(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still)
Wed 4 March 2026 17:45, UK
Most directors have at least one movie of their own that they’ll die on the hill defending as underrated, overlooked, or ahead of its time, and Ron Howard is no different.
He’s adamant that his first passion project, 1992’s Far and Away, didn’t deserve the battering it took from critics, but he would say that, wouldn’t he? He’d been nurturing the idea since childhood, and when he finally brought it to the screen, he wasn’t going to stand idly by and let everyone else shit all over it.
There was some obvious bias at play on that occasion, but 1986’s Gung-Ho is another title that the two-time Academy Award winner didn’t think got its flowers. It was a decent enough picture and a decent enough hit, but it’s not one that you need to dig out from the archives as a must-see Howard flick.
When it comes to movies that he didn’t direct himself, the Apollo 13 architect has a soft spot for Tom Hardy’s one-man showcase in Locke, believing that the actor should have at least been a part of the awards season conversation for an impressive turn that saw him manage to hold the audience’s attention and keep them captivated despite spending 90 minutes sitting in a car and talking.
That’s fair enough, but when it comes to the cream of the underrated crop, Howard dived a touch deeper into his memory banks. It may have been directed by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting‘s ‘Best Director’ winner George Roy Hill, but 1979’s A Little Romance is still something of a deep cut.
Most notable in a modern context for featuring the film debut of a 13-year-old Diane Lane, the combination of coming-of-age story and rom-com finds the star’s teenager residing in Paris with her mother, where she forms an affection for Thelonious Bernard’s fellow aspiring young cinephile.
As tends to be the case with young love, the pair run away together after their burgeoning relationship is forbidden by her old dear, setting their sights on a kiss under the city’s Bridge of Sighs. “An innocent one, but I thought it was so wonderful,” Howard shared, revealing himself to be a big softie, which shouldn’t be a shock to anyone, really.
“It was sort of under-appreciated in its time,” he maintained. “I probably, over the years, have seen it five or six times. I just think it’s a beautiful, wonderful, sweet, romantic movie.” It’s not a stone-cold classic, but it was enthusiastically greeted at the time of its release, winning the Oscar for ‘Best Original Score’ and landing a nomination for ‘Best Adapted Screenplay’.
For Howard, though, it’s a gem. It’ll rarely trouble any list of cinema’s most indelible romantic stories, but the Happy Days alum makes a point of revisiting A Little Romance regularly, and he’d appreciate it if more people did the same.