All That Heaven Allows: No 11 best romantic film of all time

A Douglas Sirk romance with Rock Hudson and Jane Wyman: you know this isn't going to be a smart-assed dissertation filled with intellectuals swapping barbed, ironic witticisms. Even so, this 1950s melodrama – as underscored by Todd Haynes' modern riff, Far from Heaven – offers smart insights into the American class system and carries a powerful emotional clout way beyond the usual limitations of its genre. Wyman plays a widow slowly emerging from mourning to embrace the world again, caught between the daredevil impulses which see her step out in a gossip-generating, low-cut, crimson dress, and her deep sense of propriety and responsibility to her children. She rejects a marriage offer from an older man who promises her companionship and affection, but is drawn to her gardener, Ron, who is impetuous, bold, direct and opens wine bottles with his teeth. Everything you want from a tumultuous weepy is here: hard, breathless kisses; big, brave declarations of violent, undying love; battle-weary, star-crossed lovers who meet obstacles at every turn. But Sirk surpasses melodramatic cliches by securing an exceptional performance from Wyman, whose soft face, as watchful and nervously expectant as a child's, is capti­vating through­out, subtly registering every chink of hope and approa­ching black cloud. This is her, and Sirk's finest hour.