We started off this list strong with one of the most famous love stories in human history - Titanic. Titanic is a 1997 American epic romance film with a tragic twist incorporating both historical and fictionalized aspects based on accounts of the sinking of the RMS Titanic in real life. The film is directed, written, produced, and co-edited by James Cameron. Titanic achieved significant critical and commercial success, and with an initial worldwide gross of over $1.84 billion, Titanic was the first film to reach the billion-dollar mark. This film was also the film that changed Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet's acting career. Especially, after Titanic, Leonardo DiCaprio bacame the hottest actor at the time.

Titanic is the beautiful and tragic love story of upper-class 17-year-old Rose DeWitt Bukater, and Jack Dawson, a working-class young artist. They were both at the age when they only think about love, and it didn't take too long for them to fall deeply in love, even though Rose already had a fiance. Jack offers an alternative to Rose’s fiancé, with whom she is not in love, and her sheltered life, which bores her. And they planned to run away together on the Titanic ship, despite being strongly objected to by their family, especially Rose's mother and fiance.

Their plans to run away together are thwarted when the ship sinks following a collision with an iceberg. Even during the disaster, they had no intention to be apart from each other. The moment they were separated forever took away many tears of Titanic's fans, as it shows how the beautiful love story ended in such tragedy. As passengers fall to their deaths, Jack and Rose desperately cling to the stern rail. In the freezing water, Jack helps Rose onto a wooden panel buoyant enough for only one person and makes her promise to survive. While Jack perishes in the icy waters of the Atlantic, Rose kept her promise and went on to live a long life influenced by her brief time with Jack.

This story needs no introduction since almost no one on the planet doesn't know about it. Romeo and Juliet was an absolute masterpiece of the World's literature, it remains the best and most popular work of William Shakespeare. The love story revolves around Romeo and Juliet, who fall in love at first sight and secretly marry despite being prevented from being together by their feuding families. The story, of course, ends up with their deaths. Romeo & Juliet is the quintessential tragic love story, as evidenced by its countless stagings and numerous film adaptations.

The love story in Romeo and Juliet is based on an Italian tale translated into verse as The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet by Arthur Brooke in 1562 and retold in prose in Palace of Pleasure by William Painter in 1567. Shakespeare borrowed heavily from both but expanded the plot by developing a number of supporting characters.

In the story, Romeo and Juliet come from two feuding families: the Capulets and the Montagues. Initially, Romeo is actually in love with another girl named Rosaline. However, when he falls in love with Juliet the first time he meets her, the feeling is mutual. They confess their love to one another in the moonlight after Romeo sneaks into her backyard to see her once more on her balcony. After arranging a secret marriage through Friar Lawrence and the Nurse, the two are wed and plan to tell their families. However, things got out of hand, causing a death sentence for the pair of young lovers.

Juliet, whose father insists that she marry Count Paris, thinks of a way to get out of the situation by drinking a potion to make her appear dead, and then she will have Romeo bring her away. However, Romeo does not receive the news of the plan. He only receives word of her death. Overcome by grief, he goes to her tomb, drinks poison, and dies right before she awakens. Juliet sees Romeo’s body, grabs his dagger, and stabs herself. The two families swear to end their feud because they finally see the destruction their hatred has wrought.

Besides Romeo and Juliet, Tristan and Iseult is one of Western literature's classic romances. This story is told in numerous variations since the 12th century, most notably in Richard Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde. Until this day, Tristan and Iseult is still one of the most talked-about stories when it comes to love stories with tragic endings, which proves that this story has a lasting impact on Western culture.

Based on a Celtic legend and other sources, the tale is a tragic love story between the Cornish knight Tristan and the Irish princess Isolde. Based on the legend, King Mark of Cornwall orders the hero Tristan to go to Ireland to ask the hand of princess Isolde for him. While returning, Tristan and Isolde mistakenly drink a love potion originally prepared for King Mark and Isolde to drink. They fall deeply in love, and their love results in many troubles. However, Isolde still ends up marrying King Mark. Tristan is distraught, but still tries to make peace with it, and goes to Brittany, where he marries another noble Isolde.

Later on, Tristan is wounded by a poisoned arrow. Instead of his wife, he sends for the first Isolde. She came to him, but his jealous wife tells him that his true love has refused to come. He then dies just before she arrives, and she dies in his arms. After their death, a miracle happens: two trees grow out of their graves with their branches intertwined, showing that Tristan and Isolde can not be parted by any means.

This story proves that tragic love stories are an important inspiration for writers, and no matter how much the reader's interests have changed over time, stories like that would always be loved. The Fault in Our Stars is a novel written by John Green, and published on January 10, 2012. According to John Green himself, The title "The Fault in Our Stars" is inspired by Act 1, Scene 2 of Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar. Along with tragedy, the love story in The Fault in Our Stars also inspires you with the will to live of the two main characters.

