Jennifer Aniston and Matthew McConaughey, two gigantic stars, finally joined Instagram in the past few weeks. JenAn of course joined to promote “The Morning Show”, her new AppleTV+ show, and Mr. Alrightalrightalright joined because… I guess he felt like it? Jennifer Aniston literally broke Instagram when she first joined as so many fans rushed to follow her; she now has an incredible 19.4 million followers. McConaughey has done pretty alright himself garnering 1.6 million in just a few days. JenAn even gave Matthew some advice on how to navigate the platform. When these two massive stars joined Instagram, it got me thinking about their status as candidates for potential King and Queen of Romantic Comedies and it felt like a perfect excuse to compare their movies and pronounce the true ruler of RomComs.
While both McConaughey and Aniston both got their start in seminal coming-of-age stories, Dazed and Confused and Friends respectively, neither of these count as RomComs for obvious reasons, despite sharing some RomCom qualities. For one, Friends is a TV show, so while the Ross/Rachel relationship is VERY RomCom-y, it cannot qualify as RomComs refer to movies only. Dazed and Confused, despite McConaughey being a (albeit pretty creepy in 2019) swooner, is more of a high-school comedy a la Animal House than it is a classic RomCom.
Due to this potential confusion, it’s important to try and outline what can qualify in this thought experiment. To be a RomCom, the film must center around two people (generally a man and a woman in most of these cases, but that is changing) who at first find 100 different reasons that they cannot or should not be together, but after a montage of them becoming closer, then being split up after a big fight, they will inevitably come back together and fall in love happily ever after. Just because a movie has a love-subplot does not mean it’s a RomCom. The story of the Not Together But Obviously Will End Up Together Couple must be at the center. This is why, for example, Sahara (a criminally underrated movie) which includes a plot where McConaughey and Penelope Cruz’s character overcome the odds to fall in love during a wild adventure, may at the surface level sound like a RomCom, but ultimately is not since the main plot is actually about McConaughey and Steve Zahn finding treasure in Africa. This especially applies to Aniston, as she’s in many movies where her character falls in love; however, the movies are notably comedies cc: We’re the Millers, Horrible Bosses, Wanderlust, Office Space, and the love story is a subplot. Also to qualify, McConaughey and Aniston must be the main leads; this is why Magic Mike, Dream for an Insomniac, She’s the One, ‘Til There Was You are not included; this is also why He’s Just Not That Into You isn’t on here despite being an ELITE RomCom. These are my subjective rules but as a woman who has watched RomComs more times than I can possibly count, I feel I’m uniquely qualified to make them.
Both actors had a multi-year stretch of RomComs ranging from Very Bad to Very Good. It’s worth saying before I get into these Very Bad movies that I LOVE every single one of these movies and have seen each approximately 100 times, but that does not mean the movies are “good”. Good Bad movies are important too. I did this mostly subjectively, but I did include the Rotten Tomatoes scores to try and include some objectivity, however as you will soon see, all of these movies have horrible ratings. As a reminder, the Tomatometer measures critic’s ratings for the movies and Audience Score represents the everyday consumer’s opinion of the movies. Let’s see who had the best to help us determine who is the ultimate RomCom champion.
Very Bad
13. Love Happens (2009)
17% Tomatometer; 37% Audience Score
Aaron Eckhart and JenAn in a movie together on a surface level sounds great. I don’t know why Eckhart isn’t in more movies, because he’s so charming. However, this movie is extremely weird. It follows Eckhart, a therapist who makes his money off grief counseling, and kind-of falls in love with JenAn’s character. I say kind-of because he realizes that he hasn’t taken his own advice and hasn’t confronted the guilt he feels over being the driver in the car accident his wife died in. The movie was heavily criticized for its poor handling of dealing with grief and its obvious plot points. This is easily my least favorite movie on this list.
12. Picture Perfect (1997)
48% Tomatometer; 37% Audience Score
Part of reviewing older movies is trying to ignore some of the plot points that would nowadays be considered politically incorrect; the times were different and often times people didn’t know better. This causes a number of movies to age poorly, and this is one of them. The entire plot is centered around JenAn needing to pretend she’s dating someone so that she appears “stable enough” to her male bosses to get a promotion… Mr. Mercer would be hardcore #MeToo’d today. I think the movie is solidly enjoyable but not one I return to often.
