So you’ve bought the flowers, you’ve had the meal, and now it’s time to settle in for deeply romantic movie to round out Valentine’s Day. You can’t do The Notebook again, you’ve seen it a million times. Titanic is about a week long. Call Me by Your Name sounds like a good idea until you remember how it ends. You’re stuck. You don’t want the usual schmaltz. You want a romantic film that has a little edge to it. A romantic film that’s actually a good film. You’re in the right place. Take it from us, these alternative Valentine’s films are perfect for switching things up a little.

Punch-Drunk Love, dir. Paul Thomas Anderson (2002)

Back when Adam Sandler was known almost entirely for his comic roles, Paul Thomas Anderson saw something in him that nobody else did. By casting him in his touching, funny love story Punch-Drunk Love, Sandler was able to prove his dramatic chops decades before his award-winning turn in Uncut Gems. Acting opposite Emily Watson, the film follows deeply lonely toilet-plunger salesman Barry Egan (Sandler), who meets Watson’s Lena through a series of bizarre circumstances. The film was a much smaller affair than Anderson’s previous projects, Boogie Nights and Magnolia, and remains a cult favourite that stands out in both Sandler’s and Anderson’s careers.

True Romance, dir. Tony Scott (1993)

Christian Slater, Patricia Arquette, a suitcase of drugs, and plenty of guns – how romantic! The Quentin Tarantino-penned True Romance is a staple of that god-tier genre: the crime romance. In the lineage of films like the Coen brothers’ Raising Arizona, Elvis-obsessed Clarence Worley (Slater) meets Arquette’s Alabama at a kung-fu movie screening, and their whirlwind romance unfolds exactly the way you’d expect from a Tarantino script. One of the few times Tarantino didn’t direct his own screenplay, Tony Scott keeps the film moving at a blistering pace as it races along.

Wild at Heart, dir. David Lynch (1990)

David Lynch saw the vision in putting Nicolas Cage in a snakeskin jacket, and the rest was cinema history. Remixing the road movie with Lynch’s dreamy weirdness, Wild at Heart follows Sailor Ripley (Cage) and Lula Fortune (Laura Dern) as they flee across America, pursued by Lula’s unhinged mother and a parade of surreal, dangerous characters. Winner of the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, it stands out as one of Lynch’s most chaotic and romantic works.

Nekromantik, dir. Jörg Buttgereit (1987)

We had to include one for the sickos. A film banned in several countries and still deeply controversial, we’d suggest getting the vibe of your date before choosing Nekromantik as your Valentine’s movie choice. It follows a young man who cleans up fatal accident scenes and is called out when a body is discovered in a lake. Instead of sending the heavily decayed corpse to a funeral home, he brings it home as a present for his wife. She loves it! The couple go on to live very happily with their new friend. Surprisingly, the film received positive reviews on release, with many critics viewing it as topical satire rather than depraved necrophiliac fantasy. It remains a deeply strange cult classic.

Teorema, dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini (1968)

In the words of essayist Philippa Snow, “On the most literal level, Pier Paolo Pasolini’s elliptical, spiritual-cum-sensual film Teorema is about an entire family being driven to distraction by their mutual desire to have sex with Terence Stamp.” Famous for being nearly silent, Pasolini’s Teorema rests almost entirely on Stamp’s late-1960s cheekbones. As the mysterious Visitor, he arrives at the home of a wealthy family in Milan and proceeds to unravel the very fabric of their lives simply by being too hot. After he leaves, we follow each family member as they all go absolutely mad.

Pillion, dir. Harry Lighton (2025)

Based on the novel by Adam Mars-Jones, Pillion follows the shy and introverted Colin as he enters a strict dom-sub relationship with the leather-clad biker Ray, played by Alexander Skarsgård. As Ray’s submissive, Colin (Harry Melling) cooks, cleans, and serves him, fully embracing his role as a constant servant. While the relationship may appear one-sided, Colin derives intense pleasure from his submission. Featuring a rarely-seen perspective on romance within the world of intense kink, Pillion might also be the first BDSM-centred romance film set entirely in Bromley.