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Need a Valentine’s Day hit? Here are seven underrated romcoms you can stream right now

February 13, 2025

Underrated romcoms: Starstruck, Palm Springs and Set It Up.

From Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy to Netflix’s 2024 superhit Nobody Wants This, romcoms are well and truly thriving on our screens right now. But did they ever really go away? Despite years of death knells for the once-tentpole genre, plenty of great romcoms have been trickling onto streaming services with little fanfare over the past decade or more. Here’s a list of titles that deserve a bit more love this Valentine’s Day.

The Big Sick (Stan*)

This 2017 film written by Kumail Nanjiani (who also stars as a lead) and his wife Emily Gordon is based on their strange courtship, in which she heckled him at a comedy show, started a whirlwind romance and then fell seriously ill before being placed into a medically induced coma. With Emily (played by Zoe Kazan) out of action for much of the runtime, the film follows Kumail’s sweet attempts to reckon with the strange situation he’s placed in, her concerned parents (the excellent Ray Romano and Holly Hunter) and the cultural differences between them and their families. It’s a film that tends more towards drama than some other titles on this list, but does feature the best 9/11 joke ever told.

About Time (Netflix)

Richard Curtis is the undisputed king of the British romcom. Four Weddings and a Funeral. Notting Hill. The man practically invented Hugh Grant – or at least the bumbling, floppy-haired version of him that transfixed pop culture before he entered his self-proclaimed “freakshow era”. But this (admittedly Hugh Grant-less) 2013 gem from the iconic writer-director rarely gets the same attention.

About Time tells the story of a sweet but shy young man, Tim (Domhnall Gleeson), finding love with the help of his ability to time travel. After a chance encounter with his dream girl (Rachel McAdams), Tim employs tricks from the Groundhog Day playbook to woo her and start building a life together. A bit problematic? Sure! But the film later hits its stride with genuinely affecting meditations on life, love and family – with some standout scenes coming from Tim’s dad/fellow time traveller played by Bill Nighy.

Set It Up (Netflix)

Glen Powell is having his moment thanks to Twisters, Anyone But You and Hit Man, but real ones have been with him since this underappreciated 2018 Netflix romcom. Set It Up follows two overworked assistants (Powell and Zoey Deutch) “full on Parent Trap-ping” their tyrannical bosses into falling in love, then finding themselves smitten in the process. The film has a stacked cast, with Lucy Liu and Taye Diggs having a lot of fun as said horrible bosses, and Pete Davidson as Powell’s best friend. But the real pleasure is in the whip-smart and genuinely funny writing (the screenplay is by Katie Silberman, who went on to do Booksmart) and the incredible chemistry it creates between Powell and Deutch’s characters. Love McConaughey and Hudson in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days? Set It Up has all the same hijinks and heart.

Palm Springs (Amazon Prime Video)

It was a rough year for cinema in 2020, and it’s understandable if you had other things going on. But if you missed this Andy Samberg/Cristin Milioti time travel romcom when it dropped on Amazon Prime Video, it’s worth travelling back for. Set at a wedding in the titular desert resort city, Palm Springs is centred on two strangers who are stuck in a time loop after hooking up at a wedding. It’s goofy, wild and at times very dark, but more than anything, it’s supremely fun. It’s pure joy watching these two bounce around a literal and metaphysical sandbox, playing out every conceivable way their eternal day can go, running away from a murderous J.K. Simmons and finding real companionship in the process.

Catastrophe (Stan*)

Rob Delaney and Sharon Horgan in the frank and sardonic Catastrophe.

Boy meets girl. Boy accidentally impregnates girl during week-long intercontinental fling. Boy and girl confront the terrifying spectre of parenthood with near-stranger they’ve now tied themselves to for life. It’s not the most common romcom plot line, but wow, is it compelling. Created and written by Rob Delaney and Sharon Horgan (who also serve as the series leads), Catastrophe is a sharp, darkly funny and very realistic portrait of a relationship forged in strange and difficult circumstances. Jumping straight over the courtship stage, Rob and Sharon (yes, they use their real names) forge a fast intimacy which grounds the series and will have you invested over four incredible seasons.

Starstruck (ABC iview, Binge)

New Zealand comedian Rose Matafeo is a ray of sunshine in pretty much everything she appears in. It’s a quality that recently made her the perfect choice to host Junior Taskmaster, and it’s distilled to its purest form in this warm and light romcom series that she created, writes and stars in. Matafeo plays Jessie, a Kiwi millennial living in London, who unknowingly hooks up with a movie star (Nikesh Patel) she meets in a nightclub bathroom. Often (lovingly) dubbed a gender-flipped Notting Hill, the show unwinds from there, whirring on the anxieties and complications Patel’s character’s fame creates in their would-be relationship.

Love (Netflix)

Gillian Jacobs and Paul Rust in the Netflix series, Love.Credit: Netflix

How much do you actually have to love the people who are falling in love on your screen? It’s a question you might ask at multiple points in this very likeable 2016 Netflix series about often unlikeable people. Co-created by Judd Apatow, Girls writer Lesley Arfin and her real-life partner Paul Rust, Love follows two unlikely LA singles as they stumble towards a relationship. Mickey (Gillian Jacobs) is a prickly radio producer and sex/love addict. And Gus (Rust) is a kind but massively insecure aspiring writer. Both are coming off the back of break-ups and feeling a little bruised. And while you might not always root for the relationship at its core, the show is always sharp and laugh-out-loud funny (including an incredible turn from Claudia O’Doherty as Mickey’s wide-eyed Australian housemate).