16 'Go Overseas, Find Love!' Movies

AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (1951)
It?s wonderful, truly. Leslie Caron and Gene Kelly, singing and dancing the night away in Paris in 1951's Best Picture. — Karen Valby

UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN (2003)
In this adaptation of Frances Mayes? best-selling memoir, Diane Lane stars as a divorced writer who heals her broken spirit by buying a dilapidated villa in Tuscany and having a fling with a local hottie (Raoul Bova). The affair doesn?t last, but she gets her happy ending anyway because the healing properties of living in sun-drenched Tuscany while wearing cute dresses are scientifically indisputable. —Missy Schwartz

OUT OF AFRICA (1985)
Dig out your old Outbreak Red wardrobe, have yourself a good cry, and wonder why your significant other never offers to wash your hair while reciting poetry.— KV

THE ENGLISH PATIENT (1996)
The ancient sands of the Sahara set the scene for a torrid affair between upper-crusty British Katharine (Kristin Scott Thomas) and taciturn Count Laszlo de Almásy (Ralph Fiennes). Then, in WWII-torn Florence, a French nurse (Juliette Binoche) enjoys an amorous interlude with a Sikh soldier in the British army (Naveen Andrews). This nine-time Oscar winner drips with passion and romance, even if the lovers? unions prove ephemeral. —MS

FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL (1994)
The movie that made Hugh Grant a star and kicked off his string of adorably bumbling British romantic heroes. He played Charles, a —yes, of course — adorably bumbling Brit who becomes smitten with an American (Andie MacDowell) after a one-night stand with her. She marries someone else, but eventually follows her heart back to Charles. A pre-English Patient Kristin Scott Thomas also pops up as a friend of Charles who is secretly in love with him. — MS

LOST IN TRANSLATION (2003)
Bucket List: Bill Murray buying me a drink at a Tokyo hotel bar. Will settle for Cincinnati sports bar.— KV

BEFORE SUNRISE (1995)
Richard Linklater (Dazed and Confused) co-wrote and directed this indie gem about an American guy (Ethan Hawke) and a French woman (Julie Delpy) who meet on a train to Vienna. They spend the night roaming around the city, turning intelligent conversation into the sexiest foreplay on earth. Nine years later came a sequel, Before Sunset, which reunited Hawke?s and Delpy?s would-be soul mates in Paris. —MS

SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELING PANTS (2005)
A heavily sunscreened Alexis Bledel puts on a pair of magical jeans in gorgeous Greece, and lands herself a gorgeous Greek. Jeans rudely abandoned. —KV

CAIRO TIME (2010)
Now in limited release, this quiet indie gives perennial supporting actress Patricia Clarkson her first major lead role. She plays Juliette, an American magazine editor in Cairo to meet up with her U.N. bureaucrat husband. While he?s delayed in Gaza, she develops tender feelings for Tareq (Alexander Siddig), a local man who once worked for her husband. Who wouldn?t get weak in the knees for a handsome stranger who shows you the pyramids? —MS

LEAP YEAR (2010)
An imperfect movie about an American woman who wants to get a ring on it and the delish Irishman she meets while looking for her would-be fiancé. An inordinate fondness for fisherman sweaters may be key to the enjoyment, here but that?s easily overcome. —KV

THE HOLIDAY (2006)
When Cameron Diaz's character needs a break from her troublesome Californian life, she finds Jude Law waiting for her on the doorstep of a cozy English-side guest cottage. Don't compare your getaways to hers. Don't compare your house to any of those in a Nancy Meyers film. —KV

CASABLANCA (1942)
?We?ll always have Paris.''—MS

NOTTING HILL (1999)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, she's just a girl standing in front of a guy. Forgive one of the dopier lines in film history and enjoy the enviable dinner parties of Hugh Grant's quivery bookseller character and his delightful British friends. —KV

HOW STELLA GOT HER GROOVE BACK (1998)
Any all-inclusive resort vacation ought to include unlimited umbrella drinks and an open-armed Taye Diggs on the dance floor.— KV

A LITTLE ROMANCE (1979)
A baby-faced Diane Lane (who must have a thing for swooning overseas) made her big-screen debut here as Lauren, a rich, precocious 13-year-old American living in Paris. To her parents? dismay, she falls for a poor little French boy (Thelonious Bernard), and with the help of an older dandy (Laurence Olivier), they run off to Venice to kiss under the Bridge of Sighs. A sweet little movie directed by George Roy Hill (The Sting, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid). —MS

ROMANCING THE STONE (1985)
Director Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future I, II, and III) scored his first major hit with this vintage ?80s adventure starring Kathleen Turner as an American novelist who travels to Colombia to retrieve her kidnapped sister. In the wilds of the jungle, she meets a brash mercenary, played by Michael Douglas. Neither a murderous colonel (Manuel Ojeda) nor a ravenous crocodile can quash the heat bubbling up between the two Yanks.— MS