15 Best Romance Movies Like The Notebook You Need To Watch

 This article contains a discussion of suicide.

Based on Nicholas Sparks' 1996 novel of the same name, the 2004 film "The Notebook," directed by Nick Cassavetes, is undoubtedly one of the most swoonworthy movies of all time. The story of lovers Noah Calhoun (Ryan Gosling and James Garner) and Allie Hamilton (Rachel McAdams and Gena Rowlands, Cassavetes' mother) is told throughout two timelines — one in the 1940s, where a young Noah and Allie fall in love and are torn apart by her wealthy family, and one in modern day, where an older Noah tells Allie, who's suffering from dementia, their love story. 

Between McAdams and Gosling's unbelievable on-screen chemistry — the two did end up dating after making "The Notebook" — and an on-screen legend like Rowlands in such a prominent role, "The Notebook" ultimately stands a cut above many other romance movies. With that said, if you like "The Notebook," there's a lot of other great, heartwarming, and tearjerking films you should check out too ... and a whole lot of them are also based on Sparks novels. Here are 15 movies you should watch if you fell in love with "The Notebook."

In 2010's "Dear John" — which is also based on a Nicholas Sparks novel that dropped in 2006 — we're introduced to John Tyree (Channing Tatum), a Staff Sergeant in the United States Special Forces, who's home on leave when he meets a girl named Savannah Curtis (Amanda Seyfried). Throughout her spring break from college, John and Savannah fall in love ... and when he returns to active duty, they promise to keep in touch through letters.

Unfortunately, Savannah and John meet in 2001 — and even after the couple plans to start a life together after John's deployment ends, it's extended after the terrorist attacks on September 11 of that year. They keep up their long-distance relationship, but eventually, Savannah meets someone else and sends him a "true" Dear John letter (which traditionally refer to letters sent to active duty military members by their partners as they break up), devastating John ... who's then shot in action. The two reunite at the very end of the film, but if you're looking for something as dramatic as "The Notebook," "Dear John" should do the trick.

Like "Dear John" and "The Notebook," the 2014 movie "The Best of Me" is based on a Nicholas Sparks movie — and it also jumps around through a few timelines to tell the decades-long love story of Dawson Cole (James Marsden) and Amanda Collier (Michelle Monaghan). (The younger versions of the two leads are played by Luke Bracey and Liana Liberato, respectively.) When the two meet in high school, they fall in love quickly ... but Dawson comes from an abusive and dangerous family, and when his siblings and father beat up his adoptive father figure Tuck Hostetler (Gerald McRaney), everything changes. Dawson's cousin is killed in the struggle, leading Dawson to testify against his family for a lighter sentence. Before he goes to prison, Dawson ends his relationship with Amanda.

Years later, the two reunite thanks to Tuck ... but it's short-lived. Amanda leaves her husband for Dawson, but he's killed in a fight with his family, and when Amanda's son gets into a car accident and needs a heart transplant, he receives a posthumous donation from Dawson. "The Best of Me" is as devastating as "The Notebook," but still ends on a surprisingly uplifting note.

"The Last Song," which is also based on a Nicholas Sparks novel, is primarily famous because its two stars — Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth — ended up in a long-term relationship after making the film (though they ended up splitting for good in 2019). Still, if you like "The Notebook," you'll want to add this one to your watchlist too. Veronica "Ronnie" Miller, played by Cyrus, is a rebellious teen whose parents divorced a few years before the movie starts, ends up traveling to Georgia with her brother Jonah (Bobby Coleman) and dad Steve (Greg Kinnear) for the summer. When Ronnie finds a nest of sea turtles on the beach near the Miller house, she meets aquarium volunteer Will Blakelee (Hemsworth), and the two strike up an unexpected connection.

When it comes to Sparks-specific tropes, "The Last Song" does feature a character struggling with a secret illness ... and that character is Steve, Ronnie's dad. As she comes to terms with his terminal diagnosis, Ronnie and Will get closer, and though she ultimately loses her dad, she heads to college at the end of the film with Will by her side. "The Last Song" is a major part of the Sparks film canon, and it also features a surprisingly great performance from Cyrus.

Frankly, a lot of movies based on Nicholas Sparks novels focus on younger or even middle-aged couples — but both "The Notebook" and 2008's "Nights in Rodanthe" give a spotlight to what love looks like at an older age. We first meet Adrienne Willis (Diane Lane) as she's about to get a divorce from her husband, who's leaving her for a younger woman; when said husband Jack (Christopher Meloni) tells her that he might still be in love with her, Adrienne realizes she needs some time and space and heads to Rodanthe, North Carolina to stay at a bed-and-breakfast. The only other guest at the inn is Dr. Paul Flanner (Richard Gere), a surgeon struggling with the recent memory of a surgery gone disastrously wrong, which has made him completely closed-off to other people.

