Top 7 Romantic John Hughes Moments

1. Jake. Ryan.

Hughes was only 34 when he directed Sixteen Candles, but he might as well have been a teenage girl. We can't really give the movie a pass for Long Duk Dong (who, let's face it, isn't particularly funny, he's just a racist caricature on par with Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's), but what it got right it got very, very right. And by that we mean the very end of the film, when Jake "My Knickers Are Melting" Ryan shows up as poor put-upon Samantha is wearing that cotton-candy confection of a bridesmaid's dress and she has, like, some sort of Ren Faire disaster on her head, and he's leaning against his car, just leaning, like he taught Jordan Catalano how to lean. He waves. She, amazingly, looks behind her to see if he's waving at someone else. And then he takes her away. And a million more unrealistic expectations were launched.

Photo courtesy Paramount Pictures.