Netflix’s latest rom-com, Your Place or Mine, revives the classic friends-to-lovers romance from being overdone and cliché by putting a modern spin on the beloved rom-com trope. Your Place or Mine stars two rom-com veterans, Ashton Kutcher and Reese Witherspoon, as two best friends who live on opposite coasts. Unlike typical rom-coms, Peter and Debbie only share a few scenes together in person, with most of their present-day interactions taking place through FaceTime calls and texts.
Peter (Ashton Kutcher) and Debbie (Reese Witherspoon) once hooked up as young adults but have since formed a 20-year-long friendship. When Debbie needs someone to look after her son while she goes to New York for a week-long intensive business course, Peter flies across the country to Los Angeles to take care of her son, while Debbie heads to New York and lives in Peter’s condo for the week. As they see small glimpses of each other’s real lives, Peter and Debbie re-evaluate their true feelings for each other. Here’s every friends-to-lovers movie to watch after enjoying Peter and Debbie’s long-distance love story in Your Place or Mine.
Ever since the American Pie franchise debuted, sex comedies have become a classic sub-genre of comedy movies. Friends With Benefits re-defined the typical conventions of rom-coms by mixing up the typical order of rom-com events to put dating on the back-burner and casual sex at the forefront. After being dumped by their latest partners, Jamie (Mila Kunis) and Dylan (Justin Timberlake) agree to engage in casual sex without the added complication of dating. Their arrangement works perfectly until the lines start to become blurry between casual sex and the real romantic feelings they develop for each other. Jamie and Dylan navigate their new dynamic with humor, tons of burning chemistry, and a very realistic touch of awkwardness.
13 Going on 30 Teaches Important Lessons on Life and Love
“Thirty, flirty, and thriving” has been a motto many people have lived by ever since 13 Going on 30 was released. When 13-year-old Jenna (Christa B. Allen) wishes to skip ahead to being 30 on her birthday, her wish magically comes true. Adult Jenna (Jennifer Garner) wakes up 30 years old only to find out her life is nothing like she pictured it. The most unexpected part is that Jenna is falling for her best friend, Matty (Mark Ruffalo), who she had dismissed as a love interest when they were teenagers. But now that Matty’s engaged to someone else, the longing of their friends-to-lovers arc is only amplified as Jenna pines after him before getting back to her life in the past and making sure they get their happily ever after.
Love, Rosie Is All About the Pain of Right Person, Wrong Timing
The old adage of right person, wrong timing is the entire premise of Love, Rosie. The decades-long friendship of Rosie (Lily Collins) and Alex (Sam Calflin) has gone through many failed relationships, personal tragedies, and unexpected life circumstances. Throughout it all, Rosie and Alex are always somehow drawn together, and despite harboring long-standing feelings for each other, something always gets in the way of their potential romance. The heartbreak and anticipation of Rosie and Alex’s romance make this the perfect friends-to-lovers movie, and the satisfaction when Rosie and Alex finally get together as adults is worth going through the roller-coaster of emotions with them.
Set It Up Makes the Workplace Romance Trope Hilarious and Enthralling
Workplace romances are either a hit or a miss because unless power dynamics are acknowledged, they can often become an ethical nightmare. Set It Up is smart about its build-up of a workplace romance and sets up a hilarious and enthralling dynamic by pairing two assistants, Harper (Zoey Deutch) and Charlie (Glen Powell), together in a quest to set up their high-strung bosses to make their own lives at their jobs easier. Harper and Charlie’s matchmaking goes awry when their bosses turn out not to be a perfect match, but instead, they form an unlikely friendship through the scheme and slowly begin to fall in love with each other.
Isn’t It Romantic Dives Into the Absurdity of Stereotypical Rom-Coms
Pitch Perfect alums Rebel Wilson and Adam Devine reunite as romantic love interests in Isn’t It Romantic. Rom-com hater Natalie (Rebel Wilson) gets stuck in an alternate universe where her life has transformed into a rom-com, diving into the absurdity of stereotypical rom-coms while also making fun of them. Natalie has to dodge the affections of hunky billionaire Blake (Liam Hemsworth) after realizing her true feelings for best friend Josh (Adam Devine). Natalie believes that finding true love will help her escape from the rom-com universe, but since Josh is engaged to a model in this new universe, and she doesn’t feel a spark with Blake, escaping isn’t that simple. Natalie has to figure out a way to jump through all the hurdles of the rom-com universe to get back to the real world, where Josh has clearly always been hopelessly in love with her, and her real happy ending awaits.
Made of Honor Puts a New Twist on an Old Tradition
Made of Honor cleverly twists wedding tradition when Hannah (Michelle Monaghan) gives the coveted position of “maid of honor” to her longtime guy best friend, Tom (Patrick Dempsey), who just realized his feelings for her shortly before her engagement. Tom struggles with his feelings and whether he should speak now or forever hold his peace while juggling his vengeful ex, who happens to be Hannah’s cousin and a bridesmaid, and his duties as “made of honor.” Everything leading up to the wedding goes horribly and comically wrong, but Tom manages to sneak in a few covert romantic moments with Hannah and has to finally muster up enough courage to admit his true feelings for her before she says “I do,” and he potentially loses his last chance to be with her.
Your Place or Mine is now streaming on Netflix.