Dada Debaser's 100 Alternative Valentine's Day Movies

Taxi Driver (Travis & Betsy's date scene)

(Martin Scorsese, 1976)

 

Much like having the right wine with your meal, the same applies with the type of movie you watch with your partner. She wants to see the new J. Lo at the local multiplex; you want to cotch at home and check out that Ebola Syndrome 4K you copped before last Christmas. A compromise is therefore in order.

Below is a list of one hundred mostly unconventional movies, that for me at least, have a far more evocative and what I would define as romantic than the usual dross that's churned out to the masses, or listed by your typical clickbait reliant filmsites. Much like a venn diagram there has to be an overlap of commonality somewhere for both parties involved:

Dada Debaser's 100 Alternative Valentine's Day Movies

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert Wiene, 1920)

The Man Who Laughs (Paul Leni, 1928)

King Kong (Merian C. Cooper & Ernest B. Schoedsack, 1933)

The Lady from Shanghai (Orson Welles, 1947)

Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)

Mudhoney (Russ Meyer, 1965)

The Collector (William Wyler, 1965)

Bonnie and Clyde (Arthur Penn, 1967)

Twisted Nerve (Roy Boulting, 1968)

Camille 2000 (Radley Metzger, 1969)

The Laughing Woman (Piero Schivazappa, 1969)

Deep End (Jerzy Skolimowski, 1970)

Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny & Girly (Freddie Francis, 1970)

Daughters of Darkness (Harry Kümel, 1971)

Dr. Jekyll & Sister Hyde (Roy Ward Baker, 1971)

Girl Slaves of Morgana Le Fay (Bruno Gantillon, 1971)

The Abominable Dr. Phibes (Robert Fuest, 1971)

Vampyros Lesbos (Jesús Franco, 1971)

The Blood Spattered Bride (Vicente Aranda, 1972)

The Case of the Bloody Iris (Giuliano Carnimeo, 1972)

Badlands (Terrence Malick, 1973)

Count Dracula's Great Love (Javier Aguirre, 1973)

Immoral Tales (Walerian Borowczyk, 1973)

The Iron Rose (Jean Rollin, 1973)

The Night Porter (Liliana Cavani, 1974)

Story of O (Just Jaeckin, 1975)

Island of Death (Nico Mastorakis, 1976)

Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976)

In the Realm of the Senses (Nagisa Ôshima, 1976)

Nosferatu The Vampyre (Werner Herzog, 1979)

Buio Omega (Joe D'Amato, 1979)

The Empire Strikes Back (Irvin Kershner, 1980)

Body Heat (Lawrence Kasdan, 1981)

Possession (Andrzej Zulawski, 1981)

Cat People (Paul Schrader, 1982)

Breathless (Jim McBride, 1983)

Christine (John Carpenter, 1983)

Risky Business (Rick Brickman, 1983)

Body Double (Brian De Palma, 1984)

The Terminator (James Cameron, 1984)

Brazil (Terry Gilliam, 1985)

Manhunter (Michael Mann, 1986)

Sid and Nancy (Alex Cox, 1986)

Near Dark (Kathryn Bigelow, 1987)

Hellraiser (Clive Barker, 1987)

Coming to America (John Landis, 1988)

The Vanishing (George Sluizer, 1988)

Heathers (Michael Lehmann, 1989)

Cry-Baby (John Waters, 1990)

Edward Scissorhands (Tim Burton, 1990)

Nikita (Luc Besson, 1990)

Pump Up The Volume (Allan Moyle, 1990)

Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (Pedro Almodóvar, 1990)

Wild At Heart (David Lynch, 1990)

Nekromantik 2 (Jörg Buttgereit, 1991)

Basic Instinct (Paul Verhoeven, 1992)

Candyman (Bernard Rose, 1992)

Bram Stoker's Dracula (Francis Ford Coppolla, 1992)

True Romance (Tony Scott, 1993)

Return of the Living Dead 3 (Brian Yuzna, 1993)

Cemetery Man (Michele Soavi, 1994)

Natural Born Killers (Oliver Stone, 1994)

The Last Seduction (John Dahl, 1994)

Leaving Las Vegas (Mike Figgis, 1995)

To Die For (Gus Van Sant, 1995)

Bound (Lilly Wachowski & Lana Wachowski, 1996)

Crash (David Cronenberg, 1996)

L'appartment (Gilles Mimouni, 1996)

Jackie Brown (Quentin Tarantino, 1997)

Perdita Durango (Álex de la Iglesia, 1997)

Tromeo and Juliet (Lloyd Kaufman, 1997)

Bride of Chucky (Ronny Yu, 1998)

Buffalo '66 (Vincent Gallo, 1998)

There's Something About Mary (Peter Farrelly & Bobby Farrelly, 1998)

Audition (Takashi Miike, 1999)

Cruel Intentions (Roger Kumble, 1999)

Quills (Philip Kaufman, 2000)

Amélie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001) 

Disco Pigs (Kirsten Sheridan, 2001)

The Piano Teacher (Michael Haneke, 2001)

Irreversible (Gaspar Noé, 2002)

May (Lucky McKee, 2002)

Secretary (Steven Shainberg, 2003)

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (Tom Tykwer, 2006)

Let The Right One In (Tomas Alfredson, 2008)

Love Exposure (Sion Sono, 2008)

Drive (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2011)

Maniac (Franck Khalfoun, 2012)

Sightseers (Ben Wheatley, 2012)

Blue is the Warmest Colour (Abdellatif Kechiche, 2013)

Nymphomaniac Vol. I &  II (Lars von Trier, 2013)

Alleluia (Fabrice du Welz, 2014)

Spring (Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead, 2014)

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Ana Lily Amirpour, 2014)

The Duke of Burgundy (Peter Strickland, 2014) 

The Lobster (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2015) 

The Love Witch (Anna Biller, 2016)

Promising Young Woman (Emerald Fennell, 2020)

Apples (Christos Nikou, 2021)

Dinner in America (Adam Rehmeier, 2021)

Dada Debaser Notes:

• Stuck to the one film per director rule.
  
• Realised two things while compiling this list: erotic vampire tales (particularly those based on Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla) and psychos in love, are two themes that have been long time stablemates in my viewing habits.
• Wanted to include Tony Scott's The Hunger (1983) in there as it was perfect for the list, but True Romance unquestionably trumps it. Also, Scott's reusing of The Flower Duet from Delibes' opera Lakmé has far more impact in True Romance than it orginally did in The Hunger.
  
• It might be one of the better golden age slashers, but George Mihalka's My Bloody Valentine (1981) has one of my least favourite love triangles in cinema (and one of the least likeable final girls, for that matter). That's why it never made my list.
  

"I can feel it inside, I can't explain how it feels
All I know is that I'll never dish another raw deal
Playing make believe pretending that I'm true
Holding in my laugh as I say that I love you"