Romantic comedy (also known as romcom or rom-com) is a sub-genre of comedy and romance fiction, focusing on lighthearted, humorous plot lines centered on romantic ideas, such as how love is able to surmount all obstacles. Romantic comedy evolved from Ancient Greek comedy, medieval romance, and 18th-century Restoration comedy, later developing into sub-genres like screwball comedies, career woman comedies, and 1950s sex comedies in Hollywood.

Over time, the genre has expanded beyond traditional structures, incorporating unconventional themes, challenging gender roles, and addressing adult topics while maintaining its core focus on romance and humor.

A common convention in romantic comedies is the "meet-cute", a humorous or unexpected encounter that creates initial tension and sets up the romantic storyline.

Comedies, rooted in the fertility rites and satyr plays of ancient Greece, have often incorporated sexual or social elements.

The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms defines romantic comedy as "a general term for comedies that deal mainly with the follies and misunderstandings of young lovers, in a light‐hearted and happily concluded manner which usually avoids serious satire". This reference states that the "best‐known examples are Shakespeare's comedies of the late 1590s, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Twelfth Night, and As You Like It being the most purely romantic, while Much Ado About Nothing approaches the comedy of manners and The Merchant of Venice is closer to tragicomedy."

It was not until the development of the literary tradition of romantic love in the Western European medieval period, though, that "romance" came to refer to "romantic love" situations. They were previously referred to as the heroic adventures of medieval chivalric romance. Those adventures traditionally focused on a knight's feats on behalf of a lady, so the modern themes of love were quickly woven into them, as in Chrétien de Troyes's Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart.

The contemporary romantic comedy genre was shaped by 18th-century Restoration comedy and 19th-century romantic melodrama. Restoration comedies were typically comedies of manners that relied on knowledge of the complex social rules of high society, particularly related to navigating the marriage-market, an inherent feature of the plot in many of these plays, such as William Wycherley's The Country Wife. While the melodramas of the Romantic period had little to do with comedy, they were hybrids incorporating elements of domestic and sentimental tragedies, pantomime "with an emphasis on gesture, on the body, and the thrill of the chase," and other genres of expression such as songs and folk tales.

In the 20th century, as Hollywood grew, the romantic comedy in America mirrored other aspects of society in its rapid changes, developing many sub-genres through the decades. We can see this through the screwball comedy in response to the censorship of the Hays Code in the 1920s–1930s, the career woman comedy (such as George Stevens' Woman of the Year, starring Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy) post-WWII, and the sex comedy made popular by Rock Hudson and Doris Day in the 1950s–1960s.