I’m a girl and I’ve enjoyed some male-centered action movies in the past. What’s that? That’s not weird or taboo? Identify or perish? Bah.
Roxanne with Steve Martin is an oddly overlooked jewel in this genre.
FANTASTIC that someone mentioned that film! My husband and I love it. I never would have thought of it as a chick flick though.
My husband likes chick flicks more than I do, if they’re good. He likes movies like Notting Hill, Four Weddings and A Funeral, About A Boy, Titanic (which I like too, but not as much) and I like movies like Hong Kong action films and Ahnold’s beat-'em-up movies like Terminator and Commando (which he likes too). We’re pretty compatible most of the time, though I like heavy dirgy dramas and he doesn’t. Give me The Ice Storm or Dogville and I’m a happy puppy, but not him. He doesn’t like it when a movie wallows in seeing bad things happen to good people.
I really want him to see Steel Magnolias (I love that movie) but I don’t know if he could take what happens to Julia Roberts’ character.
I agree with the comment about Shakespeare In Love and the Oscars, but not Crash. I’m a Brokeback Mountain fangirl, all the way.
Roxanne rules!
Why not? It’s a love story first and foremost. I guess it helps if you’re already familiar with the folk legend on which it was based.
Glad to see a few other hormonally challenged chick flick fans coming out of the closet.
This thread began a few years ago around the family dinner table. My wife and I have 2 girls and a boy. We generally rent movies to watch as a family just about every week. As you might imagine, when it came down to a vote, my son and I saw far fewer action flicks than we might have preferred. One night, the girls were lobbying for some romantic comedy or another, and my wife asked me if I would mind renting it. My youngest daughter felt free to answer for me, piping up, “Dad likes chick flicks!”
It became a bit of a tagline around our house, but over the years I discovered that I actually DO enjoy a good many chick flicks.
Now some of you guys are trying to take my OP all highbrow, tossing out classic oldtimey titles, and discussing the “truth” of emotion in a film. I’m not talking about film or art here. I’m talking about movies. 90 minutes of escapism and enjoyment.
Also, my appreciation for chick flicks does not extend to “weepers” or “portraits of strong women” like Steel Magnolias, Titanic, Fried Green Tomatoes. A lot of what I was talking about were mentioned above. Love Actually, About a Boy, 4 Weddings, Mean Girls, Bend It, Bride and Prejudice, 10 Things I Hate … great fun snuggled up on the couch with my family on a Friday night. How can I dislike Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts as actors, but if you put Blinky and Lips Skeletor together in Notting Hill, I’m entertained?
Sure, at its best film can change your life. But I’ll often settle for being entertained. And romantic comedies do the trick for this American male.
My brother and I, both straight and fully grown, got very teary-eyed at the end of that one. I think the cleverness of the movie is that it could be about anything; it just tells a common human story of triumph over adversity (even if it is a pastiche). I also liked Muriel’s Wedding.
Is Fried Green Tomatoes a chick flick? If it is, count me in. And I liked Driving Miss Daisy, When Harry Met Sally (of course), and sort of enjoyed that one with that hot Italian-American actress chick - the really famous one with the curly hair and the name I don’t remember but she won an undeserved Oscar for some other comedy - going to Italy to find her cheating husband.
Titanic was okay. I saw it twice in the theater, but I don’t need to see it again.
Miss Congeniality was cute.
And definitely Roxanne. I have that on DVD. It’s right next to Joan Severence in Black Scorpion. 
Bend it Like Beckham
The Jane Austen Series
Pride & Prejudice ( Colin Firth/Jennifer Ehle version 1st and foremost.)
Emma (Either recent version Beckinsale or Paltow.)
Bride & Prejudice ( Bollywoodized. Just lovely and fun.)
Sense & Sensebility.
Musicals:
Grease
Monsoon Wedding deserves a looksy, too for a Chickflick.
I have a soft spot for Kevin Kline, so French Kiss is on my list of good chick flicks.
Even though I mostly want to slap Meg Ryan. Even though I still think Kline’s character is kinda sleazey. It managed to be romantic and not piss me off.
Then again, I saw it in high school, I think. Not sure what I would think of it today.
I like Jabootu’s definition of “chick flick”, taken from the review of The Promise:
He’s got something there. Movies like Love, Actually and Titanic are romance movies, sure, but are they truly “Chick Flicks”? It seems to me that they’re missing that particular something that appeals only to the female mind and confuses men utterly.
Lifetime movies, now there are some chick flicks. Can’t stand those things.
Like I tell my wife, though: I like movies of all types, I just usually don’t choose romance-type movies for my personal viewing. But I can be perfectly happy watching The Truth About Cats And Dogs or How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days or even The Family Stone, so long as it’s a decent movie.
…I hate to say it but …you aren’t his type… If you know what I mean.
I would never consider Roxanne a chick flick. To me its heavier on the comedy scale than on the romantic one.
I am a big fan of the good ones – my faves are the Hugh Grant movies. Indeed, I think of them not as chick flicks, but just as good movies. I consider “chick flick” to be a term for an exploitation film, one whose intent was not to present good storytelling, but merely to take advantage of a certain consumer demographic.
I, too, am a “typical guy” who likes his share of violent films, westerns, horror, kung-fu, sophomoric comedy, etc. But there something about romantic dramas, even some melodrama, that gets me all welled up and leaky.
Films like The Classic and Il Mare bring out the romantic in me. For melodrama, **A Moment to Remember ** (scroll down for my review) had me all torn up (in a good way).
It does seem like the OP has romantic comedies or historical dramas in mind. I can’t really help you much there. Although My Sassy Girl is a good rom-com. Is L.A. Story a chick flick? Or does that have too much Steve Martin silliness to count? (Either way, I loved it)
If you can accept a romance without the comedy, I *strongly * suggest Comrades, Almost a Love Story (scroll down for my review). Wonderful, wonderful film that yes, makes the tears come out.
Add a fantasy element and try The Bride with White Hair. A moving story of star-crossed lovers. Plus you get an evil cult and people getting their heads chopped off. (Ok, maybe its not a “chick flick” but I got all emotional watching it!)
As a woman, Lifetime movies tell me that “women are completely insane, utterly different and, ultimately, wholly unknowable”. They’re like the MST3k movies - only good for mocking.
I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. La la la la la la 
I am an avid collector of a sub-category…teen flicks.
10 Things I Hate About You was probably the high point of the genre for me though Clueless, Save the Last Dance, Bring it On, The Prince & Me, Better off Dead, Breakfast Club and all the typical 80s ones are also great examples. I tend to favour the mid-90s offerings, though, since that’s when I went to high school.
I’m gonna disagree with you on this. Crawford, Davis, Garbo, Swanson, and the other biggies never acted in chick flics. They were big-shouldered broads, and could carry a movie. Meg Ryan, Sandra Bullock, Reese Witherspoon, those are chicks.
Completely ashamed to admit it, but am a complete sucker for teen romantic comedies. What a Girl Wants, Chasing Liberty…