Anguished Declarations of Love in Live-Action Films.
- In Another Time, Another Place, Janie attempts to invoke this the last time she and Luigi see each other by practically begging him to tell her that he loves her. He says he does, but he doesn't sound very convincing. He doesn't even seem the least bit cut up about leaving her.
- In Beast (2017), Pascal makes one to Moll when she asks up straight if he's the killer, exclaiming how she could ask him that when he loves her. She immediately focuses on this and confesses that she loves him too.
- In Belle (2013), Mr. Davinier is pushed to confessing his love for Dido very embarrassingly and very loudly in front of her adoptive father.
- In Bent, While Horst is nearing a complete mental break down from their rock duties, he confesses to Max that he loves him. Much to Max's frustration, as Max refuses to risk giving the guards any reason to make their lives more hellish.
- Near the end of the climactic chase scene from The Blues Brothers, the head of the Illinois Nazis and his number 2 have run their car off an unfeasibly high drop and are plummeting to their doom. As they sit paralyzed by their rapidly-approaching fates, the number 2 manages to turn to his leader and say "I've always loved you."
- Boys on the Side: Robin delivers one to Jane while she is dying from her AIDS-related lung infection in the hospital.Robin: I had a crush on a woman once. I was ten.
Jane: That's when I had crushes on boys.
Robin: She was a strawberry blonde. That's what my Mom called her. She was the babysitter...at the hotel we stayed at...right before my dad went to Vietnam. She was beautiful. Strawberry blonde.
Jane: I was a strawberry blonde too.
Robin: It was me you loved, wasn't it?
Jane: Yeah. Still.
Robin: I loved you too. I won't...want a funeral, but...Mom will. But it's got to be here. Don't let her take me back to San Diego.
Jane: Okay.
Robin: And afterwards...you could have a big party at the house, okay?
Jane: Okay.
Robin: Big party.
Jane: Big party. - Bullshot (1983): Celibate Hero Hugh 'Bullshot' Crummond and The Ingenue Rosemary Fenton fall in Love at First Sight but don't admit it until they're facing imminent death via being drowned whilst imprisoned in giant concrete eggcups.
- Ben Affleck's love speech in the rain in the middle of Chasing Amy.
- Martha delivers a very angsty love confession to her best friend Karen in The Children's Hour, after Karen's fiance leaves her due to believing she's cheating with Martha, and the shame of her affections becomes too much for her. She starts rambling before the confession.Karen: Why are you saying all this?
Martha: Because I do love you.
Karen: Of course. I love you too.
Martha: But... maybe I love you the way they said I love you. I don't know...
Martha: LISTEN TO ME!
Martha: I have loved you the way they said! - In The Constant Nymph, Tessa gives a subdued one, but with a lot of feeling towards something that cannot be.
- In Copycat, Nicoletti very matter-of-factly tells MJ "I love you" just before she leaves for the raid on Foley's house.
- During the denouement of Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, a distraught Grindelwald almost screams, "Who will love you now, Dumbledore? You're all alone!" to Dumbledore after the latter turns his back on him literally and metaphorically. This is notably the only time he's ever voiced his love for him out loud to the audience.
- In The Far Country, Ronda, the brassy Miss Kitty character, is sobbing as she tells Jeff the taciturn hero that she loves him, and asks him to go away with her.
- A very understated, very British, but nonetheless extremely moving moment from Four Weddings and a Funeral: Sad to see Carrie, the girl he is hopelessly in love with, marry rich Scotsman Hamish at the third of the titular weddings, Charles (Hugh Grant) turns to his pal Fiona (Kristin Scott Thomas) for comfort. After talking about his feelings for Carrie, the conversation takes an unexpected, shocking turn for him and the unsuspecting audience:Charles: How about you, Fifi—you identified a future partner in life yet?
Fiona: No need really. The deed is done. I've been in love with the same bloke for ages.
Charles: Have you? Who's that?
Fiona: (very casually) You, Charlie.
Fiona: Doesn't matter. Nothing either of us can do on this one. Such is life. (awkward pause) "Friends" isn't bad, you know. "Friends" is quite something. - Ben Affleck and his friend Matt Damon wrote the award-winning Good Will Hunting, which featured an emotional scene
in which Will admits to being an abused kid of many foster homes to his girlfriend, Skylar. They get into a fierce row over him "not needing to be saved", and desperately, she sobs, "I love you." ...to which Will responds, "I don't love you." Then he leaves. Ouch. This is just Will being a jerk for the moment, and the ending implies heavily how he really feels. - Tony attempts this several times with Pepper in Iron Man 2, but only gets as far as making her even more concerned about his mental health.
- In It Happened One Night, Peter is talking a mile a minute about how useless he finds the Spoiled Brat Ellie Andrews, that "any man who'd fall in love with [her] ought to have his head examined", that "a normal human being couldn't live under the same roof with her without going nutty," when her father begins to catch on to how he really feels:Andrews: I asked you a simple question! Do you love her?