Everything changes when a storm approaches and Paul and Adrienne, the only people at the B&B, have to make sure it's protected from the elements, and they ultimately fall in love after talking and bonding while the storm rages. Unfortunately, Paul's newfound emotional growth leads to tragedy ... because when he travels to Ecuador to reunite with his estranged son Mark (James Franco) and help provide medical services to impoverished people there, he's killed in a tragic mudslide. Still, Adrienne's time with Paul also helped her rediscover joy, and even through her grief, she's able to recognize that.

Any millennial worth their salt is familiar with "A Walk to Remember," a weepy Nicholas Sparks adaptation that walked so "The Notebook" could run. Released in 2002, the film pairs up stereotypical "bad boy" Landon Carter (Shane West) and religious, buttoned-up Jamie Sullivan (Mandy Moore), a preacher's daughter who's not part of the "popular" crowd. After Landon gets in trouble at school, he's basically forced to participate in the school play, which means he ends up spending a lot of time with Jamie ... but when his cruel friends end up interfering in their budding relationship, it puts distance between Landon and Jamie.

Landon ultimately ditches those friends and commits to Jamie, and the two discuss their dreams — except Landon ultimately discovers something devastating when Jaime says that she doesn't have long-term goals because she has leukemia. Yes, Jamie is dying, but the way Landon responds to this revelation is to fulfill all of her dreams. The two get married and accomplish all of Jamie's goals, and after she passes away, Landon achieves his dream of becoming a doctor, showing just how much Jamie changed his life for the better.

Richard Curtis' 2013 film "About Time" might be one of the sweetest romance movies ever made, but it's also a beautiful story about family. When Cornwall native Tim Lake (Domhnall Gleeson) wakes up after a truly terrible New Year's Eve party at his family's house, his father James (Bill Nighy) tells him an astonishing secret: men in the Lake family can travel through time by going into an enclosed space, imagining the moment they'd like to return to, and closing their eyes. When this works and Tim is able to improve his New Year's experience, he moves to London with this newly discovered power ... and it comes in handy when he has a chance meeting with a beautiful American woman named Mary (Rachel McAdams).

There are some limits to Tim's family powers — he can't go too far back in time, and he also ultimately discovers that any time he and Mary have a baby, he can never return to the time before the birth. That last thing ends up devastating Tim when his father passes away and Tim can no longer travel back to see James, but at the end of the film, he realizes something bigger: every day is a gift, which is actually what his power is all about. "About Time" is a little more light-hearted than "The Notebook," but it's definitely as romantic and resonant. 

Based on Jojo Moyes' novel of the same name, "Me Before You" tells the story of Louisa "Lou" Clark (Emilia Clarke), an eccentric and joyful young woman who takes a job as an in-home aide for a wealthy former banker and amateur athlete named Will Traynor (Sam Claflin). Right away, Lou learns from Will's mother Camilla (Janet McTeer) and father Steven (Charles Dance) that Will, who was injured in an accident and became paraplegic as a result, intends to end his life with physician-assisted suicide.

Lou sets out to change Will's mind by showing him the beauty of life, and the two learn from their differences (Lou has lived in the same small village all her life, whereas Will traveled the world before his accident). When they fall in love, Will tells a tearful Louisa that he still intends to die by suicide, and though it breaks her heart, she respects his choice. After Will's death, he ensures that Lou can travel the world and see all of its beauty. "Me Before You" presents a different story than "The Notebook," but both are about couples who, despite their differences, change each other for the better.

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Chance meetings are a staple of the romance genre, and Richard Linklater may have made the best-ever movie about two strangers connecting in 1995 with "Before Sunrise." Based on a real encounter Linklater experienced in Philadelphia, the film stars Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy — who also co-wrote the script with Linklater — as Jesse and Céline, who meet on a train to Vienna and decide to disembark together and spend the day in Austria's capital. Over the course of one day and night, Jesse and Céline fall hard for each other and agree to meet in Vienna again in six months.

You'll have to watch the film's two sequels — 2004's "Before Sunset" and 2013's "Before Midnight" — to see all of Jesse and Céline's love story, but there's no question that "Before Sunrise" is one of the greatest on-screen love stories ever told. "The Notebook" is great, but "Before Sunrise" blows it out of the water.

People probably remember Damien Chazelle's 2016 film "La La Land" because it's the movie that famously interrupted the Academy Awards when announcer Warren Beatty mistakenly said it won best picture. "Moonlight" was the actual winner, but besides all that, "La La Land" isn't just a great movie: it's a phenomenal romance about two people who, like Noah and Allie, have to overcome significant obstacles to make their love story work. When aspiring actress Mia Dolan (Emma Stone, who picked up her first Oscar for the role) meets jazz musician Sebastian "Seb" Wilder (Ryan Gosling) in Los Angeles, the two don't like each other much initially but end up bonding over their shared artistic goals.