11. Ghosts of Girlfriend’s Past (2009)
27% Tomatometer; 40% Audience Score
I assume the pitch for this movie was “Scrooge, but make him a sexy playboy with no regard for anyone’s feelings but his own.” The movie is set up like A Christmas Carol and features McConaughey’s transformation from Playboy to Hopeless Romantic, as the Ghosts of Girlfriend’s Past, Present and Future make him realize he’s actually in love with his childhood crush Jennifer Garner in just one night. It’s definitely a top 2 ridiculous plot on this list (competing with The Switch for first place). I actually enjoy this movie the most of the ones in the Very Bad category… it’s a very guilty pleasure and charming asshole McConaughey is always entertaining.
Normal Bad
10. Rumor Has It… (2005)
20% Tomatometer; 41% Audience Score
The Graduate’s accidental stepdaughter doesn’t really hold a candle to the movie it pays homage to. Somehow three generations of women end up sleeping with Kevin Costner’s Beau – although Costner is insanely attractive, it’s pretty gross that JenAn, her mother and her grandmother all have sex with him, especially because JenAn is cheating on her fiancée at the same time. I haven’t seen this movie since I first watched it.
9. Along Came Polly (2004)
26% Tomatometer; 47% Audience Score
Starring Ben Stiller and JenAn, two comedy legends, this movie had a lot of potential. While I think there are definitely funny moments, a lot of the jokes are more cringe than funny. It’s hard to believe JenAn and Ben Stiller as a couple – no shots at Ben Stiller but his character plays as a schlubby run-of-the-mill Normal – while JenAn is a hot, adventurous wild time. I don’t love it as much as the other movies on this list but it is definitely rewatchable.
8. Fool’s Gold (2008)
11% Tomatometer; 48% Audience Score
Ahhh – the ugly sister to How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days. In this mostly forgotten RomCom, Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey team up again 5 years after their smash success in 2003 to try and recapture the magic. While most will say that they don’t even come close to capturing this magic (I generally agree), this movie is still absurdly fun. I love a movie where the reason it is made is that they want to just film in a beautiful tropical place (something Adam Sandler in particular is famous for cc: Just Go With It featured below). McConaughey continues his streak as a charming, but irresponsible leading man (Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, Failure to Launch), however this movie is largely criticized for being extremely formulaic with overall lackluster performances. I like this movie though; I like the cast, the set, and the ridiculous treasure hunter premise. Definitely will watch if it’s on cable.
Good
7. The Switch (2010)
51% Tomatometer; 44% Audience Score
We’ve arrived at the most absurd plot in a slew of movies with them. JenAn plays Kassie, a woman who has yet to find love in her 30s and decides to have a baby by herself. Jason Bateman plays Wally, her best friend who is in love with her and offers to be the sperm donor. JenAn says no to this and gets a donor but Bateman gets drunk and manages to replace the donor sperm with his own. Since it’s a RomCom, the two naturally end up together. It’s pretty fucked up of Bateman’s character to have done this for a myriad of reasons but if you can get past that aspect of the story, Bateman and JenAn are great together on screen. They have excellent chemistry and are pretty enjoyable to watch. I honestly have no idea how this movie achieved the highest Critics appreciation on this list.
6. The Break-Up (2006)
34% Tomatometer; 46% Audience Score
Three words: Sexy. Vince. Vaughn. Vaughn is so good at playing a somewhat douchey, kinda lovable, very egotistical male lead. He’s somehow so charming in these roles and this movie is no exception. He and JenAn play a couple who break-up and both refuse to move out of the condo they bought together and decide to live as roommates… totally plausible! Listen I know what you’re about to say… they don’t even end up together! Which kind of breaks an essential RomCom rule where the two find their way back to each other because they’re ~meant to be~ but I’m keeping this movie on the list because their relationship is still at the heart of it, and the will-they-won’t-they, playing pranks on each other type of flirting is essential to the movie. Also, I just really love Vince Vaughn.
5. Failure to Launch (2006)
24% Tomatometer; 52% Audience Score
Matthew McConaughey plays a man who still lives at home with his parents and is happy about it – he doesn’t play a loser (because McConaughey could never accurately portray one) but he’s just happy to live and home and have his mom do all his laundry. Sarah Jessica Parker is hired by his mother to make him fall in love with her so that he’s inspired to move out. Pretty conniving on the parents’ part and an extremely bizarre profession for SJP to have but it makes for an entertaining movie. It’s actually emotional when they both do fall in love with each other and then he finds out and they break up before getting back together. I enjoy this movie and ship SJP and McConaughey hard – she’s a good match for him.
