It’s no surprise that during the week of Valentine’s Day, one of Netflix’s most popular movies is Players, an original 2024 feature that is yet another in a recent string of successful rom-coms coming out in the last few months. Players stars Gina Rodriguez as Mack, a New Yorker who enlists the help of her friends to land a man, Nick (Tom Ellis).
Players doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it hits all the notes of a satisfying rom-com: charming leads, a far-fetched premise, and a satisfying ending. For those who are craving more love stories just like it, here are three rom-coms on Netflix and Amazon Prime Video that share Players‘ warm-and-fuzzy appeal.
It’s a modern crime that Anna Faris isn’t a bigger star than she is right now. The rare actress who brings intelligence and laughs to the archetypical “dumb blonde” role, Faris was one of the standouts of the awful Scary Movie franchise and got a chance to shine on the small screen in Mom. The actress had one of her best roles in The House Bunny as Shelley Darlingson, an aspiring Playboy centerfold who has aged out of the Playboy Mansion. In need of a new place to live, Shelly ends up getting hired as the new house mother of Zeta Alpha Zeta, a sorority of awkward students that includes future stars Emma Stone (Poor Things), Kat Dennings, and Katharine McPhee.
While Shelly teaches the girls how to attract guys by appearing more superficial, she has a hard time landing Oliver Hauser (Colin Hanks), a man she really wants to impress. Like Players’ lead heroine, Mack, Shelly needs the guidance of her all-girl squad to land the object of her dreams.
The House Bunny is streaming on Netflix.
One of the most underrated rom-coms in recent memory, I Want You Back casts It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia‘s Charlie Day and SNL vet Jenny Slate as heartbroken strangers whose chance encounter after being dumped leads them to formulate a crazy plan: They’ll each attempt to infiltrate the life of the other’s ex-partner and break up their new relationship.
Silly, funny, and powered by the stars’ wonderfully funny chemistry, I Want You Back also features some great supporting roles for Players star Gina Rodriguez, Scott Eastwood, and Pete Davidson. It’s the rare rom-com that’s actually romantic and pretty funny, too.
I Want You Back is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
My Fake Boyfriend‘s setup is a bit far-fetched: After trying unsuccessfully to move on from his vain soap opera actor boyfriend, Andrew (Kid Flash himself, Keiynan Lonsdale) enlists the aid of his best friend, Jake (Dylan Sprouse), and Jake’s girlfriend, Kelly (Modern Family‘s Sarah Hyland), to break up from his emotionally abusive ex, Nico. After witnessing Andrew’s botched attempts at dating, Jake comes up with an idea: create a fake boyfriend, Cristiano, who fulfills every need Andrew desires.
Complications arise when Andrew meets an attractive chef, Rafi, and begins to fall in love for real, while Jake develops an unhealthy obsession with Cristiano, who symbolizes everything he wishes he could be and isn’t. Good-natured and breezy, My Fake Boyfriend boasts the same supportive-friends-setting-up-the-lead-romance plotline, but with a LGBTQ twist.
My Fake Boyfriend is streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?
YouTube is changing how its Home page works, giving viewers more control over what shows up there and making some of the app’s most-used sections easier to reach. Custom Feeds are now replacing the existing topic chips for eligible users, while YouTube is also testing a redesigned top bar on mobile that moves Subscriptions closer to the Home feed.
YouTube first started experimenting with Custom Feeds earlier this year, letting you type out what you wanted to watch and turning that request into its own stream of recommendations. Now, the feature is starting to look less like a side experiment and more like something YouTube actually wants people to use as part of their everyday Home page.