Gizmodo Movie Night: 15 Date Night Movies And TV Series That Actually Aren’t Terrible

It’s almost the weekend, and that means you should book in another Gizmodo movie night. This week, go and buy a bunch of roses, invest in a nice bottle of wine and fancy cheese, and cuddle up with your significant other — these are the best date night movies that both you and your partner can enjoy the whole way through.

We’ve re-jigged our existing Netflix Movie Night series, and brought in Australia’s other popular subscription video on demand services — Stan and Presto — to give you a broader selection of movies and TV shows to enjoy. On all three services, you can watch from your tablet or smartphone, on your PC or laptop, through your Smart TV, or through a media streaming dongle like the Google Chromecast, although specifics can vary.

Stan costs a flat $10 per month, Netflix can cost from $9 to $15 per month, and Presto is $10 to $15 depending which package you choose.

Not what you’re after? Check out some other Gizmodo Movie Night suggestions:

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Stan

Crazy Stupid Love

Crazy Stupid Love is a great movie, whether you’re watching it with your loved one or not. It’s just so sweet, and Steve Carell and Ryan Gosling play exactly the characters that you’d expect them to play. A family guy, down on his luck after he realises his wife has cheated on him, enters the dating game and is entirely out of his depth. It’s not a perfect film, obviously, but it’s enjoyable and irreverent and as romantic movies go, it’s probably just about the best one that you’re likely to find. Watch it now on Stan.

Stan: Straight-laced Cal Weaver is living the dream—good job, nice house, great kids and marriage to his high school sweetheart. But when Cal learns that his wife, Emily, has cheated on him and wants a divorce, his “perfect” life quickly unravels.

The Notebook

The Notebook is another Ryan Gosling flick, but this one is based on a Nicholas Sparks novel — ugh, yes, I know, but give it a chance. The Notebook is just about the most romantic movie in a genre filled with romantic movies, and it’s almost worth watching just so you can understand all the pop culture references to it in the world around you. Plus, chances are, you’ll score some serious brownie points with your significant other if you watch it with them. It’s all about playing your cards right. Watch it now on Stan.

Stan: A poor and passionate young man falls in love with a rich young woman and gives her a sense of freedom. They soon are separated by their social differences.

UnREAL

UnREAL is for anyone who’s accidentally flicked over to The Bachelor on Channel Ten and lingered for more than a couple of seconds because hey, it’s actually pretty compelling television. UnREAL turns that whole find-true-love-by-dating-a-whole-bunch-of-girls-on-a-TV-show thing on its head, and exposes the ridiculousness that exists behind the curtain. The soap opera element of it is reliably entertaining, but it’s the mockumentary backing that makes it genuinely enjoyable. Watch it now on Stan.

Stan: New episodes fast-tracked each Tuesday. This dramedy follows producer Rachel and the crew of a not-so-realistic dating reality show, where convictions are ignored and moral lines blurred.

Gavin and Stacey

Gavin and Stacey is a great comedy with a romantic element. Set (mostly) in Wales, it follows the title characters — Gavin in London and Stacey in Wales — who have been romantically involved both online and over the phone for half a year, but after finally seeing each other in person actually want to be together all the time. Only problem is, their friends and family are tremendously effective at getting in the way. Watch the first couple of episodes, and you’ll almost certainly enjoy it all the way through. Watch it now on Stan.

Stan: Matthew Horne and Joanna Page star in the award-winning comedy about a young couple who refuse to let the miles between them stand in the way of true love.

Wedding Crashers

Wedding Crashers is an Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn movie, but don’t write it off straight away just because of that. It’s also an Isla Fisher and Rachel McAdams and Christopher Walken movie, and it makes us all feel a lot better about the slightly uncomfortable process that is going to friends’ weddings. It’s fun, stupid, and absurd, but you’ll like it. Plus, there’s a big overarching guy-gets-the-girl romantic subplot that means your significant other can get just as much out of the movie as you do. Watch it now on Stan.

Stan: Two divorce mediators (Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn) spend a wild weekend partying with a politician (Christopher Walken) and his eccentric family. Life’s a party. Crash it.


Netflix

10 Things I Hate About You

10 Things I Hate About You is a great teenage high school romantic comedy from the golden age of teenage high school romantic comedies; it’s Heath Ledger at his second best (we already knew his best work was in The Dark Knight) and Julia Stiles at her second best (come on, The Bourne Identity) and Joseph Gordon-Levitt at his third best (seriously — Inception and Looper, right?) — but it’s so late ’90s and so Shakespearean that you can’t just help but love it. Watch it now on Netflix.

Netflix: After learning Bianca can’t date until her man-hating older sister Kat finds a beau, Bianca’s would-be boyfriend pays a moody school rebel to woo her.

Gossip Girl

Gossip Girl is in this list because it’s a guilty pleasure of mine, I’ll fully admit it. My girlfriend likes it, and when it’s on, I will watch it. I don’t really know what’s going on or who all these very adult school children are or what a Chuck Bass is, but all I know is that there’s a lot of intrigue happening. A bunch of Manhattan high society teens get drunk and high a lot, and sabotage each others’ social lives on a daily basis. XOXO, Gossip Girl, I’ll never tell, et cetera. Watch it now on Netflix.

