Netflix’s Purple Hearts ranks among the streamer’s most successful original romances, adapting Tess Wakefield’s novel of the same name. The movie follows Cassie (Sofia Carson), a struggling musician recently diagnosed with type 1 diabetes who can’t keep up with the cost of her insulin, and Luke (Nicholas Galitzine), a Marine working to pay off a dangerous debt to his old drug dealer. Desperate, the two strike a marriage of convenience to unlock Luke’s military spousal benefits, a scheme that gets far more complicated once Luke deploys overseas and the arrangement starts to feel like a real relationship.
The film was seen as controversial for its handling of military marriage, but it still found a wide audience, and its hopeful ending makes it easy to want more stories in the same vein. If Purple Hearts is the kind of romance that keeps pulling you back, here are ten movies worth watching next.
10
‘Just Go With It’ (2011)
A Lie That Turns Into Real Love
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Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler work in a doctor’s office in Just Go with It Sony Pictures Releasing -
Adam Sandler with his love interest in Just Go with It Sony Pictures Releasing -
Adam Sandler tries to woo Brooklyn Decker in Just Go with It Sony Pictures Releasing
Just Go With It is a rom-com that includes another collaboration between Adam Sandler and TV icon Jennifer Aniston. It follows Danny (Sandler), a plastic surgeon and serial womanizer who isn’t interested in committed relationships. He pretends to be in an unhappy marriage so he can go on casual, no-strings-attached dates, a plan that works fine until he actually falls for a woman he lied to. To keep the ruse going, he convinces his office manager and friend Katherine (Aniston) to pose as his soon-to-be ex-wife, and from there, nothing goes as planned.
Reviews for Just Go With It were mixed, but audiences still turned out, drawn to Sandler and Aniston’s easy rapport and the film’s willingness to lean fully into its own absurdity. Like Purple Hearts, the story depends on a lie two people tell to solve a practical problem, only for real feelings to sneak in once they spend enough time keeping up the act. Sandler and Aniston sell the transition from fake to real so convincingly that the movie’s more far-fetched plot points barely raise an eyebrow.
9
‘Candy Jar’ (2018)
Rivals Who Outgrow the Rivalry
Unlike Purple Hearts, 2018’s teen romance Candy Jar is criminally underrated. It follows Lona Skinner (Sami Gayle) and Bennett Russell (Jacob Latimore), rival debate champions at the same high school, each chasing a spot at their dream Ivy League school, Lona at Harvard and Bennett at Yale. Forced into a co-presidency neither of them wanted, they slowly turn their rivalry into something else.
Candy Jar earned praise for its sharp, fast-talking banter and not shying away from the messiest aspects of unexpected romance. It’s a smaller-scale version of the same enemies-to-lovers energy that makes Purple Hearts work: watching two people who start out using each other for practical reasons end up building something neither one planned is a cherished trope for a reason. Candy Jar offers a deceptive depth to its story, best left unspoiled, but those looking for the best school rom-coms will appreciate this one.
8
‘The Proposal’ (2009)
Blackmail That Turns Into Romance
The Proposal is a rom-com led by Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds. The film follows Margaret Tate (Bullock), a book editor about to be deported to Canada when her visa expires. To save her job, she basically blackmails her assistant, Andrew Paxton (Reynolds), into a fake engagement, dragging him to Alaska to convince his family and an immigration officer that the relationship is real.
The Proposal became one of the biggest rom-com hits of its decade, with critics and audiences alike singling out Bullock and Reynolds’ chemistry. It shares Purple Hearts‘ central setup almost beat for beat: a fake relationship entered into for immigration and career reasons that slowly stops being fake.
7
‘Dear John’ (2010)
Letters That Put Love to the Test
Dear John shares Purple Hearts‘ military backdrop. Here, Soldier John Tyree (Channing Tatum) is home on leave when he meets Savannah Curtis (Amanda Seyfried), a college student on summer break who dreams of opening a farm that supports the autistic community. She and John fall for each other quickly, but his deployment soon turns their relationship into a long-distance one.
One of the more successful Nicholas Sparks adaptations, Dear John thrives on Tatum and Seyfried’s chemistry and a plot that explores the challenges of relationships and deployment. John and Savannah keep their relationship alive through letters, much like Cassie and Luke lean on each other across the distance in Purple Hearts, and both films use that separation to show how love struggles under the circumstances. Tatum and Seyfried authentically portray the pain of long-distance love, keeping the film from sliding into pure melodrama.
