--- title: Movie Valentines: How Hollywood Taught us to Kiss | TIME description: Movie critic Richard Corliss has a Valentine for TIME.com users: his list of the top film kisses in movie history canonical: https://time.com/video/8xfKcZjx/ og:title: Movie Valentines: How Hollywood Taught us to Kiss og:description: Movie critic Richard Corliss has a Valentine for TIME.com users: his list of the top film kisses in movie history og:url: https://time.com/video/8xfKcZjx/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/8xfKcZjx/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Movie Valentines: How Hollywood Taught us to Kiss twitter:description: Movie critic Richard Corliss has a Valentine for TIME.com users: his list of the top film kisses in movie history twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/8xfKcZjx/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # Movie Valentines: How Hollywood Taught us to Kiss > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: Movie Valentines: How Hollywood Taught us to Kiss [Watch (HLS stream): Movie Valentines: How Hollywood Taught us to Kiss](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/8xfKcZjx.m3u8) (7:17)  _Published 2011-02-11. Movie critic Richard Corliss has a Valentine for TIME.com users: his list of the top film kisses in movie history_ --- Jul 27, 2023 3:10 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [TIME's Favorite Movie Kisses](/video/bl2FyODa/) ### TIME's Favorite Movie Kisses [My Nerdy Valentine: Techland's Top 5 Date Movies](/video/DnpAhxDc/) ### My Nerdy Valentine: Techland's Top 5 Date Movies [Richard Corliss on the Best Holiday Movies and TV](/video/v7XJGFE7/) ### Richard Corliss on the Best Holiday Movies and TV --- ## Transcript >> This is Richard Corliss of TIME Magazine, here to tell you the most important lesson Hollywood taught the world: how to make love. A century ago, as movie houses sprang up across the world, people could study the fine art of wooing, as demonstrated by experts- the beautiful people of the cinema, coming together. There they stand, near enough to feel each other's heat, a whispered endearment, a caress, and then the big kiss. And we have sat in a theater, taking mental notes so we can practice with our date on the way home. Here are 15 of the all- time favorite screen kisses; a brief history of movie romance, and for TIME. com readers, our valentine to you. >> I'll never understand or forgive myself. And if a bullet gets me-- >> In the movies golden age, the 30's through the 50's, the kiss was such a force of nature, that it had to be accompanied by a glorious sunset as in Gone With the Wind; or by crashing waves on a Hawaiian beach, as we see with Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr, smooching in From Here To Eternity; or on the Riviera with fireworks, a pretty obvious sexual metaphor, but a glorious counterpoint to the kiss being shared by Grace Kelly and the movies' all- time romantic leading- man, Cary Grant. Movies love to show the moment two people fall in- love, and seal it with a kiss. In the Wedding Singer, Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler are pretending not to be very attached to each other. But when they kiss, it's so much more difficult to hide-- The strangest things can bring two beings together, like a strand of spaghetti in Lady and the Tramp. >> You'll find enchantment here-- >> Lady and The Tramp are our youngest couple, except in dogs years-- But the second one would be Henry Thomas and Erika Eleniak in E. T. E. T. the Extraterrestrial is at home, watching a wonderful scene from The Quiet Man, when which John Wayne seizes Maureen O'Hara in a storm and kisses her so she'll never forget it. Henry Thomas feels this-- the vibes from ET, takes the beautiful blonde child and gives her a smooch they will never forget-- >> Sometimes, two people create their own moment, with the help of some cinema magic. Here are the preposterously beautiful Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift, practically nose to nose together in gigantic close- ups in A Place In The Sun. They talk themselves practically into an orgasm as they get closer and closer-- >> I can hold you, I can-- I can see you-- I can hold you next to me-- >> When the camera gets nearer and nearer, counting their pores until they have one majestic kiss-- Sometimes, the woman just has to take charge. In this scene from To Have And Have Not, Lauren Bacall teaches Humphrey Bogart not only how to kiss-- >> It's even better when you help-- >> but how to whistle, too. >> You know how to whistle, don't you Steve? You just put your lips together and blow. >> Sometimes the audience waits an entire movie for the perfect kiss. In Love in the Afternoon, Gary Cooper is an old rake, who's toying with the affections of beautiful, beautiful Audrey Hepburn. At the end of the movie, he's going away on a train; she's standing at the platform, waving him goodbye. But the magnetism of their love drags her down the platform, until at the end, he sweeps her up into his arms and they have a kiss worth waiting for-- >> Be quiet, Ariane. Be quiet. >> Not every kiss expresses romantic or erotic urges; there is the kiss of betrayal, the kiss of hatred-- In this scene, the kiss of death, when godfather Michael Corleone, tells his brother Fredo that he knows he set him up. It's one of the most powerful kisses in movies. The kiss that kills-- >> I know it was you Fredo. You broke my heart. You broke my heart-- >> There is the kiss of duplicity-- in Some Like It Hot, Tony Curtis gets to kiss Marilyn Monroe as two different people. First, he pretends to be a millionaire who's frigid in order to get thought- out from the ultra- hot Marilyn. >> Could I take another crack at it? >> All right, if you insist-- >> The second time, he's in drag and kisses woman- to- woman it seems, Marilyn, at the end of the movie. But this time, he's not kidding. >> Josephine-- >> In recent years, Hollywood has expanded the permutations of people eligible to kiss. Brokeback Mountain, with Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, is about two men who fall in love-- and it has an intensity and an honesty that for many people, makes it the romantic film of the decade-- There's not much place for women, let alone romance, in the modern action films. And yet, even Spider- Man could turn upside- down to kiss his beloved in the very first movie. So many possibilities in kissing, in movies-- But we're gonna leave you with an old- fashion kiss, pure and passionate, for Valentine's Day >> As they reach for each other-- >> What? What? >> Nah, it's kissing again. You don't wanna hear that. >> Well, I don't mind so much. >> Okay-- Since the invention of the kiss, there had been five kisses that were rated the most passionate, the most pure; this one left them all behind-- >> This is Richard Corliss, here at TIME dot Commissar of Love-- >> The end. ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Movie Valentines: How Hollywood Taught us to Kiss","description":"Movie critic Richard Corliss has a Valentine for TIME.com users: his list of the top film kisses in movie history","thumbnailUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/8xfKcZjx/poster.jpg?width=720","uploadDate":"2011-02-11T19:20:02.000Z","contentUrl":"https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/8xfKcZjx.m3u8","embedUrl":"https://time.com/video/8xfKcZjx/","duration":"PT7M17S","potentialAction":{"@type":"SeekToAction","target":"https://time.com/video/8xfKcZjx/?jw_start={seek_to_second_number}","startOffset-input":"required name=seek_to_second_number"}} ```