What is a Romcom? Plus 10 Examples

First, before we get into defining the romcom sub-genre, a quick definition of romance as a whole. Romance is a genre in which the central story is two (or more!) people falling in love, with an ending that suggests they will stay in love. There are many common beats and tropes, but at its core, that’s the genre. So what makes romantic comedy stand out as a sub-genre?

To answer this question, I’m going to take a sharp left turn and talk about a television genre I suspect we are all familiar with: the sitcom. Short for situation comedy, sitcoms are (usually) half-hour shows in which the comedy is derived from the situations the characters get themselves into (or find themselves in); the situations are more important than the through-line, and individual episodes more important than seasonal and character arcs, both of which can frequently lead to continuity “errors” (we’re going to talk about the criticisms of romcoms, too). Unlike a romcom, a sitcom generally keeps the relationships fairly static, which is why so many center families and/or friend groups rather than a single romantic relationship.

The classic sitcom is I Love Lucy. We’re all at least passingly familiar with it. Lucy and Ricky Ricardo are a married couple living in New York. Lucy is a housewife with aspirations of being in show biz. Ricky is a Cuban American who is a successful nightclub band leader. The show also stars their neighbors and landlords, Fred and Ethel Mertz. The four characters get into ridiculous situations in every episode, with Lucy acting as the “screwball” who gets them into those situations.

What’s a screwball? I am so glad you asked! Screwball comedy and romantic comedy are cut from the same cloth, and most screwballs are also romcoms. Both can be easily traced back to the early days of Hollywood, specifically “talkies” (movies with sound), and many prime examples of either are actually both! It Happened One Night, My Man Godfrey, and Bringing Up Baby are my favorite examples of (classic) movies that perfectly fit both sub-genres. For a story to qualify as a screwball comedy, the female lead must be, well, a screwball. One of the longstanding standards of both screwballs and romcoms is that they emphasize gender roles (for better or worse, usually worse), and in a screwball comedy the woman is typically brash, forward, and, well, “manly” in some way — and ridiculous because of it. (Don’t worry, she is almost always tamed by love and marriage!)

Back to romcoms. The genre is largely defined by three aspects: the premise, the beats, and the tropes. The premise is fairly self-explanatory: it’s the thing you tell people to convince them to watch the movie, read the book, or otherwise consume the story. The beats are the basic plot points that most romcoms will hit, including a meet cute to introduce the main characters to each other and a third-act break-up (or other bump in the road). And the tropes, while varying, tend to include the classic miscommunication (in order to sustain the premise) and often one of a grab bag of situations like opposites attract and only one bed.

While both romance and comedy have deep roots going back millennia, the romcom novel, as far as I can tell, evolved directly from the romcom movie. Romance as a book genre came from various genres including the gothic (see: Jane Eyre) and social satire (see: Pride & Prejudice). To be sure, a good romance novel has always been humorous (what is more ridiculous than love?), but the romcom sub-genre follows the conventions of the romcom film genre fairly closely, with some much-needed deviation in more recent years to make the genre less cis heteronormative and less white.