacement band members.

His Girl Friday (1940)

Break-ups are never fun, but it seems some people take them better than others. In His Girl Friday, newspaper editor Walter Burns is distraught at the fact his ex wife Hildy Johnson is engaged and will soon marry Bruce Baldwin. Rather than sit back idly, though, Burns decides to fight back quite deviously to win back the one he loves. A screwball classic packed with rapid-fire dialogue from stars Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell.

Roman Holiday (1953)

Not only was Roman Holiday the first American film to be entirely shot in Italy, it would secure Audrey Hepburn an Oscar playing as Princess Anne, a young royal who falls in love with an American news reporter by the name of Joe Bradley on a visit to Rome. Princess Anne learns to love her new, less sheltered lifestyle but knows it cannot last. And so the scene is set for a mixture of tears and laughter.