Love At First Sight/Film

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Examples of Love At First Sight in Film include:

  • Ashitaka from Princess Mononoke; he was pretty much ready to die for her the moment they shared eyes. And his words to her when she's about to slit his throat for carrying her out of Iron Town? "You're beautiful. Yup, he was hopeless from the get-go.
  • Many fairy tales, particularly those turned into Disney animated films, such as Snow White, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid, etc. The ones that don't do this tend to stand out a little (e.g. Beauty and the Beast).
    • Aladdin and Jasmine pretty much fall in love at first sight, but by some animating/writing miracle, it comes across as completely natural, and no one is in any doubt that they're perfect for each other.
    • Sleeping Beauty features a slight variation on the trope in that Prince Phillip appears to fall in love at first note when he goes head over heels for Aurora's singing.
    • Notable aversions include the thusly stated Beauty and The Beast, Pocahontas (it takes them a song that possibly took days before their first kiss), Mulan, The Princess and the Frog (not until they escape the frog hunters) and Tangled (not until their escape from the Kingdom's soldiers).
  • But the trope is darkly demonstrated in Disney's version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, where the villain Frollo develops an instant case of lust for the gypsy Esmeralda. His musical number concerning her doesn't say anything about loving her; it just goes on and on about his desire.
    • Compare Frollo's song, "Hellfire", to Quasi's, in which he sings with innocent joy about how this wondrous feeling he's discovered must be like "Heaven's Light". Then again, we're talking about Disney here—they gave Hunchback a (mostly) happy ending.
    • Phoebus is attracted to Esmeralda and takes an interest in her wit. She doesn't fall for him right away, but it's pretty quick.
  • An American Tail: Tony and Bridget instantly falling in love while she's giving a speech at an anti-cat rally.
  • WALL-E falls in love with EVE the first time he sees her. Possibly justified in that EVE is the first living thing he's seen other than cockroaches.
    • Well, "living" in the same sense that WALL-E is "alive", anyway. Close enough for this entry.
      • Actually, it's probably more accurate to call her the first sentient being he's seen in centuries, given how the prequel comic series shows WALL-E interacting with his fellow WALL-E robots while cleaning up Earth. Hell, he even meets a human astronaut who came home from a mission too late to join his family in space, and helps him track them down.
    • Don't forget John and Mary.
      • Also justified somewhat with John and Mary, given that it's the first physical contact with another human that either of them has ever had.
  • Carl/Ellie from Up: "Y'know, you don't talk very much. I like you!"
    • At the very least it seems to be one-sided from Carl, given he didn't seem able to talk whenever she was around.
  • In the DTV movie Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers, this happens with Mickey and Princess Minnie. Not only are they smitten, the entire world vanishes, they float in purple and pink clouds, random flowers come out of nowhere for him to give to her, romantic music swells, they hold hands and float until Daisy interrupts. It's so over the top it's adorable.
  • Barbie and Ken in Toy Story 3. It seems crazy, but it's like they were made for each other!
  • Gaston for Belle in Beauty and the Beast. He sings in one song about Belle: "Right from the moment when I met her, saw her, I said: She's gorgeous! And I fell!"
  • In Rio, Blu falls for Jewel the second he sees her.
  • In Cemetery Man people-hating gravekeeper Francesco Dellamorte spies a stunning woman at a funeral, ("The most beautiful living woman I have ever seen! Will I see her again?") a catalyst for an increasingly grisly series of events.
  • West Side Story. In the film, complete with the hazy effect around everything that is not the two principal characters, Tony and Maria, looking at each other. But then again, the musical is based on Romeo and Juliet.
  • In Star Wars, Anakin at nine years old asks a fourteen year-old Padme Amidala if she's an angel, and calls here one of the most beautiful creatures in the universe, even though he should still be afraid of cooties. Ten years later he comes back into her life, courts her, and they marry. They get bonus points for also being star-crossed lovers when he's on the front lines of war. However, their marriage ends up... badly.
  • Doc Brown of Back to the Future finds the whole trope ridiculous in the third movie and declares that it could never happen to him. Naturally, he's shortly hit over the head with it (though it may have helped that he had just saved Clara's life).
  • Played with in Enchanted. It was the way things were done in the Fairy Tale world, but in the real world, the main character had a failed marriage due to believing in it. As the worlds collide, the end result is the lesson: Love at first sight is possible, but you should get to know the person to see if it's real before committing.
  • Ben and Elaine in The Graduate: one date which gets off to a very rocky start, then they share burgers and life stories in a drive-in restaurant, then some uncomfortable truths are aired, and months later he's still willing to drive up to Berkeley to chase after her. Hardly a day after they have an argument, they're talking about marriage, and their passion seems to go strong for the rest of the movie—not counting the last seven seconds.
    • Granted Ben and Elaine fall for each other very quickly but its still not at first sight. Especially since its implied in an earlier scene that they knew each other before their date
  • In The Terminator, Reese has been in love with Sarah Connor for years just from looking at her photograph. She comes around in a day or two and a Rescue Romance.
  • In Tron: Legacy, Quorra was more or less ready to die for Sam Flynn the moment she unveiled herself in the Light Runner scene. Justified, since Sam's arrival was the first time she ever experienced romantic sensations for anyone, hence why she doesn't know how to express those feelings for him. Luckily for Quorra, Sam admits similar feelings for her in the Solar Sailer scene.
  • Big Fish: "They say that when you first see your true love, that time stops, and that's true. What they don't tell you is that when it starts up again, it goes twice as fast to catch up."
  • Imagine Me and You : Rachel "knew after three seconds" that she was in love with Luce. However, the fact that she was walking down the aisle to marry her high school sweetheart at the time made things a little bit difficult.
  • The short musical film Boycrazy has a number parodying this. The two men involved do not hook up in the end.

