What, in your opinion, is the best kiss on film? Most romantic, most perfectly chaste, most full of love, whatever. These can be romantic or platonic; I’m actually very interested to see if anybody can come up with some excellent platonic kisses.
My vote is for the one between Thornton and Elizabeth at the end of the latest adaptation of Elizabeth Gaskell’s North & South. (Link goes to a video of it. About five minutes long, but worth it.) If I could find someone to kiss me like that . . . I’m not sure what I’d do, but I think everyone would be happy. Blissfully so.
I don’t know the best, but the worst are the “suck face” and lip chewing scenes. Remind me of dogs fighting over a bone.
There was a good kiss in Casablanca and a couple in Gone With The Wind. Many in Dr. Zhivago.
First one to pop into my mind is the one in Vertigo after James Stewart has persuaded Kim Novak to go the whole bit with recreating Madelyn. The green light, the camera going round and round them. Hot stuff for 1959.
Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw get into a good one in the hotel after Steve goes swimming in his clothes in The Getaway.
There’s one I’m having trouble identifying where it wouldn’t surprise me if the actors chipped a tooth or split a lip. There were going at it with a vengeance. Sport kissing, almost.
Easy. Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant in Hitchcock’s Notorious. Production codes of the time wouldn’t allow a kiss over three seconds long, so they kiss for three seconds, stop, murmur things to each other, and then kiss again…over and over with the camera not breaking away at all.
After mere seconds of “deep” thought, my vote has got to be for Sarah Michelle Gellar and Selma Blair in Cruel Intentions. On second thought, that bridge of saliva was kind of disgusting. Oh well, it still gets my vote until further notice.
One of my favorites: Julianne Moore and Toni Collette in The Hours.
For Julianne Moore’s character the kiss was meant for comfort and affection but it most certainly was also sexual. Toni Collette’s character knew exactly what was in the kiss, but completely played it off like it was nothing but innocent and platonic. I loved Toni Collette in this movie, one of the greatest small role performances ever.
My #1 All-TIme Favorite Movie Kiss!!! Jackie Coogan (yes, that’s Uncle Fester) and Charlie Chaplin in The Kid.
After the State comes to take the kid away from the indigent Chaplin. Chaplin is restrained in the apartment by one of the officials, while the others carry little Jackie Coogan away and put him in the back of a truck to take him to the orphanage. Chaplin fights off his captor, runs along rooftops following the truck, jumps into the back of the truck, punches out the official guarding the kid, takes Jackie Coogan into his arms, embraces him and kisses him, both of them in tears.
Not only the best film kiss of all time, but also one of the over-all best movie moments of all time!
“Oh, you make it so difficult sometimes.”
“I do, I really do. You could be a little nicer, though. Come on, admit it. Sometimes you think I’m all right.”
“Occasionally, maybe…when you aren’t acting like a scoundrel.”
“Scoundrel? Scoundrel? I like the sound of that.”
“Stop that.”
“Stop what?”
“Stop that! My hands are dirty.”
“My hands are dirty too. What are you afraid of?”
“Afraid?”
“You’re trembling.”
“I’m not trembling.”
“You like me because I’m a scoundrel. There aren’t enough scoundrels in your life.”
“I happen to like nice men.”
“I’m nice men.”
“No you’re not, you’re-” swoon Who can resist Harrison Ford at his most mischieviously charming?
In recent years, I’m rather partial to the upside-down kiss in the rain in Spider-Man 2, between a partially-demasked Spidey (Tobey McGuire) and Mary Jane (Kirsten Dunst).
This is a weird one. In the Michael J. Fox movie The Secret of My Succe$s, Helen Slater’s character, Christy Wills, is leaning over to delicately drink from a water fountain and her lips are perched in such a manner as to conjure the image of a perfect kiss. In viewing this Brantley Foster falls in love with Christy as does the average 18-24 year old male watching the movie.
She appears to be the perfect kisser. Later in the movie I believe there is a memorable kiss, but I still clearly remember that image at the water fountain to this day.
I’ve always loved the kiss between George and Mary in “It’s a Wonderful Life,” when they’re on the phone with Sam, and that weird tension is building between them. They drop the phone, he yells at her about not wanting to get married to anyone, and then they just grab each other and kiss. It’s passionate, heartbreaking, and difficult to watch. I LOVE IT!!!