The love story in The Fault in Our Stars is between Hazel and Augustus. Hazel is a young girl who is living with terminal cancer, and Augustus is a 17-year-old ex-basketball player, amputee, and survivor of osteosarcoma. To help herself come to terms with her diagnosis, she attends a support group for kids with cancer, but nothing changed within her until she meets Augustus. Augustus teaches her how to embrace the life she has, and teaches her how to love. While both of them know they won't have all the time to spend together, they find many ways to be together and enjoy their life to the fullest.

An American feature film adaptation of the same name as the novel directed by Josh Boone and starring Shailene Woodley, Ansel Elgort, and Nat Wolff was released on June 6, 2014. The movie describes perfectly the beautiful yet tragic love story of the two young lovers. It was a big hit all over the world and enjoyed both strong critical and commercial success.

The Notebook is a 1996 romantic novel by American novelist Nicholas Sparks, a modern-day Oscar Wilde, and master of tragic love stories. It is a story of losing love, finding it back again for a brief moment, and eventually losing it again forever. The Notebook was Nicholas Sparks first published novel and was written over six months in 1994. Right after its release, The Notebook was listed on The New York Times Best Seller list and had been a hardcover best seller for more than a year.

The strength of the story lies in its memorable characters that will stay with you long after you are done reading the novel. The Notebook is a love story of Noah, 24, who returns from World War II to his town of New Bern, North Carolina where he restores an antebellum-style house after his father's death, and Allie, 24, sees the house in the newspaper and decides to pay him a visit.

Noah and Allie fell in love 7 years earlier but were separated by class, as she was the daughter of a wealthy family, and he worked as a laborer in a lumber yard. Seeing each other brings on a flood of memories and strong emotions in both of them. They hung out, talked to each other about things they've been holding on to for these 7 years, and found out how important they were to each other, and how their feelings have not changed. However, Allie has a fiance now, Lon. She knows she loves Noah, but she does not want to hurt Lon. Noah begs her to stay with him, but she decides to leave.

But at the very end of their life, they got to be together again, even though they both had to suffer from illnesses, Alzheimer's disease for Allie, and heart disease, kidney failure for Noah. The story ends with Noah going and finding Allie in bed in her room, asleep. She wakes up, recognizes him as Noah, and tells him that she loves him. They kiss and fall asleep next to each other, believing their love will take them away together.

Wuthering Heights is Emily Brontë's first and only novel. Published in 1847, it stands alone as a masterpiece in grief and longing. The novel was influenced by Romanticism and Gothic fiction. Wuthering Heights is now widely considered to be one of the greatest novels ever written in English, but contemporaneous reviews were polarised. It was controversial for its depictions of mental and physical cruelty, including domestic abuse, and for its challenges to Victorian morality and religious and societal values.

Wuthering Heights tells the epic story of star-crossed lovers Heathcliff and Catherine, who can't be together because of their differing classes. Heathcliff is an orphan that was raised with the Earnshaw children (The man who took him from the orphan), Hindley, and Catherine. Catherine loves Heathcliff but Hindley hates him and does everything he can to destroy Heathcliff, but Catherine and Heathcliff grow up playing wildly on the moors, oblivious of anything or anyone else — until they encounter the Lintons.

The Lintons welcome Catherine into their home but shun Heathcliff. Treated as an outsider once again, along with the fact that Catherine now spends more time with Edgar, Heathcliff begins to think about revenge. They eventually split up and many troubles follow their lives from then. Filled with anger and furious after Catherine died giving birth to Edgar's child, Heathcliff vows revenge and destroys everything Edgar Linton holds dear. At the end of the novel, Heathcliff and Catherine are united, but in death.

Wuthering Heights has inspired an array of adaptations across several media, including English singer-songwriter Kate Bush's song of the same name. One of the most adaptations of the novel was a film by the same name released in 2011. The film was directed by Andrea Arnold starring Kaya Scodelario as Catherine Earnshaw and James Howson as Heathcliff.

Anna Karenina is a novel by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy himself called Anna Karenina his first true novel, and ever since being first published in 1878, the book has been widely considered to be one of the greatest works of literature ever written. The novel has eight parts, with more than a dozen major characters. It deals with themes of betrayal, faith, family, marriage, Imperial Russian society, desire, and rural vs. city life.

The novel is a story about the life of Anna Karenina. She appears to have the perfect happy family with her husband, a wealthy bureaucrat, and their son, until she begins what becomes a very public affair with dashing cavalry officer Count Alexei Kirillovich Vronsky. The story centers on this extramarital affair between them, which scandalizes the social circles of Saint Petersburg and forces the young lovers to flee to Italy in search of happiness, but after they return to Russia, their lives further unravel. Their relationship quickly dissolves, along with her place in society. Disgraced, shamed, and heartbroken, Anna meets her death on the Russian railroad.

