Brad Pitt’s most romantic movies: “Legends of the Fall”, “Meet Joe Black” and more

Brad Pitt has built one of the most diverse careers in Hollywood; However, it is his romantic roles that reveal something different about him, a vulnerability and pain that his stunts rarely require. At his best as a love story, he’s more than just a charmer, offering the kind of screen presence that makes you believe completely in whatever version of love the film asks you to accept. Here are seven of his most romantic films.

Set against the sweeping landscape of early 20th-century Montana, the film follows three brothers and the woman they all love, with Pitt playing Tristan, the wild, untamable middle brother whose inability to get caught by anyone makes him the story’s most compelling and saddest character. Directed by Edward Zwick, and starring Anthony Hopkins and Aidan Quinn, Pitt’s long-haired powerhouse in the role became one of the defining romantic pictures of the decade. It’s the kind of movie that stays with you long after it’s over.

Death takes human form and falls in love in this slow, dreamlike romance directed by Martin Brest. Pitt plays Death, who borrows the body of a young man and finds himself completely broken by the experience of loving someone. Claire Forlani plays the woman who reaches for him, and their chemistry has a subtle, otherworldly quality that matches the film’s slow pace. It’s a film that rewards patience with one of Pitt’s most quietly affecting performances.

At the same time, a couple discovers that the other is a professional killer and that each has been hired to kill the other. Brad Pitt plays John Smith with a loose, easy charm that perfectly offsets Angelina Jolie’s cooler, more controlled energy. Directed by Doug Liman, the friction between these two modes creates an alchemy that leaves every scene teeming with something equal parts dangerous and irresistible. It’s the rare action comedy that does both.

Directed by David Fincher, the film follows the story of a man who is born old and then ages in reverse, with a love story between Benjamin (Pitt) and Daisy (Cate Blanchett) built on the tragedy of two people who move towards each other from opposite ends of time and can only meet in the middle for the briefest of windows. Pitt plays Benjamin’s entire life with a kindness and precision that makes the film’s final act truly devastating. It is one of the most bitter love stories in modern cinema.

As the legendary warrior Achilles in Wolfgang Petersen’s epic, Brad Pitt brings a surprising tenderness to the scenes between Achilles and Briseis (played by Rose Byrne), finding the vulnerability behind the myth and making their love story feel truly worthy. Romance isn’t the film’s main concern, but Pitt makes it feel like it should be, and the warmth between the two leads stands apart from the film’s larger spectacle. It’s an aspect of his romantic ensemble that is somewhat obscured by the film’s reputation.

Directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud, the film follows Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer, whose self-absorbed exterior is slowly disintegrated by his years in Tibet. Brad Pitt plays the arc from cold to open with a restraint that makes every little moment of warmth seem elusive. While the romance is unconventional, the love story between a man and the place that finally taught him how to feel is deeply moving. It’s one of his most underrated and honestly most influential films.

Based on the novel by Anne Rice and directed by Neil Jordan, the film follows Louis, a grief-stricken plantation owner who is turned into a vampire against his will by the charismatic Lestat, played by Tom Cruise, and whose centuries-old relationship is one of cinema’s most tortured romantic dynamics. Pitt plays Lewis as a man who never stops mourning his humanity, and this constant pain gives the film its emotional core. Antonio Banderas and Kirsten Dunst round out a cast that makes every scene seem charged with something unresolved.