But for him, it’s all a bit of a jumble, made all the more complicated by the fact that he never knows where or when his jumps through time will take him. For Claire, her story with Henry is a linear one that begins when she meets him as a child.

The catch is her time-traveling husband Henry (Eric Bana) can only travel within his own timeline, and as a result, their love story unfolds out of order. In this heart-wrenching film, she plays Claire, who falls in love with a time traveler. McAdams is clearly the queen of tragic love stories. Pay attention, Notebook fans, because these are the movies you need to watch the next time you’re in the mood for a fictional romance every bit as grand as Noah and Allie’s. Happily (but also tragically), the 30 films on this list strike just the right balance between telling a sprawling love story and breaking viewers’ hearts into a million tiny pieces.

It’s the tragic element that also happens to be the easiest ingredient to screw up in a movie. That’s the bittersweet icing on top of this perfect movie romance that blends the star-crossed lovers’ trope with just the right amount of tragedy. But then comes the heartbreaking twist ending: the revelation that, while they do spend a lifetime together, Allie’s dementia will one day rob her of her memories of her one true love. The pair spend most of the movie proving there’s no obstacle their love can’t overcome. Noah is a poor boy who catches the eye of southern heiress Allie, and even though their summer romance is life-changing, her parents would never approve of him.

There are other movies like The Notebook capable of making you swoon and sob simultaneously - even though we do concede nothing will ever fully compare to Gosling and McAdams’ rain-soaked, 2005 MTV Award-Winning Best Kiss.Īt its heart, The Notebook is a story of forbidden love. The Notebook is the very definition of an epic romance, but Allie and Noah’s love story is just one of many tear-jerking Hollywood romances out there. If you’re reading this, then you’ve definitely sobbed while Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams screamed, “If you’re a bird, I’m a bird!” at each other.

The notebook sparks