The 50 Best R-rated Rom-Coms of the Past 50 Years

Lake Bell stars as a woman who is mistaken for a man’s blind date and decides to go ahead with the rendezvous anyway. Critics said the chemistry between Bell and Simon Pegg, who plays the man, made this rom-com work.

Rom-com meets sci-fi in this film starring Vincent D’Onofrio as a time traveler in contemporary New York City who meets Marisa Tomei – a woman who has an understandably hard time dealing with the fact her first healthy relationship is with someone from another era.

“Adventureland” is about a recent college graduate (Jesse Eisenberg) whose dreams of a summer in Europe are put on hold because his parents tell him they can’t afford to pay for the trip. He takes a job at an amusement park and instead of enduring his worst summer ever, he falls in love with a beautiful co-worker (Kristen Stewart). Greg Mottola wrote and directed the critically favored rom-com.

Very much a film of its time, “Valley Girl” is an early-career starring vehicle for Nicolas Cage, appearing as a Hollywood punk who romances Deborah Foreman, a girl from the San Fernando Valley whose friends are materialistic, narcissistic teens.

“Working Girl” is a very 1980s movie; the go-go financial world and the high hair are giveaways. Melanie Griffith plays a secretary who takes advantage of her domineering boss’s absence by presenting a potentially profitable idea – which the boss then tries to take credit for. The supporting cast in this rom-com directed by Mike Nichols includes Sigourney Weaver, Joan Cusack, Alec Baldwin, and Philip Bosco.