12 Best Movies Like Crazy, Stupid, Love

True love — everyone wants it, and Hollywood loves to sell it. In “Crazy, Stupid, Love,” one of Steve Carell’s most underrated movies, three couples embark on tentative romances while trying to figure out what they really need in both life and love. Their worlds intertwine as they try to get through the ups and downs of daily survival and learn to accept that sometimes what’s best for our loved ones is whatever they yearn for. Cal (Carell) is coping with his life after his wife, Emily (Julianne Moore), left him for her co-worker, David (Kevin Bacon); Jacob (Ryan Gosling) is a player befuddled by the constant rejections of Hannah (Emma Stone); and young Robbie (Jonah Bobo) has his first crush on a girl named Jessica (Lio Tipton). These plots all intersect with each other as the characters fall in and out of love and family ties present themselves.

With the big-screen romcom genre finally beginning to find new life after a long dormancy, fans are rediscovering the joys and agonies of watching characters form a true connection. The following list of films is filled with romance-driven anthology pieces that revolve around multiple couples or stories involving themes that echo those found in “Crazy, Stupid, Love.” If you liked this film, then you’ll probably love these twelve stories.

“Stuck in Love” is about a man trying to get over his wife’s desertion of their marriage while parenting a college-aged daughter and an adolescent son. The main plot of the movie closely resembles what Cal and Emily go through in “Crazy, Stupid, Love,” as it follows Bill Borgens (Greg Kinnear), an acclaimed novelist who hasn’t gotten over his ex-wife, Erica (Jennifer Connelly). He obsessively follows her and her paramour, Martin (Rusty Joiner), around town. Meanwhile, their kids are dealing with their own problems; young Rusty (Nat Wolff) is suffering through his first crush on a classmate, while daughter Sam (Lily Collins) has eschewed anything that might resemble commitment in favor of an endless string of one-night stands.

The kids are extremely frustrated with their father, a man who can’t accept that his ex-wife isn’t interested in returning to their once-shared home. But while Sam contemplates falling in love for real and Rusty experiences his first heartbreak, Bill refuses to give up on Erica, even though she insists she’s ready to move on with her life. There turns out to be a special reason for this, though the kids don’t know about it — at least at first. If you enjoyed Cal and Emily’s arc in “Crazy, Stupid, Love,” then “Stuck in Love” will scratch a major itch for you — and you might even like its resolution even more.

Garry Marshall spent the tail end of his career making romance-centered anthology films that revolved around special holidays. But none of them can top “Valentine’s Day” for sweet, soft-hearted antics that will either leave you in a sugar coma or with tears in your eyes. If you’re in the right mood, it will enchant you with its multiple points of view; in fact, so much is packed into “Valentine’s Day” that you might have forgotten what happens.

The movie is about an assemblage of twenty-two characters, all of whom have big plans for the annual holiday of romance and all of whom either know one another in some way or whose paths will cross. Reed Bennett (Ashton Kutcher) has proposed to Morley Clarkson (Jessica Alba), but Morley freaks out and bolts from the relationship soon after accepting. Kate Hazelton (Julia Roberts) meets the handsome Holden Wilson (Bradley Cooper) during a cross-country flight. Though Kate has other personal commitments, the rich and handsome Holden is mighty tempting — but he’s got a secret of his own. Julia (Jennifer Garner) loves Harrison Copeland (Patrick Dempsey), but he’s married to Pamela (Katherine LaNasa). Student Edison Hazeltine (Bryce Robinson) has a crush on Julia, but Julia gently dissuades him, sending him toward a girl his own age, Rani (Megan Suri).

Meanwhile, Edgar (Héctor Elizondo) and Estelle (Shirley MacLaine), Edison’s grandparents, are in the middle of a tiff over an old wound. High school cheerleader Grace Smart (Emma Roberts) plans to stamp her v-card on Valentine’s Day with her boyfriend, Alex Franklin (Carter Jenkins), but their friends, Willy Harrington (Taylor Lautner) and Felicia Miller (Taylor Swift), have decided to wait. Mailroom clerk Jason (Topher Grace) loves Liz (Anne Hathaway) but is shocked by her secret. All of these characters come together at an “I Hate Valentine’s Day” party thrown by football player Sean Jackson (Eric Dane), his publicist, Kara Monahan (Jessica Biel), and Paula Thomas (Queen Latifah). And, finally, Sean is tempted by Kelvin Moore (Jamie Foxx) and must also cope with newsroom boss Susan Moralez (Kathy Bates).

If you enjoyed “Crazy, Stupid, Love’s” Jacob and Hannah’s plotline, then “No Strings Attached” will probably enchant you as well. The film is about two old acquaintances who start hooking up with each other with the expectation of doing nothing more than cleaning some old bats out of their belfries — but, of course, they end up falling in love.

