01 A single mother pretends to be younger to restart her career, and love complicates it fast.
New Girl and How I Met Your Mother built entire ensembles around the will-they-won’t-they format, and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend turned the genre’s own tropes into the joke. Sex and the City remains the show most people still measure the entire genre against.
01 A single mother pretends to be younger to restart her career, and love complicates it fast.
02 A telenovela premise played completely straight, funny, and genuinely romantic all at once.
03 A dark, satirical spin on the genre that leans hard into its own absurdity.
04 Messier and less romantic than the genre norm, which is exactly its appeal.
05 A teen romantic comedy with real emotional stakes underneath the jokes.
06 Glossy, low-stakes romantic comedy built for pure escapism.
07 Still the show most people measure the entire romantic-comedy genre against.
08 A musical comedy that's smarter about romantic obsession than almost anything in the genre.
09 A framing device built entirely around one long romantic mystery.
10 A loft full of roommates whose friendships slowly, believably become something more.