Valentine’s Special 2026

With Valentine’s Day approaching, it felt like the right moment to step away from jump scares, body counts, and box office noise—and spend an hour with something far more enduring: love, as expressed through film music.

Cinema has always struggled to say what love feels like. Dialogue often collapses under the weight of it—becoming either too poetic or painfully banal. Film scores, on the other hand, have an uncanny ability to articulate what words cannot: longing, ecstasy, restraint, obsession, memory, and heartbreak. Sometimes all at once.

This episode’s juried selections are not simply “romantic” scores in the conventional sense. These are works that understand love as complicated and often uncomfortable—love that consumes, love that lingers, love that is sacrificed or denied. From classic Hollywood to modern cinema, these scores don’t just underscore romance; they interrogate it.

Some of these films are sweeping and operatic. Others are quiet, restrained, almost painfully intimate. But what they share is an emotional honesty—music that trusts the listener to feel deeply without being told how.

So settle in. Let the music guide the conversation. This is ReelTalk—and today, we’re listening to what love sounds like.

Ryan is the general manager for 90.7 WKGC Public Media and host of the show ReelTalk “where you can join the cinematic conversations frame by frame each week.” Additionally, he is the author of the upcoming film studies book titled Monsters, Madness, and Mayhem: Why People Love Horror. After teaching film studies for over eight years at the University of Tampa, he transitioned from the classroom to public media. He is a member of the Critics Association of Central Florida and Indie Film Critics of America. If you like this article, check out the others and FOLLOW this blog! Follow him on Twitter: RLTerry1 and LetterBoxd: RLTerry