With Valentine’s Day right around the corner, here’s a considered curation of films, soundtracks, books and artworks to spend the weekend with. It traces love in its many forms, across time, place and medium.
Movies
In the Mood for Love
Directed by Wong Kar-wai, this 2000 film stars Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung. Shot by cinematographer Christopher Doyle, it is known for its careful framing. The film premiered at Cannes, where Tony Leung won Best Actor. Its restrained performances and strong visual style have made it a key work in contemporary world cinema.
Before Sunrise
An unexpected meeting on a train leads two travelers to spend an evening wandering through Vienna. As the night unfolds, they share stories and conversations about life and love, exploring new ideas while a quiet intimacy grows between them, knowing it may be their only night together.
Past Lives
Written and directed by Celine Song in her feature debut, the film stars Greta Lee, Teo Yoo and John Magaro. It premiered at Sundance and later received Academy Award nominations. It centres around two childhood friends who reconnect many years later, only to realise that some parts of your life stay with you forever.
The Holiday
Two women, one British and one American, swap lives following heartbreak. This lighthearted film follows their life after, and the ups and downs it takes. Featuring Cameron Diaz, Jude Law, and Kate Winslet among others, the lesson is to have hope through it all.
Il Postino
This narrative is based loosely on the life of Pablo Neruda, who has been deported to an island in South Italy, whom a postman delivers mail to. The postman learns to love poetry in the process, and falls in love with a local woman, Beatrice. It truly delivers the lesson that poetry doesn’t only belong to those to write it, but also to those who need it.
Charulata
Directed by Satyajit Ray and based on a novella by Rabindranath Tagore, the film follows Charulata, an artistically inclined woman who sees little of her busy journalist husband, Bhupati. Realizing that his wife is alienated and unhappy, he convinces his cousin, Amal, to spend time with Charulata and nourish her creative impulses.
Soundtracks
Notting Hill
The soundtrack of this evergreen classic will never get old. Watching Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts fall in love to the sounds of Ronan Keating’s When You Say Nothing At All will always be special.
La La Land
Composed by Justin Hurwitz, the soundtrack includes fan favourites like City of Stars and Another Day of Sun. Performers Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling recorded their own vocals. The album won multiple Academy Awards and Grammy Awards.
Amelie
Composed by Yann Tiersen, much of the music consists of piano and accordion led tracks. It helped shaped the identity of the film, and contributes to the feelgood, fanciful environment of the film.
In the Mood for Love
The soundtrack includes Yumeji’s Theme by Shigeru Umebayashi and Nat King Cole songs, which also contributed to the score. The music evokes the melancholy and beauty of the story and its characters.
Books
Maps for Lost Lovers
Nadeem Aslam gets into the psyche of a Pakistani immigrant family living in London and graphically creates the conflicts and tensions of the members that arise when two people who aren’t meant to fall in love, do.
Normal People
This list would’ve been incomplete without a Sally Rooney work, much of whose prose comments on modern relationships and love. The story follows two characters who grew up together, and can’t seem to live life without bumping into one another.
Love in the Time of Cholera
Published in 1985, the novel was written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez after he had already won the Nobel Prize. It remains one of his most read works, and is a passionate love story of two intertwined fates.
Norwegian Wood
One of Murakami’s most popular works is Norwegian Wood, this is a magnificent blending of the music, the mood, and the ethos that was the sixties with the story of one college student's romantic coming of age that brilliantly recaptures a young man's first, hopeless, and heroic love.
Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair
The most popular work by Chile's Nobel Prize-winning poet, this book stands as an essential collection that continues to inspire lovers and poets around the world.
Artwork
The Kiss by Gustav Klimt
Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss is an iconic Art Nouveau oil-on-canvas painting with gold leaf, representing the culmination of his ‘Golden Period’. Depicting a passionately embracing couple in a flower meadow, it symbolizes the universal theme of love.
The Lovers by Pablo Picasso
The Lovers is a prominent oil painting on linen by Pablo Picasso, showcasing a young couple in a Neoclassical style. It is intimate, calm, and features strong black lines.
The Birthday by Marc Chagall
Painted in 1915 by Marc Chagall, the work depicts Chagall and his wife Bella. It is part of a series of personal paintings made during his early years. The painting is held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Cafe Lovers by Joseph Lorusso
Created by Joseph Lorusso, this work reflects his focus on intimate interior scenes. His paintings are widely collected and often centre on quiet moments in urban settings.
Date 13.2.2026