French linguists often state that the French word for love or ‘amour’ is much more romantic-sounding than the plain English word ‘love,’ from Old English ‘lufu.’ Yet the word ‘love’ can be added to other words to provide hints and other emotional suggestions to get at the real romantic issues. Phrases like ‘love triangle,’ ‘lover’s quarrel,’ ‘power of love,’ ‘love torn,’ ‘fall in love,’ etc.

Hence, the possible films listed below include two movies which portray bi-racial couples’ lives and their problems of interracial romance, as well as a third film which takes place in Africa (Senegal) and is an epic romance story involving haunting and supernatural events (A United Kingdom; Loving; and Atlantics.) Broadcast News, a comedy-drama, is a story about a love-triangle, while Atlantic City, with Burt Lancaster and Susan Sarandon, blends romance and crime capers and a tattered heart. Brief Encounters is David Lean’s romantic film balancing the push and pull between two peoples’ mutual attraction and their sense of duty and honor. The film Heartbreaker is the account of mismatched couples whose families and friends hire a ‘Seducer’ to break up these thought-to-be-ill-matched couples. Finally, Cassavetes’ 1959 film Shadows explores racism and its harmful effect between certain men and women in spite of their exhausting need for love.

List of possible films and directors (subject to change):
-A United Kingdom (2016) Amma Asante
-Loving (2016) Jeff Nichols
-Broadcast News (1987) James L. Brooks
-Atlantics (2019) Mati Diop
-Brief Encounters (1945) David Lean
-Atlantic City (1980) Louis Malle
-Heartbreaker (2010) Pascal Chaumeil
-Shadows (1959) John Cassavetes