In the highly anticipated Jennifer Aniston-Owen Wilson film Marley & Me, based on the memoir by John Grogan and scheduled for release in late 2008, a naughty dog teaches its family important lessons about life. In real life, most dogs provide love, companionship, and loyalty, while trained dogs can save lives and improve the daily struggles of people with disabilities.
Yet in the movies, dogs not only display enormous intelligence, training, and sensitivity, they can achieve one of the hardest tasks imaginable: help two people fall in love with each other.
Dogs have appeared in countless films over the years, adding comic relief as sidekicks and sometimes engaging in heroic feats to help their masters. The films below represent a sampling of the movies in which dogs achieved the nearly impossible by bringing together the loneliest, most miserable, most isolated, most burned-out-on-love lovers through their cute canine antics.
Dogs Helping With Love Triangles
As Good as It Gets (1997)
- This dramatic romantic comedy features a dog bringing together the unlikely trio of a misanthropic obsessive-compulsive writer (Jack Nicholson), a struggling waitress (Helen Hunt), and an injured homosexual artist (Greg Kinnear).
- Director: James L. Brooks
- Rated: PG-13 (for strong language, thematic elements, nudity, and a beating
The Truth About Cats & Dogs (1996)
- A talk-show veterinarian with no confidence (Janeane Garofalo) asks her beautiful friend (Uma Thurman) to impersonate her when a listener (Ben Chaplin) becomes infatuated with her voice and on-air persona.
- Director: Michael Lehmann
- Rated: PG-13 (for a sex-related scene and brief strong language)
Seems Like Old Times (1980)
- A divorced couple (Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase) reunites at her home filled with a pack of unruly dogs.
- Director: Jay Sandrich
- Rated: PG: (some language and sexual references)
Neurotic Dogs and Their Owners
Must Love Dogs (2005)
- A divorced preschool teacher (Diane Lane) looks for love through an online dating site in which she requires her suitors be dog lovers. A sweet boat builder (John Cusack) answers her advertisement along with other would-be boyfriends.
- Director: Gary David Goldberg
- Rating: PG-13 (for sexual content)
Dog Park (1998)
- A nice guy (Luke Wilson) finds that the dog walk in the park is the new social gathering site.
- Director: Bruce McCulloch
- Rated: R (for sexuality and language)
You’ve Got Mail (1998)
- Two people in the book business (Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan) find that the Internet and a dog named Brinkley help bring them together.
- Director: Nora Ephron
- Rated: PG (for some language)
Rocky (1976)
- A lonely boxer (Sylvester Stallone) gets supplies for his dog Butkus from an even lonelier woman (Talia Shire) working at a pet store.
- Director: John G. Avildsen
- Rated: PG (some language and boxing violence)
Heroic Dogs
Snow Dogs (2002)
- A Miami dentist inherits a team of aggressive sled dogs in Alaska where he meets interesting people from his birth mother’s past, including a lovely young woman (Joanna Bacalso).
- Director: Brian Levant
- Rated: PG (for mild crude humor)
See Spot Run (2001)
- A goofy mailman (David Arquette) takes care of an FBI-trained dog and a boy while attempting to woo the boy’s pretty mother (Leslie Bibb).
- Director: John Whitesell
- Rated: PG (for crude humor, language, and comic violence)
The Mask (1994)
- A geeky man (Jim Carrey) who finds a magic mask courts a beautiful nightclub singer (Cameron Diaz) with the help of his highly intelligent dog.
- Director: Chuck Russell
- Rated: PG-13 (for stylized violence)
For more information about on-screen dogs, read Family Lessons From Dog Whisperer.
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