Adam (Ashton Kutcher) and Emma (Natalie Portman) first met as kids in summer camp. Now they’re young adults trying to make their way in the world. Adam reacts poorly when he learns that his dad (Kevin Kline) is now dating his ex — and wants to marry her and have a second family with her. This results in him collapsing drunk on Emma’s couch after a bender. The twosome subsequently have hookup sex, and the connection is so good it leads to more encounters.

Though they hope to keep things light and casual, when emotional ties threaten their perfect world, the question is whether Adam and Emma can manage to get it together and find true love, or is it all over for them? Even though it’s a comedy about hookup culture, the sweet nature of the film won audiences over. “Crazy, Stupid, Love” has a similar sense of yearning to the one that blooms to life in “No Strings Attached,” while adding an extra shine to its promise.

Another film steeped in hookup culture, “Love and Other Drugs” is a based-on-a-real-story film about the pharmaceutical business and the process of denying or accepting true love. Just like “Crazy, Stupid, Love,” it explores the sacrifices we make in order to find what really feeds us. Whether it’s coping with a terminal disease or simply getting over yourself to realize that what you want is right in front of you, the two films reflect similar values while successfully entertaining audiences.

Jamie Randall (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a rising pharmaceutical rep who plans on moving to Chicago to further his career. He doesn’t care about anything but selling drugs until he meets Maggie Murdock (Anne Hathaway), who will only agree to a casual relationship with Jamie. While Jamie tries to enjoy his life as a single man, he can’t help but be drawn back to Maggie; eventually, as he becomes incredibly successful by selling Viagra, he learns that Maggie has Parkinson’s disease. While she worries that he’s just pitying her, he begins to realize just how much she means to him and tries to figure out whether career advancement or staying with her is more important to him. In the end, it turns out that healing himself might just be more important than anything money could buy.

In a nutshell, “What’s Your Number?” is a cute romcom about moving on from one’s raunchy past. Surely, “Crazy, Stupid, Love’s” Jacob would be friends with Ally Darling (Anna Faris) and relate to the notion of settling down just the way she tries to in this film. Viewers will note the similarities between the stories, and if they found Jacob’s love story adorable, then they’ll most likely like this flick as well.

Ally is trying to break old habits and bad patterns after losing her boyfriend and being laid off. When she notices a magazine cover with a blurb trumpeting the notion that women who have had over twenty sexual partners in their lifetime are unlikely to ever find real love, she realizes she’s had relations with nineteen men. As a result, she promptly swears off copulation and will not allow herself to have sex with another man until she finds Mr. Right. Unfortunately, that revelation is quickly followed by a drunken hookup. She decides to go back through her sexual history and try to find all of the men she’s hooked up with. Maybe one of them has changed from a frog to a prince, which will mean her body count will stay the same. But, in undertaking this quest, she’s ignoring her perfect match: Colin Shea (Chris Evans), a musician neighbor who carries a torch for Ally.

There’s nothing more bittersweet than a couple who gets together young and seems to have it all, only for everything to shatter so thoroughly that the aftermath turns into a weird, lumpen, misshapen thing. “Celeste and Jesse Forever” explores a marriage in breakdown, with each half of the couple alternately unwilling to let go completely at different times.

Jesse (Andy Samberg) and Celeste (Rashida Jones) are a couple who married as teens and are now careening toward divorce. Celeste is a tightly wound media company executive, while Jesse is a laid-back slacker between jobs. As time goes on, they both cope with their mixed feelings regarding their divorce and try to hold on as their close connection experiences tumult after tumult. The end result is a movie that’s more lacerating than the Cal and Emily plotline in “Crazy, Stupid, Love,” but if you don’t mind a bracing dose of reality thrown into your comedy, then this is the one for you.

A big-hearted celebration of the mysteries of romance and the challenges of solo parenting, “Definitely, Maybe” is a romcom with a very interesting narrative twist. If you like nonlinear storytelling methods, then this film, one of Ryan Reynolds’ most underrated movies, will be a delight.

Will Hayes (Reynolds) is in the middle of a tough divorce, so when his daughter, Maya (Abigail Breslin), asks him how he met her mother, Will decides to recount the story playfully. He tells her about three women he met during the same time period, obscuring details about their real names and changing certain situations to mask which of the women is Maya’s mom. Soon, it becomes clear that one of the women he’s talking about is Maya’s mother — but another is Will’s true love. Is it April (Isla Fisher), the “Jane Eyre”-obsessed girl who keeps fading in and out of his life? Perhaps it’s his college sweetheart, Emily (Elizabeth Banks), who is unable to remain faithful to Will. Or maybe it’s the free-living and freewheeling Summer (Rachel Weisz), who becomes entangled with both Will and Emily. It’s up to Maya to sort out who her biological mom is — and who might be the stepmom of her dreams.

Filmmaker Nancy Meyers was the queen of the rom-com during the 2000s, and “It’s Complicated” is one of the biggest jewels in her crown. Primarily focusing on love between older folks, this is a charming film that manages to create multiple memorable love stories that span generations.

