Cameron James (10 Things I Hate About You)
The Romantic Hero: A young Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who embarks upon a hare-brained scheme to bag himself a date with the lovely Bianca.
Classic Stalker Behaviour: Hiring some guy to date the girl’s sister, learning a foreign language from scratch in order to help her study… this isn’t normal behaviour.
No wonder this kid grew up to be the weirdo in (500) Days Of Summer . But that's a whole other story .
Peter Parker (The Amazing Spider-Man)
The Romantic Hero: The friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man, seen here in his high-school days, as he falls for the lovely Gwen Stacy.
Classic Stalker Behaviour: Setting her picture as his desktop background, turning up to her place of work unannounced, repeatedly lurking outside her window…
With great power comes great responsibility. And opportunities for gawping, it seems.
Lewis Farrell (Bed Of Roses)
The Romantic Hero: An opportunistic florist, who uses his profession to engineer romantic advances upon women who take his fancy.
Classic Stalker Behaviour: Watching a recently bereaved women weeping in a cemetery, he delivers her a bunch of flowers in order to “cheer her up”.
And then sleeps with her.
Stay classy, Lewis.
Ted Stroehmann (Theres Something About Mary)
The Romantic Hero: An awkward nerd at high school, Ted still managed to bag himself a date with dream-girl Mary, only for a rogue zipper to bring the evening to a painfully premature end.
Classic Stalker Behaviour: Hiring a PI to track her down some thirteen years later.
Good Lord man, let it go!
Kale (Disturbia)
The Romantic Hero: The oddly-named teenager with a penchant for watching his neighbours from the comfort of his bedroom.
Classic Stalker Behaviour: Telling the hottie across the street that he knows all of her little habits because he’s been watching her for years.
Inexplicably, this revelation is met with a kiss rather than a restraining order.
We're starting to realise where some of these real-life stalkers get their unrealistic hopes from. Bloody hell, Hollywood!
Graham (The Holiday)
The Romantic Hero: Jude Law’s abrasively charming smoothy, who stumbles home shitfaced to find Cameron Diaz waiting for him. The lucky swine.
Classic Stalker Behaviour: Saying “I love you” some three days after meeting his new beau. Intense.
Superman (Superman Returns)
The Romantic Hero: The Man of Steel himself, Krypton’s favourite son, and remarkably proficient journalist. And stalker.
Classic Stalker Behaviour: After discovering Lois is now married, Supes spends an inordinate amount of time spying on her at home.
We're not sure that's the best use of your x-ray vision, Clark. Maybe use it to foil some bank robbers or something instead.
Rob Gordon (High Fidelity)
The Romantic Hero: High Fidelity ’s lovelorn record geek, who just can’t seem to make a relationship stick. Maybe it’s because he’s so weird…
Classic Stalker Behaviour: Tracking down every one of his ex-girlfriends to pester them over where it went wrong is one thing, but standing outside the house of his latest squeeze’s new boyfriend, in the pouring rain no less… it’s too much.
Jake Taylor (Major League)
The Romantic Hero: Tom Berenger’s amorous ball player, who takes the questionable decision to follow relationship advice from Wesley Snipes…
Classic Stalker Behaviour: Following his ex-girlfriend home in an attempt to win her back, ignoring her when she tells him it’s over.
Naturally, she comes round by the end of the film.
Wolverine (X-Men)
The Romantic Hero: The X-Men’s resident furry force of nature, who carries a rather significant torch for one of his team-mates.
Classic Stalker Behaviour: Despite the fact that Scott and Jean have been an item for ages, Wolverine keeps hanging around the latter like a bad smell, doing his level best to break them up.
Just the kind of quality you’d look for in a team-mate.
Aladdin (Aladdin)
The Romantic Hero: All-singing, all-dancing, all-stealing street rat with a heart of gold and an aptitude for deception.
Classic Stalker Behaviour: Catching sight of the beautiful Princess Jasmine and deciding he loves her, Aladdin makes it his goal to woo her, primarily by being as dishonest as possible. Go Al!
Dean Proffitt (Overboard)
The Romantic Hero: Kurt Russell’s put-upon handyman, who’s just about had enough of being pushed around by Goldie Hawn’s rich-bitch employer.
Classic Stalker Behaviour: Taking advantage of Goldie suffering amnesia in order to convince her that she’s his wife.
And this guy is the hero?
