Romance films involve romantic love stories recorded in visual media for broadcast in theatres or on television that focus on passion, emotion, and the affectionate romantic involvement of the main characters. Typically their journey through dating, courtship or marriage is featured. These films focus on the search for romantic love as the main plot focus. Occasionally, romance lovers face obstacles such as finances, physical illness, various forms of discrimination, psychological restraints, or family resistance. As in all quite strong, deep, and close romantic relationships, the tensions of day-to-day life, temptations (of infidelity), and differences in compatibility enter into the plots of romantic films.

Romantic films often explore the essential themes of love at first sight, young and mature love, unrequited love, obsession, sentimental love, spiritual love, forbidden love, platonic love, sexual and passionate love, sacrificial love, explosive and destructive love, and tragic love. Romantic films serve as great escapes and fantasies for viewers, especially if the two leads finally overcome their difficulties, declare their love, and experience their "happily ever after", often implied by a reunion and final kiss. In romantic television series, such romantic relationships may develop over many episodes or different characters may become intertwined in different romantic arcs.

Screenwriter and scholar Eric R. Williams identifies Romance Films as one of eleven super-genres in his screenwriters' taxonomy, claiming that all feature-length narrative films can be classified by these super-genres. The other ten super-genres are action, crime, fantasy, horror, science fiction, comedy, sports, thriller, war and western.

The proportion of romance films within the total number of movies produced has significantly declined in recent years. According to data from IMDb, the share of romance films decreased from 34.8% of all movies released in 2000 to 8.6% in the most recent year reported.

Romance films have experienced a cyclical presence in cinema history. They constituted a substantial portion of the movies released from the 1940s through the early 1960s, followed by a notable decline. The genre experienced a gradual recovery over the last three decades of the 20th century, peaking in the early 2000s. However, this trend has reversed in more recent times. Moreover, the integration of romance as a subplot in films of other genres, such as action movies, also appears to be diminishing.

'Chick flick' is a term associated with romance films mostly targeted to a female audience. Although many romance films may be targeted at women, it is not a defining characteristic of a romance film and a 'chick flick' does not necessarily have a romance as a central theme, revolve around the romantic involvement of characters or even include a romantic relationship. As such, the terms cannot be used interchangeably. Films of this genre include Gilda, The Red Shoes, Sense and Sensibility, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Dirty Dancing, The Notebook, Dear John, A Walk to Remember, Thelma & Louise, Fifty Shades of Grey, Sleepless in Seattle,You've Got Mail and Romeo + Juliet.

Also known as epic romance, this is a romantic story with a historical period setting, normally with a turbulent backdrop of war, revolution, or tragedy. This includes films such as Gone with the Wind, Doctor Zhivago, Reds, Titanic, A Very Long Engagement, Atonement, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, and Cold War.

Paranormal romance is a popular genre of film that features romantic relationships between humans and supernatural creatures. Popular tropes include vampirism, time travel, ghosts and psychic or telekinetic abilities – i.e. things that cannot be explained by science. The genre originated in literature and moved on to the screen in the early 2000s, following the success of the Twilight Saga adaptations from Stephenie Meyer's books. By 2007–08, film studios were producing various paranormal romance films, many adapted from novels.