Since the invention of the kiss, there have been five kisses rated the most passionate, the most pure. This one left them all behind. (from The Princess Bride)
Ok, sure, Wesley and Buttercup’s kiss is epic but is it the G.O.A.T.? (Greatest of all time.)
That’s a tough one, isn’t it? There are SO MANY great kisses, in movies, in books, and on TV. It’s impossible–but fun–to try and pick just one.
For me, the best TV kiss of all time might just be Veronica and Logan’s first kiss in Season One of Veronica Mars, one of my top ten favorite TV shows. Everything about it, from the way the relationship has built up over the past 17 episodes to the music to the shock viewers felt when it happened makes it just perfect. (That shock factor also makes Buffy and Spike’s first kiss riveting as well.) And, yes, that kiss from North and South is gorgeous but it’s not quite G.O.A.T. material for me.)
My favorite movie kiss might be that iconic scene from The Notebook. They’re just so all in and it’s what the viewer wants more than anything and their chemistry is off the charts and just give me a frickin’fan already.
My G.O.A.T. book kiss scene is not even an actual kiss but a discussion about the perfect kiss. In Julie Anne Long’s What I Did for A Duke, Alexander tells Genevieve what a kiss should be like. It knocks me off my feet every time I read it.
He casually, deliberately removed his coat, folded it neatly, laid it next to him. The wind took the opportunity to play in his hair, lifting it a bit, tossing it about, letting it drop, satisfied at having mussed a duke. He leaned back on his hands. And then idly turned to her. He inhaled, and exhaled an almost long-suffering sigh. And he began in a patient, almost leisurely fashion, in a voice fashioned from dark velvet, a voice that stroked over her senses until they were lulled, to lecture directly to her as if she was a girl in the schoolroom. “A proper kiss, Miss Eversea, should turn you inside out. It should . . . touch places in you that you didn’t know existed, set them ablaze, until your entire being is hungry and wild. It should . . . hold a moment, I want to explain this as clearly as possible . . .” He tipped his head back and paused to consider, as though he were envisioning this and wanted to relate every detail correctly. “It should slice right down through you like a cutlass with a pleasure so devastating it’s very nearly pain.” He waited, watching her face, allowing her to accommodate the potent words. Her mouth was parted. Her breathing short. She couldn’t look away. His eyes and voice held her as fast as if he’d cradled her face with his hands. And as he said them, an echo of sensation sounded in her, like a remembered dream, an instinct awakened. She thought about Mars getting ready to give Venus a good pleasuring. Stop, she should say. “And . . . ?” she whispered. “It should make you do battle for control of your senses and your will. It should make you want to do things you’d never dreamed you’d want to do, and in that moment all of those things will make perfect sense. And it should herald, or at least promise, the most intense physical pleasure you’ve ever known, regardless of whether that promise is ever, ever fulfilled. It should, in fact . . .” he paused for effect “. . . haunt you for the rest of your life.
Whoa.
How about you? What’s your G.O.A.T. kiss?
Late to the party, but has anyone here seen the Italian movie Cinema Paradiso? The original version, not the horrible director’s cut? I’’m trying to avoid spoilers, so I’ll just say that the last few minutes of that movie beat any movie kiss.. I was so moved—I smiled , I laughed, I cried an ocean of tears, And the earlier kiss in the middle of the movie, in the rain, wasn’t shabby either. If you haven’t seen the movie, give it a shot. Just avoid the director’s cut no matter what.
That is a lovely scene. Now you’ve made me want to watch the film again. I remember feeling so joyful when I left the cinema!
The movie Torn Curtain, directed by Hitchcock, has My favorite screen kiss ever I think. Julia Andrews and Paul Newman come to see they are on the same side politically, which is really important to the plot. He pulls her into a more private setting and plants one on her. Gives me tummy flutters every time. The only other guy who has ever done that to me is Hubs.
Love Rhett and Scarlett’s ‘burning of Atlanta’ kiss too, but Paul and Julie are better.
Let’s not forget this uncharacteristically lovely scene from The Godfather (kissing starts around 6:26 mark): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XV4-qKUAgtY. Warning for exposed breasts.
