What movies make the best date movies?

But this year I missed everything.

I should have seen it coming. The past 10 or so years have been sporadic if I'm honest. It coincides with my decline in actually going to see films. Having kids does that to you. No more spur of the moment "let's go see a movie" nights. And now, when they're big enough to leave home by themselves for a couple of hours, it's more about who has the energy at 9.20pm to head into town.

There was a period where I saw more of the Best Animated Feature Film nominations than Best Picture nominations. Toy Story, Finding Nemo, Happy Feet, Frozen. You remember those years, don't you!

I did manage to see two of this year's Best Picture nominees: The Post (a Canberra Times social event which I organised) and Dunkirk (which I saw on a plane, falling asleep before the end). I've only just realised that I, Tonya - which I thought was the best picture I've seen in a terribly long time - wasn't even nominated for Best Picture. Actually, looking through the list of all nominees, Star Wars: The Last Jedi was the only other film I paid to see.

2017 was more dire than I thought.

I've been thinking about the movies a little this week. Not only because of the Oscars but because of some research from dating site eharmony, who spammed me with some information about what films, when listed on your profile, are likely to result in better "communication".

I do like sussing out whether a man likes A Clockwork Orange or The Notebook, it's a good indicator of personality. A little like whether they follow AFL or rugby union. But apparently the science behind it goes deeper than that.

Eharmony looked at the "communications activity" of more than 300,000 users who mentioned an award-winning movie in their questionnaire.

(Here's the part where I say I am not on eharmony because I couldn't be knackered answering all those questions on said questionnaire.)

And the results are rather interesting.

The best film for women to mention they like is 1971's The French Connection starring Gene Hackman. It's a great movie, with a superb car chase, and it increases activity by 100 per cent.

The best film for men to mention is Terms of Endearment, the 1983 weepie starring Shirley MacLaine and Jack Nicholson. This gives them a massive 184 per cent increase.

It also works the other way. When men mention Driving Miss Daisy there's 50 per cent less communication. When women mention Chariots of Fire there's a 45 per cent decrease. No wonder I'm still single. Chariots of Fire is a great movie.

Perhaps I should mention The Godfather 2 or Unforgiven (two activity increasing films). Surprisingly mentioning Kramer v Kramer also increases activity for women. Which is kind of ironic because it's one of the most harrowing movies about divorce ever made.

Scouring the data even further, I've come up with the list of pics I should mention. If I mention Titanic I'm more than likely to be viewed as athletic and agreeable. If I mention The Departed I'll appear to be more athletic. Sound of Music makes me less athletic but more agreeable. Sometimes I think it would be easier to just find a rich count to be a nanny for and sing a lot and make friends with his kids.

The last time I was single Fatal Attraction was nominated for Best Picture so perhaps I have no idea what I'm talking about, but I think a movie is a bad first date because you can't really get to know each other. Sure, it gives you something to talk about afterwards and a choc-top, but I'd rather have a chat early on.

There's also the problem of who picks the movie. I'm more than happy to sit through an action movie, will probably suggest one actually, but sometimes a bad movie is two hours of your life you'll never get back. And if your date has suggested it, unless you can both find the humour in it at the end, that's not a great start.

For the record, my favourite films are True Grit, The Magnificent Seven and any long war movie where I can spend a rainy Sunday afternoon curled up on the couch. Which probably explains a lot.