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With La La Land returning to Netflix in June 2024, another celebrated Ryan Gosling romance movie from 2010 is the perfect follow-up. Gosling is still fresh off his Barbie success of last year, which became the highest-grossing movie of 2023, and recently starred in the celebrated action film The Fall Guy alongside Emily Blunt and Aaron Taylor-Johnson. Gosling, 43, has had a decorated career since his early days as a child actor and part of the Mickey Mouse Club in 1993.

La La Land, written and directed by Damien Chazelle, is undoubtedly one of the best movies of Gosling’s career. The film infamously lost Best Picture at the 89th Academy Awards to Moonlight after it was mistakenly announced that La La Land had taken home the converted prize. It did end up with six Oscars, however, including Emma Stone’s first Best Actress award, as well as Best Director, Best Cinematographer, and Best Original Score. The film also earned a 91% on Rotten Tomatoes from critics.

Why You Should Watch Blue Valentine If You Like La La Land

Both tell love stories with deeply emotional effects

Ryan Gosling and MIchelle Williams in Blue Valentine

Ryan Gosling with his hands around Michelle Williams' head as she looks at him in Blue Valentine

Blue Valentine offers a realistic yet devastating portrait of a long-term relationship between Gosling’s Dean and Michelle Williams’ Cindy.

While La La Land and Blue Valentine certainly have different tones, and Blue Valentine does not possess any original musical numbers, the films are both centered on the highs and lows of a passionate love between Ryan Gosling’s character and co-star. Written and directed by Derek Cianfrance (The Place Beyond the Pines, Sound of Metal), Blue Valentine offers a realistic yet devastating portrait of a long-term relationship between Gosling’s Dean and Michelle Williams’ Cindy.

In the interest of avoiding spoilers, the endings of both Blue Valentine and La La Land share similar themes with deeply moving outcomes. La La Land uses Los Angeles as a backdrop for its contemporary romance and leans into the city’s rich history of entertainment to tell the story of Sebastian and Mia, while Blue Valentine’s gritty working-class New York setting adds to the film’s honest and highly realistic effect. The two films are quite different in style and aesthetic, but both love stories cue the tissue box.

Blue Valentine Is Even More Heartbreaking Than La La Land

Blue Valentine hits viewers with an emotional sledgehammer

Emma Stone gazes at Ryan Gosling longingly the way we all would in La La Land.

Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone walking down the sidewalk in La La Land

Fans of La La Land’s outstanding score and its idealized version of a love story might want to take Blue Valentine off their watchlist.

Much of La La Land highlights the origin of Mia and Sebastien’s relationship, which makes for many scenes full of happiness and dancing under the Los Angeles sunshine. Blue Valentine does show the highs of the relationship between Gosling and Williams’ characters, but it’s also quite brutal and hits viewers with an emotional sledgehammer over and over. Fans of La La Land’s outstanding score and its idealized version of a love story might want to take Blue Valentine off their watchlist. However, it is arguably one of the most poignant films about the actual dynamics of relationships, marriage, and parenting.