Valentine's Day Special: From The '80s To 2020, Which Decade Did Romance The Best? Our Vote Goes To The 2000s

Valentine's Day Special: Hindi cinema has gifted audiences unforgettable couples, iconic dialogues and melodies that still dominate playlists. There is no better day to revisit the classic love stories from Hindi cinema than on February 14. Whether you are picking a film for a movie date or looking for a comfort watch on the day of love, we believe that from 1980 to 2020, Bollywood films released between 2000 and 2010 truly understood romance in its truest and most unadulterated form. While the movies that came before and after the years were also remarkable, the 2000s struck the perfect balance between dreamy and relatable, something that makes those movies relevant even today.

1980-1990

In a time when the ‘angry young men’ dominated film screens and female characters were just managing to find some breathing space between being damsels in distress, came the movies from the 1980s 1990. The 1980s gave us intense, dramatic love sagas. Films like Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak redefined tragic romance for a generation, while Chandni brought back poetic, music-driven love stories. Love stories of the time were grand, emotional and often rooted in sacrifice. We listed the best romantic movies released between 1980 and 1990 and where to stream them.

1991-2000 

A clear second place holder for the best romantic movies was the years between 1991 and 2000. This was the era that truly changed the game for Hindi films, not just domestically, but also worldwide. Sacrifice and melodrama made space for passion and rebellion. The 1990s elevated romance into a cultural phenomenon. With the rise of NRI love stories and larger-than-life families, films such as Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge and Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! turned love into a celebration of tradition. The era has given us (read: millennials) the true picture of what we imagine as romance, mustard fields, chiffon sarees, violin music, departing trains and handwritten letters. Be it the seemingly impossible love triangle in Saajan (the OG Summer I Turned Pretty) or the rebelling college students in Mohabbatein, the movies made us root for the characters and remain a big part of the cultural fabric to date. The most notable romance movies from the decade are:

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2001-2010 

While the 1990s were truly the epitome of classic filmy romance, the 2000s gave it a modern makeover. Love stories evolved with urban settings, friendship-turned-romance arcs and emotionally layered storytelling. Along with love, the decade romanticised longing and yearning. The movies would appear to have no traditional happy ending until the actual end. The conflicts shifted from external forces, like parents' refusal and societal pressure, to battling inward demons. Films like Kal Ho Naa Ho, Jab We Met and Veer-Zaara captured vulnerability, heartbreak and hope in ways that resonated deeply with millennials. The music albums became instant classics, the chemistry felt organic, and the dialogues became everyday expressions of love. This era didn’t just show romance; it made us feel it and relive it over and over again. The films did not just limit the imagination to rooting for the characters, but brought alive lived stories that could make one feel that it could be theirs. This is why we voted this era the best for Bollywood romances.

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2011-2020
 

The next decade carried forward what had worked in the previous years and added an unseen freshness. Films like Tamasha and Aashiqui 2 explored complex relationships and emotional growth. Love became less about fairy-tale endings and more about self-discovery. While refreshing, the innocence and sweeping emotion of earlier decades felt less frequent. The movies also began mirroring the technological advances, which brought with them new, unheard-of problems in romances.

While each Bollywood era had something unique and reflected its time, the 2000s delivered the ultimate Valentine’s Day watchlist, heartfelt, dramatic, musical and endlessly rewatchable. Whether it was first love, long-distance longing or bittersweet goodbye, the 2000s made falling in love on screen feel unforgettable.  


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