10 Unforgettable On-Screen Couples

Throughout the decades, cinema has brought us romances that have taught us to reassess the way we love and form relationships. These are ten of those onscreen romances, along with brief analyses of what they have brought to us.

10. Joel Barish and Clementine Kruczynski - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Joel experiences the ultimate bitter breakup when he finds that his ex, Clementine, has paid to have all her memories of him erased. Joel, in retribution, undergoes a process by which all his memories of Clementine will be obliterated and, in the process of reexperiencing them, realizes he doesn't really want to lose her. The pair reunite and learn of their forgotten past together. They realize that their relationship is doomed-- that they are incompatible, and they will inevitably fall apart again. This, however, does not deter them from pursuing their relationship anew. Joel and Clementine's story is a testament to the persistence of love in the face of even insurmountable inner obstacles.

9. Chris Wilton and Nola Rice - Match Point (2001)
The torrid affair between married, upper-class Chris and poor but passionate Nola drives the story of Woody Allen's Hitchcockian thriller, and helps make it his best film in decades. As Nola becomes more and more discontent with being "the other woman," Chris realizes that he must drop her if he is retain access to the fortune he has married into-- and yet he cannot. I won't spoil the story's shocking climax here, but I will say that the love affair at the center of Match Point is one of the most shattering ever put to film.

8. Han Solo and Leia Organa - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
The duty-bound and serious Princess Leia and the mischievous and irreverent Captain Solo seemed all but totally incompatible in A New Hope, but Empire showed us that flames of passion can spring up even from mutual annoyance. Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford's increasingly romantically tense bickering is also almost too cute to bear. Padme and Anakin might have taken a page out of their book-- slightly dysfunctional but sincere love is infinitely more convincing than an endless stream of schmaltz. "I'd rather kiss a Wookie!"

7. Hedwig Schmidt and Tommy Gnosis - Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)
Hedwig, a quasi-transsexual glam rocker from East Berlin (long story) believes that completeness is impossible without romance. "It is clear I must find my other half. But will it be a he or a she?" she laments. "What about sex? Is that how we put ourselves back together, or can two people really become one?" Hedwig finds her unlikely other half in Tommy, a nerdy, petulant teenager with a passion for Peter Frampton and praising Jesus. After Tommy plagiarizes Hedwig's music and uses it to launch his career as a rock superstar, it seems that Hedwig's "other half" is gone for good. But might Hedwig be able to reconcile with Tommy-- or does she really need him to be complete at all?

6. Harry Goldfarb and Marion Silver - Requiem for a Dream (2000)
Harry and Marion are a young, angelic couple in love. They are connected by their hope, their big dreams, and their dependence on heroin. Throughout Requieum for a Dream, one can't help but be moved at the deepest level by the strength of Harry's and Marion's relationship, and the relentlessness of the addiction which eventually tears it apart. Requiem is about the dream of love-- a boundless ideal that is sometimes too pure to survive in a cruel world.

5. Shuya Nanahara and Noriko Nakagawa - Battle Royale (2000)
Middle schoolers Shuya and Noriko are thrown into a nightmarish situation-- abducted from their school along with the rest of the class, they are placed on an island where they must kill each other down to the last survivor over two days, or else all be killed. Despite the fact that, apparently, they cannot both survive, Shuya pledges to defend Noriko to the death. In the film's heart-rending climax, Shuya must kil, not just to protect Noriko from physical danger, but also from the necessity of committing violence herself. The central romance of Battle Royale underscores the selflessness and courage with which love can imbue an individual.

4. Pauline Rieper and Juliette Hulme - Heavenly Creatures (1994)
Pauline and Juliette were two highschoolers who met in conservative 1950s New Zealand and formed an attachment that their parents considered "unnatural." Together they created a strange and flamboyant fantasy world which they wrote of copiously, taking on the parts of different characters and using them as a means to explore their own burgeoning romantic inclinations. Heavenly Creatures explores a love that is both intense and isolating-- an epic folie a deux.

3. Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist - Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Brokeback Mountain, the "gay cowboy movie," presents a more nuanced and earnest love story than its reputation might suggest. Ennis and Jack are two men without any sort of framework to help them understand their attraction. Their respective marriages are far easier to understand and manage, but their mutual love is far too wild to be controlled by either of them. Brokeback Mountain explores the tragic results of attempting to stifle a passion which can never truly be extinguished.

2. Humbert Humbert and Lolita Haze - Lolita (1997)
One of the century's most controversial books became one of it's most controversial films in 1997 with the release of Adrian Lyne's Lolita. Humbert Humbert is a suave, intellectual English professor. His eccentricity: an unshakeable attraction to pubescent girls. When he meets 12-year-old Dolores "Lolita" Haze, he marries her mother in an attempt to get closer to her. When Lolita's mother dies, Humbert exploits Lolita's youthful crush on him and forms a strange and controlling relationship with her. Jeremy Irons's Humbert is far less unlikeable than the book's version of the character, and it's sometimes hard to tell where his unforgiveably selfish sexual interest ends and his true care for Lolita begins.

1. Curt Wild and Brian Slade - Velvet Goldmine (1997)
Curt Wild and Brian Slade, rough analogues to Iggy Pop and David Bowie, are two genii whose collaboration results in a relationship that reshapes the face of music, but changes both their lives even more dramatically and unexpectedly. As a pensive Curt Wild states, "We set out to change the world, but we ended up changing ourselves." The relationship between Brian and Curt is a collision of loves-- love for the art of music, love for one another, and Brian's love of fame and his own rock-legend image. Though chaos and driving passion tears Curt from Brian and shunts Brian from his pedestal, it creates a new and illuminating wisdom in all those involved