The 20 MostAnd 20 LeastStressful Romance Movies, According to AI – Mental Floss

Sometimes, youre in the mood for a melodramatic story about ill-fated lovers thatll keep your heart rate high and your eyes wide open. Other times, youd rather watch a rom-com with stakes so low that you know everyones headed straight for happily-ever-after.

To find out which films best fit each mood, search marketing agency Honch used Rotten Tomatoes to compile a list of romances, and then fed all the screenplays through a sentiment analysis tool called TensiStrength. The program processed the language and determined how stressful or relaxing it was overall.

The results were interesting, to say the least. Topping the list of most stressful movies was 2011s 50/50, in which a 20-something-year-old (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) battles aggressive cancer and falls for his therapist (Anna Kendrick). You can understand how a computer system would construe that as a stressful watch, though it didnt exactly account for all the comic relief.

An inability to detect comic relief seems to be a trend. Behind 50/50 comes The Princess Bride (1987), which, while admittedly containing plenty of stressful elementsattempted murder, actual murder, poison, quicksand, torture, a Fire Swamp teeming with Rodents of Unusual Size, etc.is widely considered a delightful, kid-friendly fairytale. Other relatively light fare on the most stressful list includes 1999s Notting Hill, 1986s Ferris Buellers Day Off, and 1998s Shakespeare in Love.

What the least stressful list lacks in cancer and quicksand, it makes up for in interpersonal drama, loneliness, and character-driven commentary on mental health. Witnessing George Clooneys Ryan Bingham systematically lay off employees in Up in the Air (2009)which came in first placemay not seem too anxiety-inducing on paper, but the effect in the film itself isnt exactly relaxing. Similar things could be said about 2002s Punch-Drunk Love (in fifth place) and 2012s Silver Linings Playbook (ninth). But wehumans and machines alikecan all agree that 1995's Clueless, number 15, is a very fun flick.

While the lists below might not be a perfect watch guide, theyre a good reminder of just how much goes into making a movie beyond the screenplay. You can also take heart in the notion that human intelligence may still have an edge over artificial intelligence, at least when it comes to watching movies.

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The 20 MostAnd 20 LeastStressful Romance Movies, According to AI - Mental Floss