Nicholas Sparks' movies, ranked by ridiculousness

11. A Walk to Remember (2002)

A Walk to Remember is just as sappy and sad as any other Nicholas Sparks movie, but it also makes relative sense. Jamie (Mandy Moore) has cancer and resists treatment, meaning she wants to do a lot of fun things before she dies — like marrying her reformed-bad-boy beau, Landon (Shane West). Getting married as high schoolers? Extreme. Getting married as high schoolers when one half of the couple is about to be gone forever? Still not the greatest plan, but a little more understandable.

10. The Choice (2016)

Failing to divert from the same rinse-and-repeat formula of every other Nicholas Sparks story, The Choice is as bland as they come — with little to no daffy moments for it to be even slightly memorable. —James Mercadante

9. The Last Song (2010)

This one is ridiculous mostly because it features Miley Cyrus trying to be a serious actress. Besides that, it's a fairly drab teenage love story with some parental death — unnecessary, yes, but a Sparks go-to — thrown in.

8. The Longest Ride (2015)

Luke (Scott Eastwood) and Sophia (Britt Robertson) strike up a friendship with an older man who gives them all his money — which is a lot — once he eventually dies. Other than that slightly unrealistic plot point, The Longest Ride is a fairly standard tale about a couple wanting two different things and struggling to find a compromise.

7. Dear John (2010)

John (Channing Tatum) and Savannah (Amanda Seyfried) find themselves in a How I Met Your Mother situation when Savannah breaks up with John for Tim (Henry Thomas) — only for Tim to die of lymphoma, giving Savannah and John the opportunity to rekindle their love. The twist comes off as insensitive and implausible: ''Let's celebrate this really nice dude's death and how it conveniently made it possible for John and Savannah to hook up!'' Poor Tim.

6. The Notebook (2004)

Sure, two people coming back together after spending years apart isn't all that outlandish. But let's remember that Noah (Ryan Gosling) sent Allie (Rachel McAdams) letters every day for a year — meaning that he had her address, yet never thought, ''Oh, she's not replying. Maybe I should just hop on over to her parents' house and see what's going on.'' Then, Noah and Allie die at the same time...which is sweet and all, but also not how death works.

5. The Lucky One (2012)

At first glance, this story doesn't sound all that strange: boy finds girl's photo, boy finds girl, boy and girl fall in love. But boy — Everett Collection

At first glance, this story doesn't sound all that strange: man finds woman's photo, man finds woman, man and woman fall in love. But man doesn't just find woman; Logan (Zac Efron) sees a lighthouse in the background of the photo, tracks it down, then walks — walks! — all the way to its location, where he asks around until he finds Beth (Taylor Schilling). And once he gets to her, Logan doesn't even tell her the truth about why he's in town. Instead, Logan plays clueless and ends up working at her kennel to get closer to her. Because that sounds a lot easier than being like, ''Hey, is this you? In the picture I found?'' Then again, no one (at least in their romantic circle) dies, so that automatically makes The Lucky One less ridiculous than, well, half of Sparks' films. Still: No one would walk from Colorado to Louisiana. That's what cars, or planes, or trains, are for.

4. Nights in Rodanthe (2008)

This is a movie in which a man and a woman are locked in a bed-and-breakfast during a hurricane. They spend their abundant free time tossing canned goods in a trash can like they just did 'shrooms and think they're like Kobe Bryant. It gets worse: The movie ends with Paul (Richard Gere) dying in a flash mudslide when he goes to South America to reconnect with his son. Any sadness we're supposed to feel is canceled out by the sheer absurdity of a surprise mudslide surprise-killing Richard Gere.

3. Message in a Bottle (1999)

The only people who send messages in bottles are starry-eyed kids who want to make faraway friends...and Garret, Kevin Costner's character in this movie. Theresa — Everett Collection

The only people who send messages in bottles are starry-eyed kids who want to make faraway friends...and Kevin Costner's Garret. Theresa (Robin Wright) finds one of these messages, meant for Garret's now-dead wife, and the two eventually meet and fall in love. Then, Garret drowns in the water at the movie's end. Although the moral of basically every Nicholas Sparks movie is that the love of your life will die soon after you meet (unless you're Allie and Noah), Garret's death is made even more ludicrous because his first wife already died and he's just found love again. This is tear-bait at its worst (and most obvious).

2. The Best of Me (2014)

Anyone who's ever watched Grey's Anatomy knows that nabbing a heart transplant is no easy feat. That makes The Best of Me's ending all the more absurd: Amanda (Michelle Monaghan) finally breaks up with her husband so she can be with her one true love, Dawson (James Marsden), but Dawson gets shot and killed that night. That same evening, Amanda finds out her son needs a heart transplant — so guess whose heart he gets? Yep, Dawson's. How romantic and heartbreaking...and oh-so-contrived.

1. Safe Haven (2013)

Also known as ''The One With the Ghost.'' Forget mudslides, forget mutual deaths: Katie, a.k.a. Erin, a.k.a. a woman on the run from her abusive — James Bridges

Also known as ''The One With the Ghost.'' Forget mudslides, forget mutual deaths: Katie (Julianne Hough), a.k.a. Erin, a.k.a. a woman on the run from her abusive husband (David Lyons), befriends a woman who turns out to be her new boyfriend's (Josh Duhamel) dead wife. Of course, we don't know this until the end of the movie; until then, we're led to believe that Jo (Cobie Smulders) is just an unusually welcoming townsperson. Yeah, not so much. (Not to mention when Erin's husband pours gasoline all over her boyfriend's house, only for a firework spark to land on it and set the whole home aflame. Classic firework move.)