List of Movies in the Action Romantic Comedy Genre

Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner star in this 1984 South American adventure, which sets up one of the classic formulas for the action romantic comedies to follow it: take two opposites with hot chemistry, shake them up in a bag of danger and action, and watch the sparks fly.

Cary Elwes and Robin Wright are Wesley and Buttercup in this fantasy, where they love and lose each other among a backdrop of war, pirates and ROUSs. Though they'd have been happy tending a farm together, it's action that reunites them, most memorably tumbling down a mountain together.

If uniting opposites is one convention of the action romantic comedy, then re-igniting the relationship of a bored couple is another. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis are the married folks in question in True Lies, for whom monotony is cured by the revelation that he's a secret agent. One tango, striptease and lots of gunplay later, and the fire is back.

A dentist (Matthew Perry) gets mixed up with mob dealings when an infamous contract killer moves in next door. Did I mention that Jimmy has a gorgeous estranged wife (Natasha Henstridge)? Like many action rom com leading men, Oz is just a regular guy way in over his head in the midst of big guns, thug types and a tangled web of plot twists; however, his bumbling-but-heroic efforts charm Cynthia.

An action rom com archetype, this Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie romp is memorable for its his-and-hers shootouts—and the fact that its leads fell in love on set.

Like True Lies, this year's rom-com starring Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker is another movie that uses action to reunite a married couple. In this case, they're an estranged pair that witnesses a murder and reconnects while on the run. Nothing like mortal danger to make you realise you still love each other.

Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler play the classic ex-couple who remember why they fell for each other in the first place in unusual—albeit action-packed—circumstances: he's a bounty hunter and she's the bounty.

Another married couple who's missing the spark, Tina Fey and Steve Carell find that there's no one else they'd rather run from danger with than each other. Or make up freaky dances at a strip club with.

This Ashton Kutcher/Katherine Heigl flick is sort of a mashup of True Lies and Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Let's just call it an homage.

Opening July 15, Knight and Day is a promising addition to the action rom-com family, matching up a regular girl (Cameron Diaz) with a rogue spy (Tom Cruise). It doesn't take a genius to deduce that all those bullets flying will result in some lovin'.