Julia Roberts’ 15 Best Rom-Com Movies, Ranked

Woody Allen has a very specific brand of humor, and it doesn’t always hit with all audiences. It is also hard to believe that Allen would have a chance with a woman who looks like Roberts, even in 1996. Maybe especially in 1996. The ensemble comedy features some heavy hitters like Goldie Hawn, Drew Barrymore, and Edward Norton, but the Julia storyline is not actually that romantic and the movie as a whole is about Joe’s (Allen) family more than it is about a couple finding romance together.

In some ways, Valentine’s Day could be considered the ultimate rom-com because it has so many romantic storylines. It has all the fun tropes like friends to lovers, enemies to lovers, second-chance romances, and more. That earns it an automatic spot on the list, but Roberts is in none of those storylines. And while familial love is definitely worth celebrating (and Roberts’ love in the movie is such a heartwarming twist), it does prevent the movie from being rated higher on a list of her rom-coms.

Espionage! Scheming! A trap in the shape of a misplaced thong! Duplicity brings Roberts back together with Clive Owen, whom she’s worked with a few times in her more dramatic films. The two ex-spies can’t tell if they are in love or hate each other as they attempt to work together to score millions of dollars from rival businessmen. It’s a fun movie, but it lacks any of the hallmark tropes that make rom-coms so fun, which makes it hard to rate it higher on the list.

Okay, Ocean’s Eleven is first and foremost a heist movie, but Danny Ocean (George Clooney) devises the whole plot to rob the Bellagio to win back the heart of his ex-wife Tess (Roberts). What is more romantic than that? It’s enough for us to consider the movie fair game to make the list, but we’ll keep it in the back half since the romantic storyline is technically not the main plot of the movie. However, we’d love to meet a partner willing to go to these lengths for us any time!

The Eat, Pray, Love lifestyle is the butt of many an internet joke, but it is also one of Roberts’ most well-known films. And honestly, who wouldn’t want to eat their way through Rome, have a mid-life spiritual awakening, and find love in Bali? Again, this movie is more about Erica learning to love herself than the love story between her and Felipe (Javier Bardem), so it can’t get too many rom-com points, but it is a very feel-good watch for when you need inspiration for a little reinvention.

Next to Clooney and Gere, Roberts has the most chemistry with Tom Hanks. They’ve made multiple movies together, but Larry Crowne is the only one we could really squeeze into a rom-com list, and even then we had to rank it outside of the top 10 because it is more about Larry figuring out his life than it is about falling in love with Roberts’ character. Still, this is what we call a perfect Sunday afternoon movie. It’s lighthearted and fun, and a great distraction from Monday looming around the corner.

Mystic Pizza is Roberts’ first notable film credit and earns a place in the top 10 for being a nostalgic favorite. We couldn’t bump it much higher because Roberts technically isn’t the main star, but it is so much fun to revisit the movie that started to establish her as a household name. We also admire Daisy because who hasn’t been tempted to dump fish guts in the car of a romantic partner who has driven us to insanity? We could only wish to be so bold.

America’s Sweethearts attempts to get us to imagine a world where you could be in any room and not notice Julia Roberts. Yes, we know that Catherine Zeta-Jones is there to draw attention, but that premise still seems absurd. Still, the movie makes the most of the “you saw me when I was invisible” trope when John Cusack‘s Eddie realizes that his ex-wife’s assistant is really the girl for him after the estranged couple are forced through one last public appearance together before finalizing their contentious divorce. It’s a cute movie that is often overlooked, but both Roberts and Cusack have better rom-coms and better chemistry with other co-stars.

We don’t talk about The Mexican enough as a society. This film stars two of the world’s biggest movie stars, arguably at the height of their careers, yet it rarely gets brought up in the pop culture zeitgeist. Okay, because it is also a gangster movie, it does come with a bit more violence than you’d tolerate in a typical rom-com, but Brad Pitt and Roberts have such fun chemistry, and this is one of Julia’s more over-the-top comedic performances.

Continuing on the trend of Julia Roberts sleeper hits, if you look up “criminally underrated” in the dictionary, you should see the poster for Something to Talk About. It is her version of Hope Floats, except it came out first, and the husband in this movie actually learns to regret his philandering ways. The movie also makes the most of Roberts’ natural Georgian accent and her iconic boisterous laugh. We’re not sure why this one doesn’t get as much love as her other ’90s rom-coms, but we’re here to give it the extra helping of love it deserves.

It may feel shocking to see the inspiration for this list still a fair distance away from the top, but we have to be honest with ourselves here. It’s kind of hard to watch Maggie get raked over the coals in this movie without anyone asking her what it is she really dreads about marriage. The movie also gets demerits for the trope that reporters always end up sleeping with or falling in love with their subjects, which we take very personally here. Still, this movie had to be in the top five because Roberts and Gere are an iconic duo, and we could honestly watch them banter through a hundred movies.

It actually should be illegal to have as much chemistry as Roberts and Clooney have onscreen. The real-life friends prove they’ve still got it in the 2022 film Ticket to Paradise, in which they play estranged exes who must team up to try and stop their young daughter from marrying a seaweed farmer. It’s an enemies-to-lovers, second-chance romance, and these two make you swoon as hard as they make you laugh. The movie also gets extra points for the gorgeous scenery.

My Best Friend’s Wedding is one of the first rom-coms where the lead doesn’t get the cliche happy ending, but you still love the movie anyway. We actually love it because it bucks tradition, and to be fair, Julianne did some pretty hateful things to Kimberly (Cameron Diaz) in the name of convincing Michael (Dermot Mulroney) to love her. It wouldn’t have really been right for her to end up with him, but the movie does teach a valuable lesson that sometimes your soulmate is actually the best friend who stands by you even when you are at your worst. Shout out to Rupert Everett‘s George for being the definition of a “real one.”

“I am just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her” may go down as the most infamous line in rom-com history. Recent revisits to this film will paint Roberts’ character Anna as unkind towards Hugh Grant‘s Will Thacker, but she was an incredibly famous movie star! Of course her defenses were up! But when push comes to shove, we’ll watch Will barge his way into that press conference and win over Anna’s heart over almost all other rom-coms any day of the week.

It was the movie that launched Roberts into the stratosphere, fame-wise. There could be no other at the top of this list because it also tops the list of Marshall’s best films, and that man also made The Princess Diaries. To launch a mainstream rom-com about a prostitute getting her own Cinderella-inspired happy ending was a pretty bold move in 1990, and it was even riskier to do it with only a semi-known actress. Luckily, the film studio realized it would have been a big mistake — no, HUGE — to pass on this. The success of Pretty Woman is why we have most of the other gems on this list.