When it comes to romantic comedies, it’s safe to say that no one has ever done it quite like Nora Ephron — and this applies as much to those genre-defining Nora Ephron screenplays as to her forays into direction, the most gorgeous and essential of which might be “Sleepless in Seattle.”
Despite being a veritable totem of the romcom genre, “Sleepless in Seattle” is actually, when you really break it down, one of the boldest Hollywood romantic comedies ever made. Rather than follow the early development of a relationship, it charts love’s push-pull as an elemental, almost physical force. Sam (Tom Hanks) and Annie (Meg Ryan) don’t actually meet until very, very late into the movie — but the wistful, hopelessly romantic, endlessly crowd-pleasing mechanics by which Ephron nudges them slowly toward each other are an unfettered joy to watch, all the way down to one of the most swoon-worthy endings of all time. Plus, y’know, it’s Hanks and Ryan, the Lennon-McCartney of romcom leads, and there’s just no going wrong with those two.