The story in Anna Karenina takes place in the context of a rapidly changing society after Emperor Alexander II of Russia initiated liberal reforms. There are many adaptations of Anna Karenina, including theatre, opera, film, television, ballet, figure skating, and radio drama.

Brokeback Mountain is another successful piece of literature that made it to the big screen. It was originally one of Annie Proulx’s short stories, and later became an Academy Award-winning film that partially changed pop culture in the early 2000s. The film stars Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway, and Michelle Williams and depicts the complex romantic relationship between two American cowboys, Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist, in the American West from 1963 to 1983.

The love story in Brokeback Mountain is a complex yet emotional and long-lasting forbidden love story that ends with tragedy. In Wyoming in 1963, cowboys Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist are hired by foreman Joe Aguirre to herd his sheep through the summer on grazing pastures on Brokeback Mountain. In there, they develop a sexual and emotional relationship out of understanding and deep connections. When summer ends, before parting ways, Ennis and Jack have a brawl that leaves both of them bloodied. They later had their own family, but neither of them changed their feelings for the other.

After four years apart, Jack visits Ennis. Upon meeting, all the memories came back, and they once again fall in love. They keep seeing each other despite still being scared of the injustice they might have to face due to the homophobic acts at the time. Upon hearing about the divorce from his wife, Jack drives to Wyoming and tells Ennis that they should live together, but Ennis refuses to move away from his children. They then went through fights, arguments, and embrace, all because their relationship is simply unforgivable at that time. Sometime later, Ennis found out that Jack died in an accident from drowning in his own blood after a car tire exploded in his face, though Ennis visualizes Jack's death as a violent murder. They never got to make up, and what is left for Ennis at the end is only Jack's shirt. Ennis hangs his shirt and Jack's shirt together, and next to them, tacked to the closet door, is a postcard of Brokeback Mountain.

Even though Brokeback Mountain was subject to controversies, the film has also been regarded as a turning point for the advancement of queer cinema into the mainstream.

The love story of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal has been recognized by people from all across the world since the result of this love story is now one of the world's new seven wonders, the Taj Mahal. Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal's love story begin way before their marriage in 1612, it started from the first time Shah Jahan sees his beautiful wife selling silk by the river.

The emperor had several other wives as per the culture in that era, but he had a special bond and love for Mumtaz Mahal. Legend has it that Mumtaz Mahal was very beautiful, witty, and intelligent. Even the name "Mumtaz Mahal", meaning "the jewel of the palace" was given to her by Shah Jahan. His love for her was so much that he did not leave her alone for even a second, and Mumtaz Mahal used to accompany his beloved husband at each and every place so that they both are inseparable. Their thirteen children were proof of the love and bond they shared.

However, Mumtaz Mahal died while giving birth to her 14th child with Shah Jahan. The heavy loss made the king fall deep in pain and grief. He was shattered and this made his kingdom suffer as he had announced two long years of mourning in the court. Later he could collect himself he thought of the promise he made to his dead wife, that when she dies he would make the tomb of her grave so big and amazing that the world would lose a breath looking at it, here is when he thought to start the work for his dream Taj Mahal.

Taj Mahal took 22 years to build and was the product of the hard work of 22 thousand workers from India as well as Persia. Later in the year 1666 when Shah Jahan died at the age of 74, his grave was placed right next to his lovely wife’s grave in the great building of the Taj Mahal itself.

The last love story with a tragic ending in this list is an old tale that is rooted deeply in Asian culture, especially East-Asian countries. Go by the name "The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl", the story is believed to be originally a romantic Chinese folk tale, as the characters of the story are found in Chinese mythology. Moreover, the story was selected as one of China's Four Great Folktales by the "Folklore Movement" in the 1920s.

The story tells of the romance between Zhinü, the weaver girl, symbolizing the star Vega, and Niulang, the cowherd, symbolizing the star Altair. Since she is a fairy, and he is just a normal person, their love was not allowed. However, they still fall in love, have offspring and live a short but happy life together. What is to come must come, and they are eventually separated by the Gods, and thus they were banished to opposite sides of the heavenly river (symbolizing the Milky Way). Once a year, on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month, a flock of magpies would form a bridge to reunite the lovers for a single day.

"The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl" originated from people’s worship of natural celestial phenomena, and later developed into the Qixi Festival since the Han Dynasty. It has also been celebrated as the Tanabata festival in Japan, the Chilseok festival in Korea, and "Thất Tịch" in Vietnam. In ancient times, women would make wishes to the stars of Vega and Altair in the sky during the festival, hoping to have a wise mind, dexterous hand (in embroidery and other household tasks), and good marriage.