Cozy Up with Tubi: 14 Must-Watch Romantic Films Streaming Free for Valentine’s Day 2026

We begin with an all-time favorite: It Happened One Night, arguably the greatest romantic comedy ever. This iconic film is among the elite trio to have clinched the “big five” Oscars—Best Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, and Screenplay. If you haven’t watched it, you’ll find its plot of a journalist and a spoiled heiress on a chaotic road trip familiar, as it has inspired countless imitations. But believe us, none compare to the original. Fun fact: Clark Gable’s carrot-munching scene in the film is said to have inspired Bugs Bunny’s famous habit.

You can stream It Happened One Night on Tubi.

Even when limiting our choices to a single streaming service, the following classic stands tall among American cinema’s finest. His Girl Friday is a fast-paced screwball comedy centered on journalism and remarriage, featuring razor-sharp dialogue between Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell. This film epitomizes the art of witty banter, a dynamic often diluted in modern films into tiresome and shallow exchanges. The rapid-fire repartee in His Girl Friday remains one of the most exhilarating displays in cinematic history.

Stream Roman Holiday on Tubi

Another classic Hollywood star with multiple great romances to his name, James Stewart was getting a bit long in the tooth when this proto-Bewitched rom-com came out. It was the same year as Vertigo, where his advancing age is more a part of the subtext — and where he also romances Kim Novak! The enchantment here is less destructive and more farcical, as a witchy Novak casts a spell on the unwitting Stewart. It’s silly stuff and, at times, supernaturally charming.

Stream Bell, Book & Candle on Tubi

A big-city morality tale that accommodates both satirical comedy and a sweet-and-tart love story, The Apartment may be the crowning achievement of writer-director Billy Wilder, who casts a young Jack Lemmon as a corporate go-getter who lends out his bachelor pad to philandering executives — and falls in love with elevator operator played by an effervescent Shirley MacLaine. There’s a kind of neo-screwball spin to the whole thing; it’s got a farcical setup but its concerns are rooted in something more serious (which doesn’t stop Wilder from dealing a perfect ending).

It’s understandable if you feel like you can’t stomach a Woody Allen movie, especially in this context, but he did make a definitive and highly influential (and surprisingly freewheeling, given its Oscar win) urban-neuroses rom-com. Moreover, the late Diane Keaton won an Oscar for one of her best performances at the title character, a flighty but sharp young woman who catches the eye of Allen’s Alvy Singer. After decades of softening and slackening, the movie brought some real wit (and emotional heft) back to the mainstream romantic comedy.

Stream Annie Hall on Tubi

It doesn’t seem right to put together this list without a classic teenage romance; it also doesn’t seem right to default to John Hughes, whose love stories were often a bit thinner than they first appeared. Martha Coolidge, however, directed a little firecracker of a teen romance (and a pretty neat time capsule) with Valley Girl, starring Deborah Foreman and a young Nicolas Cage as a valley girl and a punk kid who fall in love. Tubi protip: The service also has the 2020 musical remake, and it’s actually pretty great!

Stream Valley Girl on Tubi

OK, it’s not quite on the level of Cameron Crowe’s near-perfect Say Anything. But Crowe’s more adult-focused follow-up o his writer-director breakthrough is able to portray a greater scope of characters in grunge-era Seattle, where twentysomethings are pairing off, breaking up, and freaking out.

Stream Singles on Tubi

If you’re in the mood for something a bit more quietly devastating, try this multi-Oscar-nominated period piece from the Merchant/Ivory filmmaking team. Anthony Hopkins stars as a reserved butler, serving his English family of employ in the years leading up to World War II. He falls in love with a fellow servant played by Emma Thompson, but steadfastly keeps his feelings at a remove, out of a misguided sense of duty. Hopkins and Thompson, both Oscar-nominated, are terrific, and rather than appearing mismatched, they have exactly the right note of unfulfilled yearning to break your heart.

Stream The Remains of the Day on Tubi

Speaking of Oscar-nominated 1993-released period pieces about repressed feelings…! Martin Scorsese took an unexpected turn for romantic tragedy with The Age of Innocence, his adaptation of the Edith Wharton novel about New York society in the 1870s. A lawyer (Daniel Day-Lewis) is drawn to the unconventional cousin (Michelle Pfeiffer) of his potential bride (Winona Ryder), and Scorsese is spectacularly attuned to the mores and emotional constrictions this partially unspoken love triangle entails. It’s a deeply sad movie, but a passionately rewarding one in its way.

Stream The Age of Innocence on Tubi

Brendan Fraser has never really been especially acclaimed for his abilities as a romantic leading man, but this sweetly daft 1999 comedy suggests that he should have done (and should still do) more rom-coms. He plays a 1960s kid whose crackpot dad (Christopher Walken), in a nuclear-war panic, traps the whole family in a bomb shelter for over 30 years. He emerges as a strapping, gee-whiz gentleman agog at the turn-of-the-century world he now inhabits, and courts a more cynical woman played by Alicia Silverstone. Like Fraser, the movie is a goofy charmer.

Stream Blast from the Past on Tubi

Some of its aggrieved-friendzoned-guy gender politics are a little dicey now, but if you can overlook a little bit of understandable twentysomething underachiever hostility, Win a Date with Tad Hamilton! is a dual throwback to both 2000s-era romantic comedies (the artificiality of which is basked into this one’s premise) and 1950s-era sweetness. A small-town girl (Kate Bosworth) wins a contest to meet her image-challenged favorite actor (Josh Duhamel), much to the delight of her best friend (Ginnifer Goodwin) and consternation of the coworker (Topher Grace) who nurses a secret crush on her. None of the four central performers became big movie stars after this one, but they’re all quite charming here.

Stream Win a Date with Tad Hamilton! on tubi

Indie filmmaker Joe Swanberg made a somewhat more mainstream attempt at hangout/relationship comedy with this loose but ultimately quite affecting look at an intense friendship between two coworkers (Olivia Wilde and Jake Johnson) that threatens to turn into something more despite the presence of their respective partners (Ron Livingston and Anna Kendrick), who share a weird flirtation of their own. Close friends who don’t admit they’re actually in love with each other is a tired rom-com trope that Swanberg and his actors breathe a lot of life into here, taking careful stock of what those kinds of relationships actually mean. For a movie about hanging out, goofing around, and drinking beer, it’s surprisingly affecting.

Stream Drinking Buddies on tubi

Steven Spielberg isn’t particularly known for his screen-melting romantic stories, but his remake of the classic musical West Side Story pretty much sets the screen on fire with a riot of color, flying bodies, and equally well-choreographed camera movements. It doesn’t even matter that this version’s Tony, Ansel Elgort, is kind of a drip; in the moment, his love story with Maria (a radiant Rachel Zegler) positively glows. It’s arguably even better than the already-great 1961 film version — but if you prefer that one, or want to check it out for the first time, Tubi has you covered there, too!

Stream West Side Story on Tubi