Unlike "The Notebook," "La La Land" doesn't let the couple end up happily together; in fact, the most striking scene in "La La Land" is an interlude at the very end that shows the life Mia and Seb could have had if their ambitions hadn't gotten in the way, only to reveal that Mia is married to someone else. Still, if you love "The Notebook," you'll definitely love "La La Land."

2014's "The Fault in Our Stars" isn't based on a Nicholas Sparks novel, but it is based on a book by weepy young-adult romance author John Green, so it definitely fits on this list! This story introduces us to Hazel Grace Lancaster (Shailene Woodley), a young woman living with thyroid cancer that affects her ability to breathe, leaving her with a permanent oxygen tank. After her mother Frannie (Laura Dern) insists that an isolated Hazel attend a cancer support group, she meets Augustus "Gus" Waters (Ansel Elgort), who is in remission from bone cancer but previously lost a leg to his disease.

Gus and Hazel fall in love almost immediately and go through so much together in a short period of time, even traveling to Amsterdam together to meet Hazel's all-time favorite author Peter van Houten (Willem Dafoe) and ask him about his book "An Imperial Affliction" (which happens to focus on a girl with cancer). When Gus' cancer returns, Hazel loses him as quickly as she fell for him; as she says in the book and film, "As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once."

You simply cannot compile a list of romantic yet tragic movies and not include James Cameron's 1997 epic — and Oscars record-breaker — "Titanic." When Rose DeWitt Bukater (Kate Winslet), a moderately wealthy young woman who needs to regain a fortune by marrying the rich but Cal Hockley (Billy Zane), boards the Titanic, she meets a steerage passenger named Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio) who immediately piques her interest. Yes, they fall in love during their time on the ship as it makes its way from England to New York ... but we all know the ending of this story.

In its second half, "Titanic" transforms from a romantic tale to a flat-out action film, performed outstandingly by both Winslet and Dawson — but the point is that if the joyful but heartbreaking romance in "The Notebook" is your thing, you'll definitely love "Titanic," which is frankly one of the greatest love stories ever told. (Sorry, Noah and Allie.)

In "The Notebook," Noah has to help Allie remember their love story — and in 2012's "The Vow," Channing Tatum's Leo Collins is left devastated when his wife Paige (Rachel McAdams) is injured in a car accident and he has to help her regain all of her memories in the aftermath. When Paige wakes up from her medically induced coma, she doesn't recognize Leo or her parents, and so it's up to Leo to help his beloved wife remember her life up until that point.

Inspired by a true story, "The Vow" is an incredibly touching story of a man who will do anything to help his wife remember their best moments. Even though she briefly leaves him and sees other people romantically, their enduring love brings them together at the end of the day ... just like it does for Noah and Allie.

Imagine if, in "The Notebook," either Noah or Allie died right at the beginning of the movie. That's sort of what happens in the romantic drama "P.S. I Love You," which stars Gerard Butler and Hilary Swank as Gerry and Holly, a married couple living a happy life until Gerry dies from a brain tumor. Then, on Holly's 30th birthday, she gets a package that includes a cassette tape; as it turns out, Gerry arranged for Holly to receive messages him from beyond the grave, and all of them conclude with "P.S., I love you."

Ultimately, "P.S. I Love You" is about using the memory of someone you loved to move forward; even though grief can be all-consuming, Holly slowly learns how to find joy in her life without Gerry. If you cried at "The Notebook," you'll definitely cry over "P.S. I Love You."

Nobody dies at the end of "Notting Hill," so it's not exactly like "The Notebook," but it's still one of the most heartfelt romantic movies ever made — so it belongs on this list. When bookshop owner Will Thacker (Hugh Grant) helps American actress Anna Scott (Julia Roberts) find something in his store in the titular London neighborhood, he has yet another chance meeting with her afterwards ... and the two start spending more and more time together in the British capital. 

A misunderstanding involving Anna's famous boyfriend ends up briefly splitting the two, but they find each other at the end of the film ... and when it comes to famous declarations of love on screen, "I'm just a girl standing in front of a boy asking him to love her" is definitely a spiritual predecessor of "if you're a bird, I'm a bird" from "The Notebook." If you haven't seen "Notting Hill," you simply must add it to your queue.

The Nicholas Sparks adaptation "The Lucky One," released in 2012, stars Zac Efron as Logan Thibault, a United States Marine who survives a deadly mortar attack in Iraq and, in the process, finds a photo of a beautiful young woman. After carrying the photo around as a talisman — or, one could say, a "lucky" charm" — he finally tracks down the woman, Beth Green (Taylor Schilling), who was once married to Logan's friend in his hometown in Colorado.

Ultimately, Logan inserts himself into Beth's life, and the two grow closer and closer as they fall in love; along the way, Beth tells Logan about her beloved brother Drake who died under mysterious circumstances. When Logan discovers the truth about Drake's death, it leads to enormous repercussions in the town ... but all ends happily for Beth and Logan regardless. "The Notebook" and "The Lucky One" share an original author, but they also share an optimism about the transformative power of true love.