Robbie Weaver (Crazy, Stupid, Love)
The Romantic Hero: The young son of Steve Carell’s protagonist, who finds himself hopelessly smitten with his 17-year-old babysitter.
Classic Stalker Behaviour: Despite being told by the object of his affection that he’s creeping her out, Robbie continues to send her messages and love letters, before finally pronouncing his love in front of the whole school.
Instead of losing her shit, she gives him a naked picture of herself. Eh?
Wall-E (Wall-E)
The Romantic Hero: The loveable robot charged with cleaning up mankind’s mess on an Earth that’s been utterly trashed. Tough gig.
Classic Stalker Behaviour: Following Eve around wherever she goes.
To be fair to him, he’s been knocking about with cockroaches for aaaaages.
Elliot Garfield (The Goodbye Girl)
The Romantic Hero: A struggling actor, who spends most of his time bickering and sniping with eventual sweetheart Paula.
Classic Stalker Behaviour: When Paula’s flat is sublet without her knowledge, Elliot wastes little time in moving in.
Now she’ll have to love him… because he’ll always be there. Always.
Gary (The Last American Virgin)
The Romantic Hero: The titular virgin, who finds himself continually coming up short with the ladies next to his best pal, Rick.
Classic Stalker Behaviour: Letting the air out of her bike tyres so that he can give her a ride to school. No wonder she ends up getting it on with Rick!
And no wonder Gary is there in the shadows, watching…
Sam Wheat (Ghost)
The Romantic Hero: Passionate lover-man Sam, whose fairytale love story with his sweetheart Molly is brought painfully short when he dies during a botched mugging.
Classic Stalker Behaviour: Instead of letting her get on with her life, Sam keeps popping up from beyond the grave to pester her.
You had your time old boy… time to move on.
Beast (Beauty And The Beast)
The Romantic Hero: The titular furball who veers alarmingly between charming suitor and snarling mass of rage.
Classic Stalker Behaviour: Imprisoning a beautiful girl’s father so that said girl will eventually take the old man’s place?
Bit unnerving, isn’t it?
Edward Lewis (Pretty Woman)
The Romantic Hero: A dashing rich boy with an overwhelming urge to save the unfortunate. At least that’s what he’d tell you…
Classic Stalker Behaviour: Not so much a stalker as an out and out creep, Edward not only pays Vivian to stay in his exclusive company, he also forces her to overhaul her entire personality in order to conform to his idea of womanhood. Nice.
Henry Roth (50 First Dates)
The Romantic Hero: A womanizing vet, notorious for getting around his Hawaian island’s plentiful supply of female tourists.
Classic Stalker Behaviour: Falling for an amnesiac he sets about learning everything about her, engineering various “chance meetings”, and practically kidnapping her by the end of the movie.
Lock him up!
Phil Connors (Groundhog Day)
The Romantic Hero: Grumpy weatherman Phil Connors, who finds himself trapped in some sort of temporal glitch that has him living the same day over and over again.
Classic Stalker Behaviour: Using the endless time at his disposal to ingratiate himself to his co-worker Rita, quizzing her on every little detail of her life in order to use it to his advantage further down the track.
It's slightly more complicated than going through her bins, but the result is essentially the same.
Benjamin Button (The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button)
The Romantic Hero: Poor old Benjamin Button, who ages backwards, making his formative relationships weird to say the least…
Classic Stalker Behaviour: He might have been “born under unusual circumstances”, but watching an old man pursuing an extremely young girl is still pretty uncomfortable viewing.
Adam (Untamed Heart)
The Romantic Hero: A naturally shy individual, Adam comes into his own when he rescues the lovely Caroline from a pair of sinister attackers.
Classic Stalker Behaviour: He’s only on hand to save the day because he was following Caroline home himself!
Put it down to his baboon heart. Yeah, it gets a bit odd…
Noah (The Notebook)
The Romantic Hero: Noah, the uber-dedicated young buck carrying an ever-burning torch for the beautiful and privileged Allie.
Classic Stalker Behaviour: Writing her a letter every day for a year. That’s 365 letters in total. Get a hobby, Noah.
George McFly (Back To The Future)
The Romantic Hero: The nerdy father of Marty McFly, who needs a little help getting it together with future wife Lorraine.
Classic Stalker Behaviour: We always find it hard to feel too sorry for George since one of his first scenes sees him hiding in a tree, watching Lorraine get undressed through her bedroom window.
Christina Walters (The Sweetest Thing)
The Romantic Hero: One third of the film’s “girls can be gross too” trio of gal-pals. Singer of “the penis song”. Need we say more?