Jane Adler (Meryl Streep) owns a bakery and is happy living a single life. Her ex-husband, Jake (Alec Baldwin), is still a lawyer, though his health has recently taken a nosedive. It’s been ten years since they separated, all three of their kids are now grown, and Jake has remarried to Agness (Lake Bell), the much younger woman who broke up his and Jane’s marriage and who wants more kids with him.

Jake doesn’t know what he wants at this point, and he and Jane fall into a sexual affair with assignations that keep happening even though Jane has mixed feelings about it. When she begins to see Adam (Steve Martin), an architect, the question is, where does Jane’s heart really lie, and which man does she want to be with? Like “Something’s Got to Give,” another one of Meyers’ hits, if you like Cal and Emily’s “Crazy, Stupid, Love” story, you’ll take to “It’s Complicated” easily and fall in love with all of the characters in seconds.

A timeless yet quintessentially 1990s romance, “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” set huge records as one of the most popular independent features of all time. There’s a reason for that, as it has a gentle universal charm to it. Solidly Greek, swoon-worthily romantic, and touched with a little bit of magic, it spawned a short-lived sitcom and two sequels, but nothing’s ever held a candle to the original. Fans of the grounded kind of romanticism offered up by “Crazy, Stupid, Love” will probably give their hearts to Toula’s (Nia Vardalos) tale, too.

The movie deals with shy and nerdy Toula, who decides to change her life by taking classes at a local community college. Given a confidence boost by stepping outside of the world of her parent’s restaurant, Dancing Zorbas, she begins to work for her Aunt Voula’s (Andrea Martin) travel agency. There, she sees the very non-Greek Ian Miller (John Corbett, who lucked into landing the role while having a drink in a hotel bar), a former customer at the restaurant upon whom she’s had a crush. It turns out Ian likes her too, and as the romance advances, Toula needs to cope with her traditional and overbearing family, who threaten to tear apart the romance with their unconventionality. Will Toula go through with the ceremony, or will it all go south?

Unconventional-yet-everyday romance is the name of the game with “Silver Linings Playbook,” the kind of comedy that any fan of “Crazy, Stupid, Love” will enjoy just because it has a sense of humor and recognizes that love is no walk in the park. It’s a complicated story with heroic villains and villainous heroes, and the ride it takes the audience on is downright enchanting.

Patrizio “Pat” Solitano Jr. (Bradley Cooper) is dealing terribly with his divorce while, at the same time, coping with a recent diagnosis of bipolar disorder, for which he received inpatient treatment. Pat is obsessed with getting back together with Nikki (Brea Bee) when Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence) enters his life. Tiffany has her own problems, but she needs a partner for a dance competition and agrees to be the go-between for Pat and Nikki if he’ll dance with her. As Pat and Tiffany practice, they begin to find peace with each other. Will Pat realize that what he had with Nikki ought to remain in the past, or will he spend the rest of his life chasing a dream? The film’s ending takes the two characters on a wild journey that results in wonderful chaos.

Call it “When Harry Met Sally…” the next generation. “A Lot Like Love” might be best remembered for its bouncy soundtrack these days, but it also manages to stand out in the romantic comedy field by providing a panoramic view of its lead characters’ lives over several decades. The story is rich with the stuff of life, resulting in a quick, sweet-natured watch that should prove engrossing for any “Crazy, Stupid, Love” fans who enjoy a romantic tale that spans a long period of time during which the seasons pass, but the feelings never change.

Emily Friehl (Amanda Peet) and Oliver Martin (Ashton Kutcher) met seven years ago on an otherwise disastrous cross-country flight. Oliver plans to be a dot-com billionaire, while Emily is an aspiring photographer. Four years later, Emily asks Oliver out on a New Year’s Eve date out of desperation, but he disappears while she’s unconscious. Over the years, they date others and build their professional lives, but there’s a missing part of the romantic equation. By the time Emily finds herself engaged to another man she doesn’t love as much as Oliver, Oliver might be getting married to another woman. Will true love finally find them, or are they destined forever to be star-crossed?

To close out our cavalcade of romantic comedies, we’ll recommend “The Big Sick,” a real-life romance that’s based on its writers’ life stories. Tender, sweet, and filled with brio and charm, it gorgeously combines humor with sentiment just like “Crazy, Stupid, Love.” It’s a heart-melting hidden romantic comedy gem that will break your heart and mend it all over again.

Kumail (Kumail Nanjiani playing a fictionalized version of himself) is a stand-up comic who’s a cab driver at night. Kumail meets Emily (Zoe Kazan, playing a version of Nanjiani’s wife, Emily V. Gordon, who co-wrote the screenplay with her husband), and a no-strings-attached one-night stand ends up leading to something more. But Kumail’s parents want him to get married, and when he goes on a string of arranged dates, he breaks Emily’s heart. When Emily comes down with an undiagnosable infection, Kumail’s feelings for her — and about their possible union — begin to change. Eventually, Emily is properly diagnosed with adult-onset Still’s disease, and her future seems positive, but can career and marriage demands lead to true love?