Setting aside the monster that Michael becomes later, I love the gentleness and tenderness expressed by both of the leads here.
Yes, we have often speculated if Michael’s path would have changed at all if Appolonia had lived. Or was that just his destiny? Would he have been more like his father, who wasn’t a saint by any means, but always put family first, or was he destined to turn on everyone in a way and end up alone?
I think he was always destined to end up evil.
I think we get a lot of “what if’s” with Michael. He defied his father and family to join the war and became a war hero even with his father and Sonny telling him it was about “other people” and all he should care about was his family. When his father is shot-everything changes because it becomes about his family surviving and he can’t rebel anymore. He can’t rely on Sonny to take care of things, so he sacrifices the life he has built away from them to ensure his father’s safety and the family’s. When he is in Sicily he grows more like his father and closer to his family’s history, When Appollonia is killed another part of him dies. When his father passes he crosses that final line and kills his brother in law.
I think that is what makes Michael so interesting. He didn’t want that life even though intellectually he was the most suited for it. He had already distanced himself- in the movie when the father is shot it’s Christmas and he’s with Kay in a hotel room with her pretending to be the long distance operator. It’s a story about how a hero turns into a monster and the start of it all is love for his family.
All interesting questions, Chrisreader. Having read the book before I saw the movie, it gets even more complicated. As for the Godfather Part II, I think it’s interesting that Mario Puzo did not approve of Francis Coppola making Fredo a traitor as a plot point (I don’t think this is exactly spoiler territory at this point in history…). According to the DVD commentary I heard by Mr. Coppola, Mr. Puzo earnestly insisted that he never wrote Fredo that way. And he was really appalled at the idea of Michael murdering his own brother. But Mr. Coppola insisted the film had to be about *something,* so Mr. Puzo relented on only one condition- Michael couldn’t touch Fredo until their mother was dead because that would just be too cruel to have her live through the death of another son. Just another fun fact of the day.
Yes, I read the book too although after I had seen the movie and it’s interesting how Coppola departed from Puzo even then. The last scene in the book is about how Kay has become a good Catholic wife after Michael shuts the door to his den (and business) in her face so she goes off to pray for him. Quite a departure from movie Kay. I know Coppola felt people sympathized too much with Michael so in the second movie he set out to make him an absolute monster. I think Puzo liked his character more than Coppola and probably had different ideas about how he would go.
I thought Coppola’s ending scene in Godfather I was an interesting departure as well. He and Puzo made a good team though. A lot of people say the movie is better than the book, and I can certainly see why. The book had a lot of subplots that had a tendency to drag, which is understandable given that Puzo needed money quickly and had to produce a pot boiler he never wanted to write in the first place. Still, I enjoyed some parts of the movie better than the book and vice versa. For example, I think the movie has better pacing overall, great visuals, and juxtapositions that work better on screen than in text. As for what worked better in the book for me, I actually enjoyed the fleshed out side characters like Jules Segal and Lucy Mancini.
As for Puzo liking his character more than Coppola, I think that’s an ailment all of us writers suffer from. Our characters are both our babies and our sweethearts. There’s a reason why there’s a saying in Hollywood (according to Mel Brooks), “Step one, shoot the writer. He’ll just get in the way.”
Yes Coppola brought a lot to the movie, the scene where Michael acts as godfather and “rejects” satan while having his enemies bumped off is brilliant.
I loved that they brought the actress who played Lucy Mancini back for Godfather III. I don’t know if she ever even got a name in the first one but it made nice continuity for book readers to have her be Vincent’s mom and Sonny’s child. I thought how they handled it was very true in the movie, they would never throw a kid away they knew was Sonny’s but he sure didn’t grow up the same as the legitimate kids.
I think the best movie adaptations know what to prune and what to leave in and The Godfather is one that certainly succeeds brilliantly. I am a big Coppola fan.
“Yes Coppola brought a lot to the movie, the scene where Michael acts as godfather and “rejects” satan while having his enemies bumped off is brilliant.” Absolutely! Try showing that in a book…
“I think the best movie adaptations know what to prune and what to leave in and The Godfather is one that certainly succeeds brilliantly.” Definitely. According to the Godfather DVD commentary I heard, Coppola was a bit disheartened when he was handed the book to adapt because he thought there was way too much emphasis on Johnny Fontaine’s subplot and Lucy Mancini’s pelvic floor surgery to make for entertaining cinema.