Peter: YES! But don't hold that against me, I'm a little screwy myself! - Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons: Tang tells Duan he loves her, and always loved her as she lay dying from wounds she took trying to protect him.
- In Let It Snow, Tobin keeps trying to work up the courage to do this to his best friend, Angie, while also keeping the statement cool and not cliche. He finally pulls off in the end, although it turns out to be full of cliches, which she is okay with.
- In Letter from an Unknown Woman, the letter Lisa sends to Stefan provides the framing device of the story, which is a long written declaration of her unrequited love for him.
- In the final two minutes of Moonlight (2016), Chiron finally confesses to Kevin. It's a three-sentence-long confession, but Chiron's reticent character and all he's gone through up to that point make it all the more impactful.Chiron: You the only man that's ever touched me. [Kevin turns to look at him; long pause] You're the only one. [long pause] I haven't really touched anyone since.
- Moonstruck:Ronnie: Loretta, I love you. Not, not like they told you love is and I didn't know this either. But love don't make things nice, it ruins everything! It breaks your heart, it makes things a mess. We aren't here to make things perfect. Snowflakes are perfect, stars are perfect. Not us! Not us! We are here to ruin ourselves and… and to break our hearts and love the wrong people and… and die... I mean, I mean the storybooks are bullshit. Now I want you to come upstairs with me and... and get in my bed. Come on, come on, come on...
- In No Time to Die, James Bond makes one to Madeleine after he finds her in Norway, telling her that he doesn't regret a moment that they spent together and does regret leaving her five years prior. They exchange even more anguished "I love yous" at the end of the movie, with him only seconds away from death, but wanting to affirm one last time his love for her and their daughter.
- In Plan B, Bruno spends such a long time silently agonizing over his planned love confession to Pablo that a concerned Pablo asks him multiple times if he's all right. This anguish is the biggest indicator that Bruno, despite ostensibly doing this as just part of a larger plan to win back his ex-girlfriend from Pablo by getting him to break up with her for him, means his confession more than he wants to admit to himself. He confesses his love to Pablo a second time at the end of the film after much internal anguish about his feelings for Pablo and this time, it's clear that he really does mean every word.
- At the end of Shampoo, George, a hairdresser who's The Casanova, delivers one of these to Jackie, his ex-girlfriend, asking her to come away with him. It doesn't work; she goes away with Lester, the businessman whose mistress she is.
- Shrooms: "I love you, Tara." Subverted, as it later turns out that it didn't actually happen.
- Averted in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Ace Pilot Joe Sullivan and reporter Polly Perkins are former lovers who split up when Joe accused Polly of sabotaging his airplane while Going for the Big Scoop. After becoming trapped in a cave full of dynamite that's about to explode, Joe looks her in the eyes and asks… if she really did cut his fuel line, stranding him in Manchuria. Polly is understandably annoyed that he's going to spend their last moments on Earth discussing this point.
- In Spider-Man: No Way Home after learning that to save the multiverse, Peter will soon be erased from her and everybody else's memories MJ, tears streaming down her face, lets him know just how much she loves him. When Peter is just about to return the sentiment with his own ADL, she stops him, and instead tells him to let her know in the new world, when he reminds her of what they meant to each other. He, also with tears in his eyes, promises her he will and the two share one last kiss.
- Star Wars:
- Attack of the Clones: Padmé gives one to Anakin as they are being dragged off to be publicly executed, deciding that since they were going to die anyway, their doomed romance might as well be acknowledged.
- Revenge of the Sith: Obi-Wan delivers an anguished declaration of platonic love to Anakin after he defeats his fallen friend, saying that Anakin was his brother and he loved him. It is one of the few times in his adult life the rather stoic Obi-Wan is emotional.
- The Empire Strikes Back:Leia: (blurts out) I love you!
Han: I know.
- The title character, Seibei, in The Twilight Samurai. Just before going off to his fateful duel with Yogo Zen'emon, Seibei finally proposes to Tomoe, whom he has loved since childhood. But he's delayed too long: just days before, she's accepted another proposal. They're both anguished, and so is the audience. All the worse for their incredible stoicism. Then they do get married, that is good, but he dies three years after that sucks.
- Underwater. Norah thinks she's the Sole Survivor until she hears Emily babbling to herself on the radio—a result of stress and depleted oxygen—while hauling Smith's unconscious body, to whom she makes an Anguished Declaration of Love. The two of them get Smith into an Escape Pod, but there's only one working pod left, so Norah cites Emily's love for Smith as the reason why she should be the one to take it and live.
- In Underworld (1927), the female lead opens up to her UST partner when he declares to split town for good.
- Vertigo ends with Judy confessing her love to Scottie while breaking down over guilt over manipulating the man.
- Wonder Woman (2017): Steve Trevor tells Diana that he loves her as he sets off on his Heroic Sacrifice.
- In The World's End, Steven Prince nervously (and drunkenly) admits his feelings to childhood crush Sam — after he (wrongly) deduces that Sam has again gotten together with his friend Gary.
- Yes or No: Pie comes to Kim's home, saying she loves her while also apologizing tearfully over denying it earlier.
