The 20 Best Wedding Movies—for Better or for Worse

The wedding movie: a micro-subgenre that often gets the romantic comedy treatment, but isn’t immune to being bathed in horror or awash in drama. Sometimes, a film with nothing but a pivotal, momentary iconic scene dedicated to the nuptials shared between two characters can earn the entire film a spot in the tiny category. Indeed, the greatest wedding movies aren’t married to a formula—they are committed to emotion, authenticity, and truth.

Ahead, we’ve curated a list of splendid matrimonial films, some obvious and devoted entirely to all that the big day entails, others perhaps a bit more ambiguous but no less worthy. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll most definitely score some inspiration for that dreaded toast you were supposed to give at your best friend’s wedding. Because, hey, even though the current lockdowns have us all stuck inside, it is wedding season after all. Or at least it can be—on our screens.

Strategically released around the date of Elizabeth Taylor’s real-life wedding to Conrad Hilton Jr., the 1950 version of Father of the Bride, a romantic comedy dedicated to the titular patriarch pegged with the nagging irritations the big day requires, was a massive critical success starring Taylor and Spencer Tracy. And the same can be said of the 1991 Nancy Meyers remake (pictured here) starring Steve Martin and Kimberly Williams-Paisley. Honestly, it’s a toss-up at which one we recommend you watch first.

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Julia Roberts plays Julianne, a feisty, big-haired food critic, in love with her longtime best friend, Michael (Dermot Mulroney), a local-news sportswriter engaged to Kimmy (Cameron Diaz), a filthy-rich daddy’s girl sweeter than the buttercream on the couple’s multi-tier wedding cake. Hell-bent on sabotaging their nuptials, Jules lies, deceives, and gets downright Machiavellian in her schemes, resulting in an amusing and charming rom-com that manages to reinvent the genre’s requisite happy ending.

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We know, Love Actually is actually an essential holiday classic. But it’s also an essential holiday classic that begins with one of the best wedding scenes to ever have been spooled into a reel can. You have Chiwetel Ejiofor’s Peter and Andrew Lincoln’s Mark bantering over prostitutes and a no-surprises promise at the altar as groom and best man, respectively, before turning around to Keira Knightley’s Juliet proceeding down the aisle in a supremely British wedding gown. Of course, there’s a surprise. And, of course, you’re responsible for reminding yourself of what that is with another viewing.

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A film for every season, holiday, or special occasion, the 1989 classic from director Herbert Ross covers every base from saying “I do” to hunting Easter eggs. About the goings-on in a small Louisiana town, its yarn is spun through the gossiping friend group who chinwag at a local beauty parlor. Embodied by a crew of prized powerhouse actresses including Sally Field, Julia Roberts, Dolly Parton, Olympia Dukakis, and Shirley MacLaine as a wickedly glorious curmudgeon, their first order of business is getting Shelby (Roberts) ready for her big day.

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The all-Asian cast, led by Constance Wu and Henry Golding, in Jon M. Chu’s film adapted from Kevin Kwan’s same-name global bestseller was a beautiful thing to see when it premiered. And so was the star-studded, dripping-in-opulence Singaporean wedding come to life. From an aisle made of flowing water to a gorgeous wedding procession rendition of Can't Help Falling in Love by Kina Grannis to the otherwordly wedding dress—it's also worth pointing out that this film, punctuated with a wedding scene, actually ends with a proposal—promising yet another crazy rich wedding in the second part of the three-film series. While we wait for China Rich Girlfriend, this film is still worth watching on repeat.

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Dearly beloved, the cast in this contemporary mumblegore thriller were gathered here today to run for their mother-loving lives. Samara Weaving, the rising star in Ryan Murphy’s Hollywood, stunned last summer in this sleeper hit as Grace, a bride who marries her dream man and then spends her wedding night trying to survive her in-laws. Literally. It’s the result of a savage tradition: The newest member of the family’s gaming dynasty draws a card; the fam then plays the game on the card. Simple as that.

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In the annals of unforgettable film endings, nestled somewhere between Humphrey Bogart’s “beautiful friendship” in Casablanca and the New Year’s Eve love rant in When Harry Met Sally, there’s Dustin Hoffman crashing his ex-girlfriend’s wedding in Mike Nichols’s ’60s-era seduction comedy. A pleasurable albeit awkward watch, The Graduate follows the sexual prowess of Ben (Hoffman), a recent college grad who’s getting schooled between the sheets by his ex-girlfriend’s mother, Mrs. Robinson. How he comes to realize his need for a wedding objection? Well, just hit the below “watch” button to find out.

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Nia Vardalos, the comedienne extraordinaire who borrowed from her real-life love story and Greek heritage to supply the garish antics and culture-clash hilarity for a rom-com that would become a big fat hit in 2002, stars opposite Sex and the City’s John Corbett, a.k.a. the closest a mortal can get to a Greek god without being Greek. Produced by Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson (a Greek American herself), the film is a national treasure—no matter the nation.

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Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo proved with their Oscar-nominated screenplay that the world was not only ready for female-fronted raunch comedies, but it was starved for them. A bridal-themed laugh riot highlighting a squad of funny ladies, stars Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Melissa McCarthy, Rose Byrne, Wendi McLendon-Covey, and Ellie Kemper each as comically unique as their own individual style. Bridesmaids ushered in an entire subgenre of films celebrating girls behaving badly—Bachelorette, Girls Trip, Ibiza—and asked the likeminded not-so gentlemen of films like The Hangover and Very Bad Things to kindly take several seats and enjoy the show.