Elite RomComs
4. The Bounty Hunter (2010)
12% Tomatometer; 51% Audience Score
This was during Gerard Butler’s RomCom streak, having also starred in 2007’s P.S. I Love You, which makes me cry every time, and 2009’s The Ugly Truth, which is one of my favorite RomComs starring the probable modern Queen of RomCom’s Katherine Heigl (because we all know Meg Ryan is our true Queen). I kind of love this movie. Jen gets to flex more of her comedy prowess while Gerard gets to stunt his sexy I Don’t Give A Shit About You But Actually Secretly Love You vibe that he’s so perfect at. They’re really good at arguing with each other and it’s a great combination of different movie genres: RomCom, Comedy, and Action; this is probably why it made over $136 million at the box office on a $43 million budget.
3. Just Go With It (2012)
19% Tomatometer; 59% Audience Score
There’s nothing Adam Sandler loves more than shooting a movie on location somewhere he wants to vacation and hang out with his friends. The movie involves JenAn as a single mother working as the office manager at Adam Sandler’s Plastic Surgery practice. After spinning a web of lies to the woman he is dating, Brooklyn Decker, JenAn ends up pretending to be Sandler’s wife and that her kids are their kids together. They all take a trip to Hawaii where JenAn’s frenemy Nicole Kidman and her husband Dave Matthews are there and cause even more problems to this fragile house of lies. The movie is extremely entertaining as they all try to navigate through the lies and JenAn and Adam realize they’re actually in love with each other (duh!). Super funny and entertaining with a truly elite cast. This movie is firmly in the top 3 on this list.
2. The Wedding Planner (2001)
16% Tomatometer; 59% Audience Score
JLo in her prime and the RomCom that truly started it all for McConaughey. In this truly amazing RomCom, JLo and McConaughey have a classic meet cute where he pulls her out of the way right before she was going to get hit by a car and takes her to the hospital after she faints; they then go on a date and dance together, almost kissing before it starts raining. JLo is a wedding planner; when she goes to meet her newest client she realizes that the husband-to-be is McConaughey. She yells at him for leading her on; yet continues to plan his wedding. They fall in love in the process and just as both are about to marry other people, realize they can’t go through with it and marry each other. From the cheesy meet-cute to the I Didn’t Realize I Loved You Until I Was At the Altar with Someone Else plot lines for BOTH characters, Jlo’s neurotic wedding planner is somehow likable even when she’s annoying and McConaughey’s charm is irresistible. I love this movie.
1. How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003)
42% Tomatometer; 77% Audience Score
Finally, we are here. One of my favorite RomComs of all time. Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey are PERFECTION in this movie. Kate Hudson plays a journalist who is charged with writing a column about how to lose a guy in 10 days; she targets McConaughey who made a bet with his friends that he can get any girl he wants to fall in love with him in 10 days. Essentially, they both set out to do opposite tasks: Hudson gets to act as miserably annoying as possible while McConaughey has to go along with it so that she falls in love with him. Both of them of course end up finding out about the other’s scheme and are genuinely hurt because of course they fell in love with each other during this process. This movie is SO GOOD. From Kate Hudson naming his dick, to forcing him to get her 100 different things from the concessions at a Knicks game, to essentially moving into his apartment uninvited and girl-ifying it with pink fluffy everything. It’s just a masterclass in comedic, charming acting on both of their parts. Their attempts to one-up each other and tête-à-tête back and forth is endlessly entertaining. This movie is beyond elite and I honestly should’ve given it its own category. I might go home and rewatch this movie again even though I saw it 2 weeks ago – it’s just that rewatchable.
While JenAn may have won Instagram, it’s clear that McConaughey has the RomCom’s cornered. JenAn doesn’t have a single movie on this list that is even close to How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days and I think I’d rather watch Fool’s Gold (categorized as a Bad movie) over most of her movies on this list. I think a lot of the plots of her RomComs are a lot more convoluted and try to be something more than they are whereas all of McConaughey’s RomComs know exactly what they are: entertaining, sexy, fluff movies. He doesn’t have to try to be anyone but himself and he’s just so good at it, which make the movies inherently more rewatchable – a key component of a RomCom. It should be a movie you can just jump in at any point and enjoy or play in the background. I think JenAn is much better in her purely comedic performances (We’re the Millers and Horrible Bosses are two of my favorite comedies) but the RomComs listed above are all just pretty average. Matthew McConaughey, never stop being sexy and charming and please make another movie with Kate Hudson. It probably won’t win you an Oscar like Dallas Buyers Club but it would definitely be entertaining.
