5 Romance Movies to Watch If You Loved The Love Hypothesis

Amazon’s romantic comedy The Love Hypothesis has quickly become a popular watch on Prime Video, but what exactly is the film about? Adapted from Ali Hazelwood’s bestselling novel — itself originally inspired by fan fiction featuring Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren and Daisy Ridley’s Rey from Star Wars — Claire Scanlon’s movie follows Olive Smith (Lili Reinhart), a Stanford graduate student determined to develop a biomarker-based treatment for pancreatic cancer. Her academic life becomes even more complicated when she enters a fake relationship with Adam Carlson (Tom Bateman), a famously intimidating biology professor who is disliked by much of the graduate student community. Olive agrees to the arrangement to persuade her best friend Anh (Rachel Marsh) that she has no interest in Anh’s crush, Jeremy (Nicholas Duvernay). Adam, meanwhile, sees the pretend romance as a way to reassure Stanford that he is committed to staying after receiving significant grant funding. As expected in a romantic comedy, the arrangement eventually turns into genuine love.

The Love Hypothesis is a warm, witty and easygoing romance, powered by the chemistry between Reinhart and Bateman and supported by memorable performances from Marsh and Jaboukie Young-White, who plays Olive’s friend and fellow Stanford student Malcolm. If the movie left you wanting another fake-dating romance, there are plenty of charming options to try next. The following recommendations focus on pretend relationships and arranged romances, including another standout film directed by Scanlon. Here are five romantic comedies to watch after The Love Hypothesis.

Claire Scanlon’s 2018 Netflix romantic comedy Set It Up, written by Katie Silberman of Booksmart fame, follows two overworked assistants who decide their bosses need a romantic intervention. Harper Moore (Zoey Deutch) works for sports editor Kirsten Stevens (Lucy Liu), while Charlie Young (Glen Powell) assists venture capitalist Rick Otis (Taye Diggs). After an argument over takeout in the building where their offices are located, Harper and Charlie realize that setting up their demanding employers might be the perfect way to make their own exhausting jobs more manageable.

Their plan works: Kirsten and Rick begin dating, giving Harper and Charlie a little breathing room. But as the assistants spend more time together, their own attraction becomes impossible to ignore. Deutch and Powell are terrific together, having previously appeared in Richard Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some!!!, and Powell once again proves how naturally he fits the romantic-comedy format. The film also gives both characters believable ambitions, particularly Harper’s dream of becoming a sports writer, which leads to one of the story’s most rewarding payoffs. With hilarious supporting appearances from Pete Davidson, Meredith Hagner and Tituss Burgess, Set It Up is another smart, sweet and highly watchable entry from Scanlon.

Directed by Susan Johnson and written by Sofia Alvarez, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before adapts Jenny Han’s bestselling novel into a high-school romance filled with secrets, misunderstandings and unexpected feelings. Lara Jean Song-Covey (Lana Condor) has always processed her crushes by writing private letters she never plans to send — including one addressed to Josh (Israel Broussard), her older sister Margo’s (Janel Parrish) former boyfriend. Everything changes when Lara Jean’s younger sister Kitty (Anna Cathcart) discovers the letters and secretly mails them to their intended recipients. The situation becomes especially mortifying when Peter Kavinsky (Noah Centineo, in his breakout role) confronts Lara Jean at school. Her immediate response is to faint.

Josh receives a letter too, creating a threat to Lara Jean’s relationship with her sister and motivating Peter to suggest a fake-dating arrangement. Peter hopes the public romance will make his ex-girlfriend Gen (Emilija Baranac), who was once Lara Jean’s best friend, jealous. Naturally, the line between pretending and truly falling in love soon disappears. The film depends on Condor and Centineo’s chemistry, and fortunately, the pair are utterly convincing together. Even viewers long past their teenage years may find themselves swept up in Lara Jean and Peter’s transformation from fake couple to real romance. The story also continues across two sequels, making this the first chapter of a complete trilogy.

Few eras delivered more big-screen romantic comedies than the early 2000s, and How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days remains one of the period’s most entertaining examples. Directed by Donald Petrie and written by Kristen Buckley, Brian Regan and Burr Steers, the movie is loosely adapted from a picture book by Michele Alexander and Jeannie Long. Kate Hudson plays Andie Anderson, a women’s magazine writer eager to move beyond lightweight dating advice, while Matthew McConaughey stars as advertising executive Benjamin Barry, who is determined to land a major account with the diamond company DeLauer, a fictional business that clearly recalls De Beers.

The pair become involved in one of the genre’s most elaborate fake-dating schemes after making separate bets. Andie’s boss, Lana (Bebe Neuwirth), challenges her to make a man end their relationship within 10 days by leaning into every stereotype associated with a supposedly “difficult” girlfriend. At the same time, Benjamin wagers with rival colleagues the Judys (Shalom Harlow and Michael Michele) that he can make any woman fall in love with him in the same amount of time. The Judys know about Andie’s assignment — and quickly identify her as the perfect target.

The premise of How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days is completely ridiculous, but its outrageousness is exactly what makes the film so much fun. Hudson and McConaughey have effortless comic chemistry, and the story finds surprising sweetness beneath all the manipulation and chaos. It also gives “You’re So Vain” a permanent place in the romantic-comedy soundtrack hall of fame.

Loosely inspired by William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, 10 Things I Hate About You transports that combative love story to an American high school. Written by Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith, the screenwriters behind Legally Blonde, and directed by Gil Junger, the film centers on Kat Stratford (Julia Stiles), whose sharp personality and fierce independence have made her unpopular with nearly everyone around her. Her younger sister Bianca (Larisa Oleynik), meanwhile, is eager to begin dating. Their father, Walter (Larry Miller), establishes one condition: Bianca cannot date until Kat does.

That rule inspires popular student Joey Donner (Andrew Keegan) to pay Patrick Verona (Heath Ledger), a mysterious and impossibly charming Australian newcomer, to take Kat out. As the plan unfolds, Bianca begins falling for Cameron James (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), the sweet, awkward student helping her with French. Packed with sharp dialogue, memorable supporting performances — including Allison Janney’s wonderfully outrageous guidance counselor — and a romance that develops with surprising emotional weight, 10 Things I Hate About You remains a classic of both teen movies and fake-dating stories. It is an ideal follow-up for anyone who enjoyed The Love Hypothesis.

Will Gluck has built a reputation for making irresistibly entertaining romantic comedies with unusual premises, including Friends with Benefits, Easy A and the 2026 film One Night Only. With 2023’s surprise box-office hit Anyone But You, however, he returned to a more familiar kind of love story. Loosely based on Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, the movie begins when Bea (Sydney Sweeney) and Ben (Glen Powell) spend a night together, only for Ben to embarrassingly criticize Bea to his roommate Pete (GaTa) after she leaves. Their paths cross again when Pete’s sister Claudia (Alexandra Shipp) and Bea’s sister Halle (Hadley Robinson) become engaged. When the couple plans a destination wedding in Sydney, Australia, Bea and Ben are forced to serve as maid of honor and best man, keeping them in close quarters and repeatedly pushing them into awkwardly intimate situations.

The fake-dating plot arrives when the wedding guests begin trying to reunite Bea and Ben. To stop the matchmaking, they decide to pretend they are already together. Although Anyone But You includes a few unusually strange detours — including a bizarre subplot involving a dog named Klonopin — it delivers the playful friction, escalating attraction and romantic payoff fans of The Love Hypothesis are likely seeking. Sweeney and Powell bring plenty of spark to the unlikely pairing as their staged relationship gradually becomes sincere.

The Love Hypothesis is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video.