5 Movies To Watch If You Like The Love Hypothesis

Amazon's new romantic comedy "The Love Hypothesis" is making waves on the streaming platform — so what do you need to know about it? Based on Ali Hazelwood's best-selling novel of the same name (which itself began life as a fanfiction about Adam Driver's Kylo Ren and Daisy Ridley's Rey from the "Star Wars" prequel series), Claire Scanlon's adaptation of "The Love Hypothesis" centers around Olive Smith ("Riverdale" alum Lili Reinhart), a graduate student at Stanford University attempting to find a biomarker-based cure for pancreatic cancer. Enter professor Adam Carlson (Tom Bateman, who is, hilariously, Ridley's real-life husband), a stern, brisk biology teacher hated by most of his grad students ... and who Olive ends up fake-dating when she tries to convince her best friend Anh (Rachel Marsh) that she's totally uninterested in Anh's crush Jeremy (Nicholas Duvernay). Unexpectedly, Adam agrees to this false arrangement so that he can convince Stanford he has roots at the university and won't flee once they gift him a bunch of grant money ... and of course, by the time "The Love Hypothesis" wraps up, the two are actually in love.

"The Love Hypothesis" is a sweet, funny, charming little movie anchored wonderfully by Bateman and Reinhart (alongside standout supporting turns from Marsh and Jaboukie Young-White, who plays Olive's other best friend and Stanford cohort Malcolm). So what should you watch next if you fell in love with "The Love Hypothesis?" For this list, we've stuck to movies that center around fake or arranged dating — frankly, there aren't a ton of science-based romantic comedies out there — and even managed to find another modern classic helmed by Scanlon. Without further ado, here are five movies you should watch after "The Love Hypothesis."

In Claire Scanlon's absolutely delightful 2018 romantic comedy "Set It Up" — written by Katie Silberman, who's also responsible for "Booksmart" — we meet put-upon assistants Harper Moore (Zoey Deutch) and Charlie Young (Glen Powell), who work for sports journalist and editor Kirsten Stevens (Lucy Liu) and venture capitalist Rick Otis (Taye Diggs), respectively. One night, fighting over a takeout order in the building that houses both of their offices, Charlie and Harper get an idea: what if they set their bosses up, helped them date, and distracted them from work so that Harper and Charlie could catch a single solitary break?

This is exactly what happens, and because this is a rom-com, Kirsten and Rick actually do hit it off ... and as Charlie and Harper spend more time together, a spark starts to become obvious between them as well. Deutch and Powell, who first worked together on "Everybody Wants Some!!!" with Richard Linklater, both really shine here — honestly, Powell should be in many more rom-coms, and he does appear in another one on this very list, thankfully — and "Set It Up" manages to give both Charlie and Harper actual inner lives, dreams, and goals that feel real and relatable. (Harper, in particular, gets a storyline about her own dreams of being a sports writer that might have the most satisfying payoff of any arc in the movie.) Add in unbelievable supporting turns from comedic secret weapons like Pete Davidson, Meredith Hagner, and Tituss Burgess, and you've got yet another fun, sweet, and hilarious romantic comedy from Scanlon.

Directed by Susan Johnson, written by Sofia Alvarez, and adapted from Jenny Han's novel of the same name, "To All the Boys I've Loved Before" will take you right back to high school as you follow the ups and downs of Lara-Jean Song-Covey's (Lana Condor) unexpectedly tumultuous love life. For years, Lara-Jean deals with her emotions by writing letters she never intends to send, including ones meant for her crushes ... like Josh (Israel Broussard), her sister Margo's (Janel Parrish) ex-boyfriend. When Lara-Jean's younger sister Kitty (Anna Cathcart) finds the collection of letters, she impulsively mails them out without saying anything to anybody and gives Lara-Jean the shock of a lifetime when one of the recipients, Peter Kavinsky (Noah Centineo in his breakout role), confronts her about it the next day at school. (Lara-Jean does what just about anybody in that situation would do and faints.)

Because Josh's letter also arrived and is now threatening to derail Lara-Jean's relationship with her sister, Peter's idea — that he and Lara-Jean start fake-dating — actually ends up making complete sense. (What's in it for Peter? He hopes to make his ex-girlfriend Gen, Lara-Jean's former bestie played by Emilija Baranac, jealous in the process.) Peter and Lara-Jean, of course, start to fall for each other, and this movie lives or dies based on the chemistry between the two. Thankfully, they deliver — Centineo and Condor are basically magical together — and even if it's been years since you had a teenage love, you'll feel like you're 16 again watching Lara-Jean and Peter's fake relationship turn fully real. Plus, if you want more of the story, you're in luck: there are two sequels, making "To All the Boys I've Loved Before" the starter of a trilogy.