Netflix: The privileged prep school teens on Manhattan’s Upper East Side learn that Serena van der Woodsen is back.

Safety Not Guaranteed

Safety Not Guaranteed is a vaguely romantic film, but it’s more of a comedic look at the fascinating world of someone who believes they can travel through time. Aubrey Plaza is excellent as disillusioned newspaper intern Darius Britt who tracks down the subject of a newspaper wanted ad for an assistant on a time-travelling mission, and Mark Duplass’ role as the paranoid, allegedly time travelling Kenneth Calloway is an extremely interesting one — is he crazy or not, and is he being followed? Watch it now on Netflix.

Netflix: A team of journalists are sent to find out who’s behind a classified ad seeking a companion for time travel, then must decide how to approach him.

Orange Is The New Black

Orange Is The New Black is the story of Piper Chapman, a woman in her thirties who is sentenced to fifteen months in prison after being convicted of a decade-old crime of transporting money to her drug-dealing girlfriend. This is prison drama Oz, but with a distinctly different (and more interesting) cast. It’s part relationship drama, part prison thriller, but every bit of it is enjoyable and relatable and very easy to slump down on the couch with your partner and switch on for an hour or two. Watch it now on Netflix.

Netflix: Sentenced to fifteen months for a crime committed in her youth, Piper Chapman leaves her supportive fiance Larry for her new home: a women’s prison.

Easy A

Easy A is another high school flick, this time starring grin machine Emma Stone. In it, Stone’s Olive decides to use the school’s rumour mill, and the power of sex, to advance her social standing. It’s a chick flick through and through, but it’s actually really fun and easy to relate to nonetheless. We were all stupid high school kids once, right? Although this particular high school is chock full of attractive kids and mine wasn’t anything like that. Hell, I went to an all-guys school. Watch it now on Netflix.

Netflix: Olive decides to boost her popularity by pretending to be the school slut. She enjoys her newfound status but then must decide if it’s all worth it.


Presto

Her

Her is a thinking couple’s film about the complexities of interpersonal relationships and the vagaries of the human mind and what actually constitutes love. Do you think you could fall in love with an operating system? (No, not even Windows 10 is that magical.) The world’s first artifically intelligent operating system, OS1, is more of a consciousness, and Joaquin Phoenix’s Theodore falls head over heels for it. Watch this, sit for a second, think, and re-evaluate every relationship you’ve ever had. Watch it now on Presto.

Presto: During the final stages of divorce a lonely writer discovers the perfect partner is his computer’s artificially intelligent operating system. Heartbroken after the end of a relationship, a writer becomes intrigued and falls for a new, advanced operating system – a bright, female voice, who is insightful and surprisingly funny.

Modern Family

Modern Family is not the most politically incisive high-brow television — it’s not exactly House Of Cards — but it is eminently watchable. When that means is that when everything else on this list looks like shit, you can be sure that you’re able to switch on an episode of Modern Family, kick back with a bowl of chips, and enjoy the next couple of hours without really following what is going on. Sometimes that’s just what you need in a date movie. Watch it now on Presto.

Presto: Life, it seems, is neither tidy, politically correct or in any way predictable. For these three families, it turns out, are not three but one… one big, blended modern family.

Up In The Air

Up In The Air is one for the air travel lovers. While your significant other is sitting forward and examining the complex relationship that exists between George Clooney’s Ryan Bingham and Vera Farmiga’s Alex Goran, you can be sitting back and thinking “huh, domestic first class travel in the US is weird. Is that an Airbus A321 or is it an Embraer E190? American Airlines sure seems nice. How many frequent flyer miles do I have? Reckon I could fly down to Hobart for a holiday? Huh.” Watch it now on Presto.

Presto: A corporate downsizing expert’s cherished life on the road is threatened just as he meets the woman of his dreams.

Mad Men

Mad Men is the perfect date night TV show. It’s chock full of gorgeous people like Jon Hamm’s Don Draper and Christina Hendricks’ Joan Harris, it’s about the brilliant minds behind goddamn advertising, and it’s incredibly beautifully shot. You sit down in front of this show with a glass of scotch, then another glass of scotch, and then the entire bottle of scotch and you spend the rest of the night thinking about how great it would have been if you had lived in the swingin’ ’60s. Watch it now on Presto.

Presto: The world of advertising is rapidly changing. Don Draper – New York’s biggest Ad Man – soon discovers the struggles of keeping up in the boardroom and the bedroom.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

Forgetting Sarah Marshall is a romantic comedy at its purest and most simple. Guy meets girl, girl breaks up with guy, guy goes on holiday to get away from heartbreak, guy notices girl is actually at the same hotel as him with her new beautiful boyfriend. It has all the rom-com staple actors — Jason Segel, Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell, even Russell Brand — and it’s actually just pretty fun to laugh at, especially if you have someone next to you laughing along as well. Watch it now on Presto.

Presto: A struggling musician escapes to Hawaii on a vacation after he is jilted by his television star girlfriend Sarah for another guy, only to find his ex staying in the same hotel with her new man.

Disclosure: Stan is a 50/50 joint venture between Nine Entertainment and Fairfax Media. Allure Media, the company which publishes Gizmodo Australia, is also owned by Fairfax.


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