Film

After

Name: After
Genre: Drama, Romance
Released: 2019
Cast: Josephine Langford, Hero Fiennes Tiffin, Shane Paul McGhie, Khadijha Red Thunder, Dylan Arnold

After turns a viral Wattpad fanfic into glossy campus melodrama: good-girl Tessa unravels under the attention of Hardin, a broody, tattooed English-lit rebel who's clearly trouble. It's unashamedly swoony, full of secret confessions and slammed doors, built for anyone who wants heartbreak delivered with maximum intensity and doesn't mind their romance a little unhinged.

TMDb rating

7.1

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This is the ur-text every brooding-bad-boy romance since has quoted, knowingly or not — same 'he's dangerous but only for me' thrill, minus the fanfic wink.

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The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Wuthering Heights1939

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Another rich-family-disapproves, dangerous-boy-redeems-himself romance, with the same hothouse intensity and parental interference fuelling the drama.

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The genre's gold standard — combustible young love surviving class divides and terrible decisions, done at its most iconic and unabashedly sincere.

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A bad-boy-meets-good-girl redemption arc from Nicholas Sparks, built on the same idea that love can soften someone's rough edges — just gentler and sadder.

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Same 'dangerous guy targets innocent girl' set-up, but sharper and meaner — a version of Hardin who never pretends to be redeemable.

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Same volatile, can't-live-without-you young love as Tessa and Hardin's, but filmed with zero gloss, showing what this exact relationship might look like a decade on.

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