Valentine’s Day means chocolates, flowers, candlelit dinners…and just possibly curling up at home with a loved one to stream a good heartwarming rom-com.
While romantic comedies are enjoyed nationwide – and not just on Valentine’s Day – it turns out that different states have different preferences when it comes to movies of this kind. To determine which ones prefer which rom-coms, 24/7 Tempo reviewed a study of the subject conducted by the film and TV news and review site Looper.
Looper began by compiling a list of the 100 best rom-coms of all time according to ratings on IMDb, an online movie and TV database owned by Amazon. The site then used Ahrefs to find the global Google search volume for each movie and cross-referenced this with IMDb votes, IMDb scores, and lifetime domestic box office gross to determine the top 15 romantic comedies as of Jan. 31, 2024. Finally, using Google Trends, Looper computed search data for each movie in the top 15 between February and September of 2023 in every U.S. state to identify each state’s favorite – ending with 11 films in all. Data from January and from October through the end of the year was excluded to prevent results from being skewed due to seasonality, as certain films tend to jump in popularity around the Christmas season, due to holiday-related content.
The number of states preferring the same film is identical in four cases. For purposes of ranking, we have positioned the film with the higher IMDb rating in the higher position. (These are the 50 best R-rated rom-coms of the past 50 years.)
The two films that interest the most states are Rob Reiner’s classic “When Harry Met Sally…,” starring Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal, a movie that shows up regularly on lists of the funniest films of all time, and “10 Things I Hate About You,” directed by Gil Junger and featuring Julia Stiles and Heath Ledger.
One thing that seems clear about the state preferences revealed here is that affection for one rom-com over another doesn’t seem to be determined by geography or regional culture. Who would have thought, for instance, that both Alaska and Hawaii would favor “The Holiday” (set in California and England), or that “Love Actually” would find appeal in states from Illinois to New Mexico to Tennessee?
Here is a list of the most popular rom-com in every state:
11: How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003)
- IMDb rating: 6.5 (264,655 votes)
- Lifetime domestic box office gross: $105,813,373
- Number of states where it’s most popular: 1
- States where it’s most popular: Rhode Island
10: Crazy, Stupid, Love. (2011)
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- IMDb rating: 7.4 (556,108 votes)
- Lifetime domestic box office gross: $84,351,197
- Number of states where it’s most popular: 2
- States where it’s most popular: Montana, North Dakota
9: The Proposal (2009)
- IMDb rating: 6.7 (353,123 votes)
- Lifetime domestic box office gross: $163,958,031
- Number of states where it’s most popular: 3
- States where it’s most popular: California, Idaho, Kansas
8: Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001)
- IMDb rating: 6.8 (260,634 votes)
- Lifetime domestic box office gross: $71,543,427
- Number of states where it’s most popular: 4
- States where it’s most popular: Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Wyoming
7: Notting Hill (1999)
- IMDb rating: 7.2 (336,914 votes)
- Lifetime domestic box office gross: $116,089,678
- Number of states where it’s most popular: 4
- States where it’s most popular: Massachusetts, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas
6: Sleepless in Seattle (1993)
- IMDb rating: 6.8 (188,767 votes)
- Lifetime domestic box office gross: $126,680,884
- Number of states where it’s most popular: 5
- States where it’s most popular: Nebraska, Nevada, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah
5: Pretty Woman (1990)
- IMDb rating: 7.1 (354,093 votes)
- Lifetime domestic box office gross: $178,406,268
- Number of states where it’s most popular: 5
- States where it’s most popular: Colorado, Indiana, iowa, Kentucky, Michigan
4: The Holiday (2006)
- IMDb rating: 6.9 (319,294 votes)
- Lifetime domestic box office gross: $63,224,849
- Number of states where it’s most popular: 6
- States where it’s most popular: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii
3: Love Actually (2003)
- IMDb rating: 7.6 (527,832 votes)
- Lifetime domestic box office gross: $59,696,144
- Number of states where it’s most popular: 6
- States where it’s most popular: Illinois, Maryland, New Mexico, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia
2: 10 Things I Hate About You (1999)
- IMDb rating: 7.3 (376,658 votes)
- Lifetime domestic box office gross: $38,178,166
- Number of states where it’s most popular: 7
- States where it’s most popular: Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Ohio, South Carolina, Washington, Wisconsin
1: When Harry Met Sally… (1989)
- IMDb rating: 7.7 (238,706 votes)
- Lifetime domestic box office gross: $92,823,546
- Number of states where it’s most popular: 7
- States where it’s most popular: Arizona, Louisiana, Maine, Missouri, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, West Virginia