For decades, Nollywood has defined what love looks like for millions of Africans. From the passionate embraces of Genevieve Nnaji and Ramsey Nouah in early 2000s blockbusters to the glittering perfection of recent Netflix romances like The Wedding Party, our screens have long promised that love is either a fairytale or a battlefield. But behind the glamour, laughter, and heartbreak, there’s a growing sense that Nigerian cinema, for all its creative growth, still hasn’t captured the raw, complicated beauty of real love.

In most Nollywood love stories, romance still feels scripted for the screen, not for life. The formula is predictable: rich boy meets humble girl; class divides threaten their union; love conquers all. Or sometimes, a jilted woman finds new love after betrayal, usually with someone richer, handsomer, and conveniently more emotionally mature. But where are the stories about the couples who stay even when life gets messy? The everyday love that isn’t grand or Instagram-perfect but quietly resilient?

Love Beyond the Lens

Real love doesn’t always come with music swelling in the background or dramatic confessions under the rain. It’s in the quiet moments, a look across a kitchen table, a shared struggle to pay rent, or a gentle apology after a fight. But Nollywood often avoids these subtleties because they don’t sell. Filmmakers know audiences crave escape, not reflection. Yet, the industry risks creating a distorted emotional template, one where love is performative, transactional, or fleeting.

Take Before Valentine’s (2022) or Dinner at My Place (2023) beautiful cinematography, witty banter, but almost no emotional depth. Compare that to Blue Valentine from Hollywood or Her, both films that dared to show love unraveling, that love can hurt and still be true. When was the last time Nollywood truly captured that kind of vulnerability?

Even movies that aim to be more grounded, like Kunle Afolayan’s Citation, prioritize moral and social messaging over emotional realism. It’s not that Nollywood doesn’t know love; it just doesn’t linger long enough to let it breathe.

When Love Becomes Performance

Today, much of what we call “romance” in Nollywood mirrors the social media version of relationships filtered, rehearsed, and often commercialized. A 2023 Statista report showed that Nigerians spend an average of 4 hours daily on social platforms, where content about luxury lifestyles and relationship goals dominates. This constant performance of perfection seeps into storytelling.

Instead of vulnerability, we get virality. Love becomes something to flaunt, not to nurture. Films mirror that weddings with drone shots, designer gowns, champagne toasts but we rarely see the morning after: the emotional labour, the loneliness, or the unspoken exhaustion of maintaining appearances. In trying to make love glamorous, Nollywood often strips it of the very humanness that makes it believable.

The Gendered Illusion

There’s also a glaring gender imbalance in how love is portrayed. Female characters are either victims or vindicators, the woman who suffers, forgives, or “wins” by finally landing the man. Men, on the other hand, are painted as flawed geniuses or stoic providers. Real emotional complexity men expressing fear, vulnerability, or doubt remains rare.

In films like Isoken or Chief Daddy, even progressive women are subtly reminded that fulfillment lies in marriage. Yet in modern Nigerian society, many young women are openly questioning that narrative. A 2024 Pew Research Center survey found that 57% of African Gen Z women believe happiness doesn’t depend on marriage, a sentiment Nollywood still struggles to depict honestly.

Why Real Love Feels Missing

Part of the problem is cultural. For years, Nigerian cinema has been shaped by censorship boards, moral expectations, and audience conservatism. The National Film and Video Censors Board still regulates portrayals of intimacy, often cutting scenes that show affection too “boldly.” This cautiousness creates a paradox filmmakers can show violence freely, but not tenderness.

Then there’s the economics. Love stories are among the most bankable genres in Nollywood. Studios play it safe, reusing storylines that guarantee box office returns. Netflix, which has invested heavily in Nigerian originals since 2020, tends to favour high-energy, universally appealing content, not the quiet, emotionally layered kind.

Still, we can’t ignore the role of audience demand. As much as filmmakers recycle predictable plots, many Nigerian viewers reward those same clichés. Romantic comedies top cinema charts because they offer an escape from harsh realities, inflation, unemployment, insecurity. According to NOI Polls, entertainment remains one of the strongest stress-relievers for urban Nigerians. When people walk into the cinema, they’re not always seeking realism; they want relief. But over time, constant escapism blurs expectations. Love becomes less about connection and more about consumption, something to buy into, not believe in.

Where Nollywood Gets It Right

To be fair, some recent productions have taken bold steps toward portraying love with realism. A Sunday Affair (2023) and The Wait (2021) explored emotional loyalty, forgiveness, and the spiritual dimensions of love in ways rarely seen before. Directors like Biodun Stephen and Tope Oshin have shown that it’s possible to balance entertainment with authenticity.

Even more promising are indie filmmakers on platforms like YouTube, who are experimenting with rawer, less commercial love narratives. These small-scale productions sometimes shot on phones or low budgets often feel more real than the multi-million naira blockbusters.

Interestingly, streaming platforms are changing the rules of love on screen. Platforms like Prime Video Nigeria and Showmax have started funding bolder, character-driven stories that don’t rely on predictable romance formulas. A few upcoming projects even feature interracial, long-distance, or same-gender love stories something that would’ve been taboo a decade ago. This quiet shift shows that the appetite for complexity is growing, even if mainstream Nollywood is slow to catch up.

Love as Humanity, Not Spectacle

If Nollywood wants to evolve, it must start seeing love not as a spectacle but as storytelling truth. That means writing characters who don’t just fall in love but learn to love across class, culture, and time. It means normalizing imperfections: failed relationships that don’t end in revenge, marriages that survive infidelity through growth, men who cry, women who lead.

African love stories have depth our songs, our folktales, our grandparents’ enduring marriages prove that. As author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie once said, “The problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete.” That’s precisely what Nollywood needs to fix: not inventing new love stories, but completing the ones it already began.

Beyond representation, there’s also the question of impact. What happens when generations grow up consuming love stories that don’t resemble their reality? Sociologists at the University of Lagos argue that media portrayals influence emotional expectations, shaping how young people approach dating, marriage, and even conflict. If Nollywood keeps equating love with luxury, it risks creating a culture where affection feels performative and compassion undervalued. Real love isn’t always cinematic and maybe that’s the point.

The world doesn’t need another “boy meets girl, boy loses girl” story. What it needs and what Nollywood is uniquely positioned to give is truth. A love that’s messy, human, and deeply African. Until then, our screens will keep showing us love that looks perfect but feels empty.