Plus, he had to deal with annoying producers who insisted on casting either Robert Redford or Ryan O’Neal as Michael Corleone. Can you imagine? It gets better (or worse). The studio didn’t want Al Pacino because, not only was he an unknown, but they said he was too short, dark, and ethnic looking. Thank God, Coppola put up a stink about that! He basically said, “Uh… You’re telling me that a 100% ethnic Sicilian whose people actually come from Corleone is too short, dark, and ethnic looking to play a character who’s 100% ethnic Sicilian and whose people come from Corleone? You’re going to have to explain that.” Ugh, Hollywood…
I’ve second the kiss from North and South and the one in Last of the Mohicans. Part of what makes that one great though, is the way the music builds in the background.
I really like the “kiss” that happens in the first Lady Julia Grey book by Deanna Raybourn (Silent in the Grave). It didn’t happen on page, but was still pretty swoony.
And then I really like the first kiss in Fan Girl by Rainbow Rowell.
I can’t believe no one’s mentioned the kiss on the beach in From Here to Eternity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iTCDWQXYlY
I always worry all that sand would be itchy…. ;)
You know the funny thing I heard about that kiss (if it’s true), is that they had a hard time convincing the censors that it was okay to show a couple making out on the beach. Oddly enough, that’s probably the most famous part of the movie!
On that note, I often wonder what kinds of interesting characters and stories could have been explored in American cinema if the Hays Code never went into effect.
One of my friends is an expert on just that. She runs a film series that shows pre-code movies. If you want to read more about that, here’s her link.
https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=moviediva%20film%20series%20precode&epa=SEARCH_BOX
Thanks for the link, but it’s broken. Is this the correct one? https://www.facebook.com/The-Film-Diva-574675942577067/
No. Here’s her FB page. Search for pre-code.
https://www.facebook.com/moviediva/
Thanks! I don’t know if I can do a search though because I’m not a member of Facebook.
Well it is the North and South kiss for me, I have to rewind and watch it again every time. I clearly haven’t watched as many films as all of you though, because I don’t know most of the ones you mention.
I love the movies, especially love stories and have watched them my whole life.
Last night, Dr. Feelgood and I watched The Notebook which I always think should end either five minutes (when he shows you who wrote the notebook) or 30 seconds (when they fall asleep) than it does. That ending irks me every time.
I agree about the Julie Anne Long’s What I Did for A Duke. I am not very good at this……how about The Thorn Birds ?
https://youtu.be/sNa7BVfrCTg
I really loved the kiss between Sidney and Charlotte in Sanditon. Lots of lovely buildup to it.
My teenage heart beat so hard for the kiss in Some Kind of Wonderful where Watts is teaching her friend how to kiss while she’s in love with him.
The end kiss in You’ve Got Mail when she says “I hoped it was you.”
Speaking of Cary Grant, am I the only one who finds that unseen shipboard kiss just the swooniest thing ever?
https://youtu.be/ZuZXKzLTPxE
Okay, the link below is my entry for hot kissage in the Male/Male category. It’s from the Belgian version of SKAM. In the story, Robbe has given Sander an ultimatum: “Either we’re exclusive or we’re finished. It’s up to you.” In this clip, Sander stops by Robbe’s flat to give Robbe his answer.
Warning: There is also some hot foreplay (though no pants are removed as far as I know). Don’t click if you don’t care for M/M romance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOgphlKU5v4
Here’s my m/m entry for best kiss. I’ve never seen the whole movie, but I saw this clip of the 1971 film “Sunday Bloody Sunday” when I watched the documentary “The Celluloid Closet.” Something about the sweet tenderness of this kiss spoke to me and I never forgot it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAiOBFhs8As.
For some background, Peter Finch plays a gay doctor who is in an open relationship/love triangle with a young bisexual sculptor. Mr. Finch, who was straight in real life, joked that he had to follow his wife’s advice to close his eyes and think of England during the scene! But it never comes across as forced.