The Best Nicholas Sparks Movie, According To Rotten Tomatoes

As of this writing, author Nicholas Sparks has written 23 novels, and every single one of them has been a New York Times Bestseller. His first novel, “The Passing,” was published in 1985, and he immediately established himself as one of the world’s preeminent pop-romance writers, authoring broad, tragic stories about unquenched longing, suffering lovelorn women, and flawless rescue studs. His 1999 novel “A Walk to Remember” was inspired by the tragic death of his younger sister, killed by cancer at age 33. Sparks’ novels, mostly set in North Carolina, are known for their placid, pastoral tones, sweeping melodrama, and weepy endings. 

Hollywood got their hooks into Sparks in 1999 when they adapted his book “Message in a Bottle” into a notable hit starring Kevin Costner. That film made $118 million on a $30 million budget, and major film studios seem to have found a winning formula. Since then, 11 additional Sparks novels have been adapted into films, and most of them have been money-makers. There was, it seems, a huge demand for tragic romances throughout the mid-2000s.  The most recent Sparks-based movie was the 2014 TV movie “Deliverance Creek,” a Civil War drama starring Lauren Ambrose that aired on Lifetime. Although film adaptations of Sparks novels have fallen out of favor, the man himself continues to write hit novels. (His latest, “Counting Miracles,” was published in 2024.) 

Another notable aspect of Sparks-based movies is that they aren’t typically received well by critics. The 2016 adaptation of “The Choice” only has an 11% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes (based on 83 reviews). And even his best-received movie only has a 54% approval rating, based on 182 review. As Sparks fans may intuit, his best-reviewed film was Nick Cassavetes’ 2004 romance “The Notebook.”

“The Notebook” was, like “Message in a Bottle,” a notable blockbuster, making $115 million on a $29 million budget. Moreso, though, it became a cultural touchpoint for a generation, and is now often considered (in an unofficial capacity) one of the best romances of its era. Set largely in 1940, “The Notebook” tells the story of a wealthy heiress named Ellie (Rachel McAdams) and a taciturn lumber mill worker named Noah (Ryan Gosling) and the years they spent having an on-again, off-again romance. Ellie is really into Noah, but is frightened by his romantic intensity, as well as his low class. As the story cycles through World War II, Ellie marries another man (James Marsden) and Noah continued to pine for her. Eventually the pair will end up together. “The Notebook” is bookended by Noah and Ellie as elderly people (played by James Garner and Gena Rowlands) as she suffers through a tragic case of dementia. The old Noah reads from a notebook containing the details of their love story, hoping to restart her memories again. 

Some of the reviews for “The Notebook” were quite harsh. Peter Bradshaw, writing for the Guardian, hated the film’s sappiness, giving it one star (out of five), and calling it a shameless “Titanic” knock-off. “Dentistry in the Renaissance could not have been more painful than watching this,” he wrote. Even the positive reviews were qualified. Desson Thompson’s review for The Washington Post acknowledged that “The Notebook” was shamelessly sappy, but that it contained some honest, soulful performances. 

This was Ryan Gosling’s first romantic leading role, and his image as a move star changed immediately after. The film played repeatedly at slumber parties for most of the next decade.

Most of the reviews of “The Notebook,” both positive and negative, accurately peg “The Notebook” as a manipulative weepy, and several critics made liberal use of words like “sap” and “syrup.” The film is sticky sweet. Similar criticisms can be found in the reviews of any Nicholas Sparks adaptation. To date, none of them have been overwhelmingly beloved. 

As mentioned, “The Choice” only has an 11% approval rating, but the 2014 romance “The Best of Me” didn’t fare much better, with only 12% (based on 82 reviews). That film also starred “The Notebook” actor James Marsden, although his presence didn’t make it a huge hit. Lasse Hallström’s “Safe Haven” with Josh Duhamel and Julianne Hough has a 13% approval rating (based on 147 reviews). In that movie, Duhamel’s character is so perfect, so devoted to the Hough character, so single-mindedly committed that he invited the author of this article to coin the phrase “Flawless Rescue Stud,” the archetypal flip side to the Manic Pixie Dreamgirl. (“Flawless Rescue Stud” is still catching on.) 

Sparks actually wrote the screenplay to one of his movie adaptations: 2010’s “The Last Song,” starring Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth. That film was a Sparks-sized smash, making $89 million on a $20 million budget, but it, too, received poor notices. It only has a 21% approval rating, based on 121 reviews. It was the first film Cyrus made after “Hannah Montana: The Movie,” so audiences may have flocked to theaters merely to see the child diva grow up a little. 

All told, Sparks’ 11 movies have grossed almost $900 million, making him a mini industry throughout the 2000s and into the 2010s. He has fallen in estimation since 2016 — audiences no longer seem to be in the mood for sappy tragic romances — but for a while there, he was everything.