Classic Stalker Behaviour: Tracking down a guy she just met… on his wedding day.
Improbably, he ends up proposing to her instead.
The films on this list send out a very complicated message.
Edward Cullen (Twilight)
The Romantic Hero: The perma-scowling, pasty-faced hero of the Twilight franchise, and one corner of the Bella Swann love triangle.
Classic Stalker Behaviour: A centuries-old man, mooning around after a teenage girl, watching her sleep… they have a name for that, you know.
Jacob Black (Twilight)
The Romantic Hero: The beefier alternative to Cullen, Black is the werewolf who also fancies a bit of Bella. Sadly for him, he usually ends up feeling second best.
Classic Stalker Behaviour: Hanging around long after Bella has made it clear where her affections lie, usually with his shirt off.
He gets his pecs out so often we're pretty sure he's also technically a flasher.
Casper (Casper)
The Romantic Hero: The titular friendly ghost, a luckless youngster who died before he ever found himself a girlfriend.
Classic Stalker Behaviour: As he grows progressively closer to real-live-girl, Kat, he utters the creepily possessive line, “can I keep you?”
Alarm bells should be ringing…
Ben Barry (How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days)
The Romantic Hero: The bizarre protagonist of this sickly sweet rom-com, who proves inexplicably tolerant of Kate Hudson’s bunny-boiling behaviour.
Classic Stalker Behaviour: Nearly killing himself - and others - by recklessly thrashing his motorbike through rush-hour traffic in order to catch up with Hudson.
Chill out, mate.
Death (Meet Joe Black)
The Romantic Hero: The Grim Reaper himself, who inhabits the body of the recently deceased Brad Pitt in order to learn a few life-lessons about love.
Classic Stalker Behaviour: Taking possession of a corpse and using it to convince a cute girl said corpse had made an impression on, to fall in love with him.
Textbook behaviour.
Ricky Fitts (American Beauty)
The Romantic Hero: Poor dysfunctional Ricky, the oddball son of a dope fiend and a sexually-conflicted military man. He never had a hope.
Classic Stalker Behaviour: Following Jane Burnham home, filming her getting changed, forming a tender relationship with her… wait, what was that last one?
Nick Marshall (What Women Want)
The Romantic Hero: A misogynistic ad-man who gets struck by lightning and finds himself able to hear what women are thinking.
Classic Stalker Behaviour: Nick essentially has the power to read women’s thoughts without actually having to lay his hands on their diaries.
The fact that he uses said powers to pretty much sleep with whoever he likes… well, it’s not great is it?
Henry DeTamble (The Time Travellers Wife)
The Romantic Hero: A mysterious time-travelling entity, who finds himself drawn back to significant people and places from his life, through no control of his own.
Classic Stalker Behaviour: Essentially grooming the pre-teen version of the woman who goes on to fall in love with him.
It’s presented as quite romantic in the film, but the relationship doesn’t bear too much scrutiny if you ask us…
Jake Sully (Avatar)
The Romantic Hero: A paraplegic marine dispatched to Pandora in order to harvest the planet’s natural resources.
Classic Stalker Behaviour: Jake manages to worm his way into the affections of Neytiri by disguising himself as one of her species, and convincing her that he has her best interests at heart.
Okay, by the end he does, but it’s still a fairly underhanded way of winning her over.
The moment he met her he should have been completely honest, and quoted Tobias Funke from Arrested Development . "I'm afraid I just blue myself."
Annie Reed (Sleepless In Seattle)
The Romantic Hero: Meg Ryan, performing her cute-as-a-button routine once more, as old romantic Annie Reed.
Classic Stalker Behaviour: Writing to a man she’s only heard speak over the radio, before flying thousands of miles to be near him, and demanding he meet her on top of the Empire State Building.
If we were Tom Hanks, we would have packed a parachute, just in case.
Mike Flux (Management)
The Romantic Hero: A motel worker who becomes ever more infatuated with one of the guests.
Classic Stalker Behaviour: Not only does Mike keep showing up at Sue’s door, he then spends the rest of the movie following her around the country, repeatedly showing up unannounced at her home.
Bizarrely, this seems to endear him to her, and the pair live happily ever after.
The Phantom (Phantom Of The Opera)
The Romantic Hero: The disfigured loner of the title, who spends his days creeping people out at his local opera house.
