I find there’s no better way to experience a little rose tinted buzz of love and romance than watching a favourite chick flick. A leading lady, a leading gent, a whirlwind love affair, a heart string tugging soundtrack = perfection.

I wanted to share with a few of the films that leave me either with a lovely warm glow or wanting to consume my bodyweight in Ben & Jerrys/hang myself from the light fitting with a Valentine’s print scarf.

Pretty Woman – an absolute classic, hooker meets rich guy, rich guy falls in love with her despite her being a prostitute – happily ever after. Two things I particularly love about this film. 1) The line “I want the fairytale” when Edward asks Vivianne what she actually wants from him 2) The fact that Vivianne has ginger hair.

The Notebook – if you call yourself a lover of a soppy film and you haven’t seen this, you’re a liar. Noah wrote Allie a letter a day FOR A YEAR, thats 365 letters and Allie didn’t write back and it wasn’t over for him! Sob lots of sobbing, some amazing vintage outfits and hairstyles from Rachel McAdams as Allie, and Ryan Gosling as Noah proves you can still look bonkable with a beard.

A Walk To Remember – if this film was a cheese it’d be a really stinky stilton. Its so bad that its good. A typical, the bad guy falls for the geeky girl – but the path of true love never does run smooth, because Mandy Moore’s character is sick and she has a list of things she wants to do before she dies. “You have to promise not to fall in love with me” – he promises, but he does. He bloody does (I also love the soundtrack to this movie, cringe.)

500 Days of Summer – this isn’t your average boy meets girl chick flick, and it is a love story but not really, it’s a bit of a heartbreak story if I’m honest. Dripping with cynicism, sarcasm and Zooey Deschanel with her incredible hair, skin, eyes and ability to make all men fall in love with her. (I HATE THIS SONG) Joseph Gordon Levitt is the perfect lovestruck geek and I can guarantee that it’ll strike a chord with even the most miserable of miserable people. (Expectation vs Reality is my life.)

Dirty Dancing – I don’t think I even need to say anything about this. Absolute classic of a film, love prevails, they learn to dance, nobody puts Baby in the corner, Patrick Swayze gets sweaty and there’s a particularly raunchy/jaw dropping scene scene in Johnny’s room where they do some “dirty dancing”.

Crazy Beautiful – Kirsten Dunst plays Nicole – an early 2000’s version of wildchild Lilo in this chick flick. After the loss of her mum to suicide at a young age, her life is a continual spiral of mistakes, depression and drinking. She lives with her dad and his new wife and nothing she does is ever good enough. She falls for new school brainbox Carlos and soon her wild ways start to rub off on him as he tries to save the girl he loves from the craziness that surrounds her, and slowly Carlos’ life and everything he’s worked so hard to achieve starts to go down the shitter and all fingers (including her dad’s) point to Nicole as the main factor. Cue lots of sobs and some spectacular lines of brilliance such as:

There are millions of people in this world, but in the end it all comes down to one. I still panic sometimes, forget to breathe, but I know that there’s something beautiful in my imperfections; the beauty that he held up for me to see. The strength that I will never be able to say.

Fast forward to Valentines night and I have no doubt that I’ll be spending the evening with one of these leading men and wishing that my life was like the movies.