The early aughts were a great time for big studio romantic comedies, and "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days" probably belongs on that era's Mount Rushmore. Directed by Donald Petrie, written by Kristen Buckley, Brian Regan, and Burr Steers, and loosely based on a picture book, of all things, by Michele Alexander and Jeannie Long that bears the same name, "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days" introduces us to our protagonists through their jobs. Andie Anderson, played winningly by Kate Hudson, is a writer for a women's magazine who dreams of tackling more serious subjects than date-night outfits and romance tips; Matthew McConaughey's Benjamin Barry works at an advertising firm and is desperate to book a massive account working with DeLauer, a massive diamond company (that definitely seems to be based on DeBeers). 

So how do these two end up fake-dating in the most bizarre and hilarious arrangement in modern rom-com history? Andie's boss Lana (the incomparable Bebe Neuwirth) challenges Andie to make a man break up with her within a ten-day period, relying on stereotypes and trops about "difficult women" to make turn him off; meanwhile, Benjamin accepts a bet from rival colleagues, the Judys (Shalom Harlow and Michael Michele), that he can make any woman fall in love with him within those ten days. (The Judys know about Andie's assignment, so guess who they suggest?)

In many ways, "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days" is ludicrous, but that's precisely what makes it so good. Hudson and McConaughey are both excellently deployed here, and even at its silliest moments, this movie finds its sweetness. Plus, you'll never listen to "You're So Vain" the same way ever again.

Based quite loosely on William Shakespeare's comedy "The Taming of the Shrew," "10 Things I Hate About You," written by by Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith (who also penned the modern masterpiece "Legally Blonde") and directed by Gil Junger, takes that tempestuous love story and sets it in high school. Our protagonist, Julia Stiles' Kat Stratford, is the "shrew" in question whose abrasive attitude drives away all men (and, really, most people), but her younger and much more popular sister Bianca (Larisa Oleynik) wants to go on a date. To prevent Bianca from doing that, the girls' father Walter (an always welcome Larry Miller) makes a decree: Bianca can start dating when Kat does.

Desperate to take Bianca out on a date, popular jerk Joey Donner (Andrew Keegan) pays the odd but extremely handsome new Australian student Patrick Verona (Heath Ledger, early in his too-short career) to take Kat out ... even as Bianca slowly develops feelings for her nerdy but sweet French tutor Cameron James (a baby-faced Joseph Gordon-Levitt). "10 Things I Hate About You" is quippy, clever, features an all-timer small role from Allison Janney as the secretly perverted guidance counselor, and culminates in a romance between Patrick and Kat that feels entirely earned (as well as a genuinely sweet reconciliation and moment of understanding between Kat and Bianca, who spend most of the movie at each others' throats). It's a classic of the teen genre, the fake-dating genre, and well worth a watch (or re-watch) if you like "The Love Hypothesis."

Will Gluck is sort of a master of watchable, fun romantic comedies with bonkers concepts like "Friends with Benefits," "Easy A," and the 2026 film "One Night Only" — but in the surprise box office juggernaut "Anyone But You," which came out in 2023, he sticks to well-worn territory. In a story that's loosely based on a different William Shakespeare comedy — "Much Ado About Nothing" this time — we watch as protagonists Bea (Sydney Sweeney) and Ben (Glen Powell) spend the night together and he accidentally slanders Bea to his roommate Pete (rapper GaTa). After she leaves, embarrassed, the two are thrust back into each others' lives when Pete's sister Claudia (Alexandra Shipp) and Bea's sister Halle (Hadley Robinson) get engaged. When Claudia and Halle decide to have a destination wedding in Sydney, Australia, Bea and Ben are forced to serve as the maid of honor and best man, trapped together down under and forced into intimate situations more or less constantly.

So where does the fake dating come into play? Because everyone at the wedding is trying to play matchmaker with Bea and Ben, they figure out the gambit and decide to one-up everyone by pretending they're already a couple. While "Anyone But You" features some mildly baffling subplots — there's an incredibly weird subplot involving a family dog named Klonopin — it still hits all the beats you'll be looking for after "The Love Hypothesis," and Powell and Sydney shine together as an unlikely couple who ultimately fall in love.

As for "The Love Hypothesis," it's streaming on Amazon Prime Video now.