Classic Stalker Behaviour: Obsessing over Christine for the best part of a decade, before eventually kidnapping her when it looks as though she will choose someone else.
And we’re meant to pity the guy…
Peter Wright (Only You)
The Romantic Hero: A scheming chancer with one hell of a crush on Marisa Tomei.
Classic Stalker Behaviour: Discovering that Tomei’s character is searching for a stranger she believes is her soulmate (quite stalkerish in itself), Peter pretends to be the man in question.
Then, when he’s found out, he pays a friend to do the same thing.
Somehow, they end up together. It takes all sorts.
David (Love Actually)
The Romantic Hero: Hugh Grant’s bumbling, biscuit-snaffling PM, who allows his personal life to dictate his foreign policy.
Classic Stalker Behaviour: Falling for his aide, having her fired, then turning up on her family doorstep on Christmas Eve and bundling her into a private car.
Romantic.
Josie Gellar (Never Been Kissed)
The Romantic Hero: An intrepid journalist who re-enrols in high school in order to research a story.
Classic Stalker Behaviour: Making a teacher fall in love with her by pretending to be a 17-year-old girl and turning up to his class every day.
And let’s not get started on what it says about him that he goes for it...
Jonathan Switcher (Mannequin)
The Romantic Hero: A young mannequin manufacturer with a slightly unhealthy obsession with his work.
Classic Stalker Behaviour: Take away the fact that the subject of his obsession is a mannequin, and Jonathan’s behaviour seems a bit sinister.
Hanging around outside her place of work, taking a job there, waiting to get her alone once everyone else has left… it’s weird.
Not as weird as falling in love with a mannequin, mind.
Jareth (Labyrinth)
The Romantic Hero: A big-haired stranger from a far away land, full of weird and wonderful creatures.
Classic Stalker Behaviour: Becoming fixated upon a fifteen-year-old girl, who he attempts to lure away from her family in order to make her his own.
Yuck.
Josh Myers (Kissing Jessica Stein)
The Romantic Hero: Jessica’s co-worker, who retains a keen interest in her, despite her dabbling with members of her own sex.
Classic Stalker Behaviour: Josh still manages to get something going with Jessica, despite having jealously rifled through her personal files at work, reading a number of personal letters.
That’s fine though, because he’s, like, really into her…
Tell it to the judge, Josh.
Dan (Closer)
The Romantic Hero: Confirmed shagger and, as Clive Owen so eloquently puts it, “fucking writer”.
Classic Stalker Behaviour: Justifying his stalking with evidence acquired by further stalking: “I don't stalk, I lurk, and when I'm not there you look for me.”
How would he know that? “Because I am there, lurking from a distance.”
Case closed.
Benjamin Braddock (The Graduate)
The Romantic Hero: The titular graduate, who finds himself romantically entangled with predatory cougar, Mrs. Robinson.
Classic Stalker Behaviour: Benjamin is fairly predatory himself, following Elaine all the way to Berkley, where he spends days on end harassing her before interrupting her wedding and loudly professing his love.
Bit awkward.
Lloyd Dobler (Say Anything)
The Romantic Hero: John Cusack’s persistent high-school graduate, who embarks on his first dalliance with romance by setting his sights on the lovely Diane.
Classic Stalker Behaviour: Pitching up outside the family home of his beau, lifting his boom-box aloft and blasting out the first song they had sex to.
Creepy.
Elliot Richards (Bedazzled)
The Romantic Hero: The hopeless loser who ends up entangled with Liz Hurley’s sexy Satan in his pursuit of dream girl Allison.
Classic Stalker Behaviour: He knows every little detail about her personality, without actually having spoken to her for more than a few seconds.
Then, when Satan gets involved, he swiftly accepts the power of invisibility in order to watch her shower.
Hmm…
Scottie Ferguson (Vertigo)
The Romantic Hero: An ageing ex-policeman struggling to cope with the death of his one true love. Well, we say “one”…
Classic Stalker Behaviour: Tracking down his lost love’s doppelganger, dating her and then convincing her - fairly forcefully - to dress up as his corpse bride.
Who says romance is dead? He does.
Mark (Love Actually)
The Romantic Hero: Andrew Lincoln’s surly everyman, who finds himself hopelessly in love with his best mate’s new bride.
Classic Stalker Behaviour: Zooming his camcorder right in on Keira Knightley during her wedding, before turning up on her doorstep with a set of grossly inappropriate cue-cards featuring phrases such as “my wasted heart”.
Just what you want from a best man.