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Toe-tapping phenom Fred Astaire and perky starlet Jane Powell play a brother-and-sister Broadway duo who trip the light fantastic across the pond to capitalize on Princess Elizabeth and Philip Mountbatten’s royal wedding in London. While there, romance, challenges, and more splendacious encounters ensue (read: Astaire even dances with a monkey). A 1951 Technicolor classic, the film is packed with musical numbers and—without giving too much away—multiple weddings.

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The ever-popular culture salve of nostalgia takes on many forms: a post-“Material Girl” Madonna sporting coned underpinnings, a Clueless Alicia Silverstone rocking multicolored plaid. And then there’s schmaltzy Adam Sandler donning his Sunday best as a cheesy New Jersey entertainer we, too, wanna grow old with. Starring opposite a doll-faced Drew Barrymore in a mindless gem with a soundtrack straight out of the ’80s, it’s one of those formulaic comedies from the ’90s you find yourself wishing would still get made today.

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Like any celebrated duo, what makes this 1999 ensemble classic from Malcolm D. Lee, brother to one Spike, work like a charm is chemistry. Starring frequent on-screen coupling Taye Diggs and Sanaa Lathan, along with Morris Chestnut, Nia Long, Terrence Howard, Regina Hall, and several others, the film hashes out old flames, friendships, and foe-ships before one of the main chums, Chestnut’s Lance Sullivan, gets married. Fifteen years later, the crew reunite for an equally charming, holiday-set sequel.

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Set in New Delhi and featuring an exclusively Indian cast, Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding is a vivid family reunion bursting with joyous pomp and culture, popping off the screen with its palette of primary reds, bold oranges, and rich shades of marigold. Also a comedy of upper-middle-class manners akin to Indian tradition, the fast-paced film whips around a bungled arranged marriage and the clumsily organized four-day wedding everyone has gathered from all over the globe for, all while injecting joyous moments of Bollywood-esque singing and dancing. Put succinctly, it’s simply glorious.

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Awkwafina, who made us cry-laugh in Crazy Rich Asians, forced tears of a different breed when she starred as Billi in Lulu Wang’s pump-fake wedding dramedy, a role which earned her a Best Actress nod at the 2019 Golden Globes. Borrowed from a real-life lie Wang and her family told her grandmother, the Chinese-American film is a feast for the senses, dishing meat pies, dumplings, and deceit, all while Billi and her brood conceal their Nai Nai’s terminal cancer by telling her that they’ve all gathered at her home in China for a wedding, rather than to say their final farewells.

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We may be flexing our editorial license by classifying Céline Sciamma’s emotionally visceral gay romance as a “wedding movie,” but one can’t argue that all of the core components are present here: the would-be bride, the dress, the cold feet. Erotic, passionate, and brushed in a muted color palette, the film follows the soul-stirring love story between two 18th-century women: painter Marianne and her muse, noblewoman Héloïse who’s promised to a man in Milan. Plus, we’ll take any reason to recommend this masterpiece to anyone willing to listen.

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PEN15’s Maya Erskine ditches her seventh-grade bestie for a different kind of plus one; this time, it’s Jack Quaid, son of Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan. The two join comedic forces to play Alice and Ben, longtime friends who are single and staring down the gauntlet of formal, black-tie, and white-tie affairs better known as wedding season. Their plan: Agree to be each other’s plus one and help the other get laid. The wrench: They might actually fall for each other by season’s end. What it lacks in premise reinvention, it makes up for with unfettered chemistry and unfiltered humor.

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And the bride wore… red? A time-jumping fantasy celebrating life, love, and British comedy, Richard Curtis’s rom-com stars Rachel McAdams and Domhnall Gleeson as a couple charting the choppy waters of their romance, with him using his genetic time-traveling skills to go back and perfect each moment of their relationship (just go with it). From the first date, to the proposal, to the disastrously drenched wedding day that makes for a stellar Kodak moment and one of the best cinematic wedding scenes we’ve ever seen, this movie is not to be missed and will pull on each one of your heartstrings, one at a time.

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The title of Shakespeare’s seminal romantic comedy is right on: There is mega drama materializing among the friends and foes inhabiting a Tuscan villa. And at the core are Hero and Claudio, the naive lovers who after very much ado (read: misunderstandings, manipulations, and musings) eventually say “I do” and get their happily ever after. And even though Kenneth Branagh’s 1993 adaptation isn’t a loyal reciting of The Bard’s classic, the superb casting choices—from Denzel Washington to Michael Keaton to Emma Thompson—more than make up for it.

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As unbreakable the bond is between lovebirds Victoria and David Beckham, so is our love for a Richard Curtis romantic comedy. There are—count them—three on this list alone. Though he doesn’t direct the film with five events in its title, as he does Love Actually and About Time, Curtis does supply the brilliantly British screenplay, weaving fairy-tale romance, kooky friendships, missed opportunities, and eff bombs aplenty into a comedy that solidified the scribe as someone to watch.

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What the brilliant songs of ABBA have to do with a bride-to-be named Sophie Sheridan (Amanda Seyfried) and the fact that her free-spirited mother (Meryl Streep) doesn’t know which of three dapper suitors is her daughter’s father is beyond our comprehension. But they sure do make for one exuberant wedding-themed musical. Set against the sparkling azure backdrop of the Greek isles, Mamma Mia! is the perfect antidote for any dancing queen bummed out by being stuck in quarantine.

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