6
‘Green Card’ (1990)
A Convenient Marriage Neither Expected
Green Card is a romantic comedy that follows a Frenchman named Georges Fauré (Gérard Depardieu) and an American horticulturist named Brontë Parrish (Andie MacDowell), who marry purely for practical reasons. Fauré needs the marriage to remain in the country, and Parrish needs to prove she’s married to rent an apartment with the greenhouse she has her heart set on. When immigration officials grow suspicious, the two are forced to live together.
Green Card was a genuine awards success: it won the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy, and Depardieu took home Best Actor in the same category. Like Purple Hearts, the film uses a marriage of convenience to force two mismatched people into close quarters, and both movies charm in their portrayal of a practical arrangement turning into something neither character bargained for. Depardieu and MacDowell have perfect odd-couple chemistry.
5
‘Holidate’ (2020)
A Fake Fling Turns Into Forever
Holidate follows Sloane (Emma Roberts) and Jackson (Luke Bracey), two people burned out on dating and even more burned out on their families’ constant matchmaking. After meeting at a mall on Black Friday, they strike a deal: they’ll be each other’s platonic plus-one for every holiday on the calendar, no romantic strings attached.
The film became one of Netflix’s most-watched originals in its opening weeks, with reviewers pointing to Roberts’ comic timing and a supporting cast, including Kristin Chenoweth, as reasons the humorous beats land so well. The setup leans on a familiar rom-com cliché, but as in Purple Hearts, an arrangement built around convenience — in this case, avoiding an awkward holiday season alone — ends up exposing feelings neither Sloane nor Jackson expected to develop. Roberts and Bracey commit fully to the go-for-broke comedy, making it a rom-com you can visit on any holiday.
4
‘An Officer and a Gentleman’ (1982)
A Classic Still Worth Revisiting
An Officer and a Gentleman is another film worth watching if you loved Purple Hearts. Released in 1982 and directed by Taylor Hackford, based on Douglas Day Stewart’s screenplay, it still holds up today. Richard Gere stars as Zack Mayo, a troubled young man shaped by a difficult relationship with his father, who enrolls in the Navy’s Officer Candidate School hoping to become a pilot.
The romance kicks in when Mayo meets Paula Pokrifki (Debra Winger), a local factory worker looking for a way out of her hometown. The film was a critical and commercial success, earning Louis Gossett Jr. the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and giving the world “Up Where We Belong,” which won Best Original Song. Like Purple Hearts, the story follows characters who lean on a relationship, at least at first, to escape circumstances they can’t control.
3
‘Leap Year’ (2010)
A Proposal Plan That Goes Sideways
Anand Tucker’s Leap Year follows Anna Brady (Amy Adams) as she plans to travel to Dublin to propose to her boyfriend, Jeremy (Adam Scott), on Leap Day, relying on the Irish tradition that a man is expected to accept any proposal made on February 29th. Her trip goes wrong almost immediately, and she ends up relying on Declan (Matthew Goode), a blunt Irish innkeeper, to get her across the country.
Critics were split on the film, but Adams’ performance and the Irish countryside won over enough audiences to establish it as a comfort-watch staple over time. Like Purple Hearts, the story centers on a plan built around one relationship that ultimately reveals a completely different one. Adams and Goode’s bickering has real warmth underneath it, and the Irish scenery does a lot of quiet work selling the romance.
2
‘The Hating Game’ (2021)
Enemies Who Can’t Stay Apart
The Hating Game is a great pick if you love the enemies-to-lovers trope. Lucy Hale and Austin Stowell play Lucy and Joshua, coworkers who despise each other after their companies merge and force them to share an office. Things only get worse when they both go after the same promotion.
The film embraces its central conflict without losing sight of the emotional tensions: Joshua has a strained relationship with his father, who has always favored his brother, and it’s Lucy standing up for him at a family wedding that starts to change things between them. Like Purple Hearts, the film pairs its romance with family tension, using that conflict as a catalyst for the two to lower their guards. Hale and Stowell make the shift from rivalry to romance with some enjoyably humorous, sharp banter.
1
‘Single All the Way’ (2021)
A Fake Date Becomes the Real Thing
Single All the Way is an LGBTQ+ holiday romantic comedy about Peter (Michael Urie), a social media strategist whose family won’t stop asking why he’s still single. To get them off his back, he convinces his best friend and roommate, Nick (Philemon Chambers), to fly home with him for Christmas and pretend to be his boyfriend.
The film was Netflix’s first holiday movie to center on a same-sex couple, and reviewers commended its warmth and scene-stealing supporting cast, including Jennifer Coolidge and Kathy Najimy. As in Purple Hearts, the pretend relationship only works because the two leads already know and trust each other, which makes the moment it stops being pretend feel earned. Urie and Chambers build real chemistry on a premise that could have coasted on its holiday rom-com formula.