I don't know a thing about you...
I don't know a thing about you...
I don't know a thing about you... so this must be love!

  • The gay-themed Were the World Mine both obeys and betrays this tope, as love at first sight happens thanks to a Love Potion.
  • The first time Miss Piggy lays eyes on Kermit the Frog in The Muppet Movie immediately sends her into a musical dream sequence, complete with slow-motion romp through a meadow of flowers and long
  • En kärlekshistoria (A Swedish Love Story). Per (fifteen) and Annika (thirteen) are drawn to one another the first time they set eyes on each other, and become a couple after one walk together and a few sentences of conversation.
  • Les amitiés particulières (This Special Friendship). One look at Alexandre Motier and Georges de Sarre is smitten.
  • if...., Lindsay Anderson's 1968 schoolboy-rebellion film. Philips and Wallace have apparently never met, but Wallace has presumably seen Philips around and been attracted to him. Philips then falls for Wallace when he sees him perform a gymnastics routine. They start meeting secretly.
  • Deconstructed in Oldboy. Mido and Oh Dae-su fall in love very shortly after meeting each other, but it's ultimately revealed that they've been hypnotized to do so as part of the villain's plan.
  • In the short film Un beau jour un coiffeur (One Fine Day a Haidresser), a young man falls in love at first sight with a hairdresser who turns out to be straight. Then the young man falls in love at first sight with a physical training instructor, who seems...not to be straight.
  • Last of the Mohicans doesn't spend too long developing Cora and Hawkeye's romance, but they do talk a bit before falling in love. In comparison, Uncas and Alice share barely any dialogue, a few glances and a passionate embrace. Yet we know that they love each other. And it works. He dies trying to rescue her, and she commits suicide immediately after. Again, with basically zero dialogue. It turns out to be one of the movie's most touching plotlines, and many viewers prefer them to Hawkeye and Cora.
  • Fur an Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus has Lione and Diane noticing each other at first sight and they were intrigued by what they seen.
  • Pseudolous and Gymnasia in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. One look to the Cute Mute Hot Amazon, and Pseudolous is already hopelessly in love to the point of risking to screw the plan intended to earn his freedom. Gymnasia herself is shown as clearly impressed and flattered by meeting someone actually able to understand that her frantic pantomimes are an highly complex and organized sign language.
  • The one-sided version occurs in Dead Poets Society, with Knox being instantly smitten with Chris. Even though the latter has a boyfriend who is more than willing to beat up any competition.
  • In Far and Away, Shannon tells Joseph this after he dies.

Shannon: I loved you. I loved you from the first time I saw you.
Joseph: I often wondered about that.

  • Annie and Bryan in Father of the Bride.
  • This happens to Gentaro towards Nadeshiko in Kamen Rider x Kamen Rider Fourze & OOO: Movie Wars Megamax.