Top Movies: 14 Days of Romance Day 8, Action Adventure Movies

Between all the explosions, car chases and fights in action adventure movies, we can often find some romance. Afterall, what’s the point of saving the world if you don’t get the girl?

For Day 8 in our Valentine’s Day 14 Days of Romance event, our Disc Dish team had a great time considering all the romantic parts of action films, and before we narrowed it down to our final top three, we had a few that we were sad to discard. Such as The Terminator. Romance in a futuristic movie about a robot coming back in time to kill the boy who will save humanity in the future? Oh yeah. Michael Biehn’s Kyle Reese comes to the past to save Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor after seeing her picture. That’s pretty romantic.

And what about Die Hard? If it wasn’t for the fact that Bruce Willis’ John McClane had come back to Los Angeles to try to patch things up with his wife, he’d never be able to save all those people in the Nakatomi Plaza building from terrorists. The things we do for our relationships.

But ultimately, we at Disc Dish decided these three titles below are the Most Romantic Action Adventure Movies. What do you think?

True Lies movie details3. True Lies

Everything in True Lies is presented on a large scale, from a breakneck motorcycle/horse pursuit across the streets and skyscrapers of Chicago to a mile-high Stealth bomber battle to its leading man’s formidable chest (not to mention its leading lady’s!). But romance ripples across James Cameron’s (Avatar) 1994 action-adventure movie about a secret agent (Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jingle All the Way) trying to save the Free World while keeping his homemaker wife (Jamie Lee Curtis, You Again) in the dark about his career (she thinks he’s a desk-jockeying computer salesman). Their marital bond gets a rejuvenating shot of love as the movie progesses and Jamie’s suspicions about her hubbie’s job begin to grow. And that’s large scale, too! Or don’t you recall how the mushroom cloud from the climactic nuclear explosion in the Florida Keys illuminates the loving kiss exchanged between the espionage-smashing superspy and his newly recruited wife?

Available on DVD from 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment

Raiders of the Lost Ark movie scene2. Raiders of the Lost Ark

You’re not the man I knew 10 years ago,” admits Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen, Scooged) to Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford, Morning Glory) after he has taken out a phalanx of bad guys. “It’s not the years, honey, it’s the mileage,” he groans as she tends to his wounds. The first film in Steven Spielberg and George Lucas’s beloved movie quartet,  state-of-the-art updates of the Saturday morning adventure serials of yesteryear, Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) remains the most exciting, innovative and flat-out enjoyable movie of the bunch. And as for the romance, Marion and Indy’s spirited banter (penned by screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan) perfectly captures the urgent affection of the two former lovers, who must fight off snakes, planes, trucks, Nepalese goons and the other-worldly powers of the ark of the covenant itself to see their newly rekindled feelings for each other through to the end.

Available on DVD from Paramount Home Entertainment

Romancing the Stone movie scene1. Romancing the Stone

In Robert Zemeckis’ (Back to the Future) 1984 action adventure movie, the romance starts in the title, continues with the main character and is infused in all the action. Romance writer Joan Wilder (Kathleen Turner), whose biggest adventure has been trying out a new brand of tissues, gets paired up with soldier of fortune Jack T. Colton (Michael Douglas) in a treasure hunt for an enormous emerald, all to save Wilder’s sister from kidnappers. But the real adventure is the romantic feelings that erupt in both Wilder and lone man Colton. It’s enough for viewers to want to reach for their own tissues.

Available on DVD and Blu-ray from Fox

Check out all the 14 Days of Romance.

About Laurence

Founder and editor Laurence Lerman saw Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest when he was 13 years old and that’s all it took. He has been writing about film and video for more than a quarter of a century for magazines, anthologies, websites and most recently, Video Business magazine, where he served as the Reviews Editor for 15 years.