For all the media speculation on how the Obama presidency will affect pop culture, it’s surprising that Barack and Michelle’s marriage is not discussed much. This is a couple who embrace often, and not just for camera opportunities. She has even been seen wearing his coat as if it were a high school varsity jacket. Have we ever seen a happier presidential marriage? Seriously, if the Clinton era birthed a film like American Beauty, it’s no wonder that Revolutionary Road can only earn about an eighth of that film’s domestic gross now that the Obamas are in the White House.

But can Barack and Michelle inspire happier onscreen marriages? And can that in turn influence marriage in America? Although the divorce rate was higher thirty years ago than it is now, the marriage rate in this country is at an all-time low. And that’s probably because young people haven’t had an ideal married couple they could look up to. So, in order to help Hollywood produce more loving movie marriages, we’ve selected five onscreen pairings that may serve as models.

Nick and Nora Charles in The Thin Man (1934)

Throughout six movies in the Thin Man series, Nick and Nora (William Powell and Myrna Loy) are evidence that marriage can be loads of fun. Sure, their happiness is lubed with lots of alcohol, but their playful nature and perfect understanding of each other are more than a result of their booze intake. While it’s not a certainty that they’d be as good together after a stint in rehab, there’s also no proof that they’d need to quit drinking. After all, they manage to solve crimes and raise a well-adjusted son despite their perpetual drunkenness. The most educational scenes for young lovers to watch are those that display Nick and Nora’s good-natured attitude toward jealousy. As much as they joke, they are clearly completely faithful to each other and also clearly trusting of that faithfulness.

Jerry and Lucy Warriner in The Awful Truth (1937)

Cary Grant was the king of comedy of remarriage, and though His Girl Friday and The Philadelphia Story are his more beloved titles from the genre, this was the first one. More importantly, it was the first of three such films costarring Irene Dunne as his bride-to-reconcile-with (the others are My Favorite Wife and Penny Serenade, though the latter is melodrama rather than a comedy), and it’s Dunne who is arguably the most visibly compatible. Rosalind Russell and Katherine Hepburn may have had good dialogue to show why their characters were meant to get back together with Grant’s, but Dunne and Grant had better chemistry. All three of their films together are wonderful examples of why couples shouldn’t rush into divorce or separation (or in the case of My Favorite Wife, into certain belief that your partner is dead), and any screwball comedy dealing with remarriage is worth a look, too. The hilarious sabotages that occur in The Awful Truth, however, are some of the greatest unorthodox displays of true love ever. Interestingly enough, the same pup that played the Charles’ dog “Asta” in The Thin Man plays the Warriner’s “Mr. Smith” in The Awful Truth.

Adam and Amanda Bonner in Adam’s Rib (1949)

There is really no better film about marriage than George Cukor’s ahead-of-its-time picture about married lawyers who go head to head in an attempted-murder case. The battle of the sexes extends beyond the courtroom, and at times the Bonners seem like they may kill each other, or at the very least divorce. But otherwise, there’s no married couple more believably in love in the history of cinema. It helps that Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn were equally exemplary of true love off camera, even if they weren’t a great example of successful marriage (the actors were never married because Tracy’s religious beliefs prohibited him from divorcing his wife). For that reason, most of the other eight Hepburn-Tracy films would qualify for this list, too.  One key moment in Adam’s Rib for prospective married couples to watch: the reciprocal massage scene, which is as realistic as it is romantic. Never mind that it ends in momentary strife. It’s clearly a spat between two people who adore each other.

Norman and Ethel Thayer in On Golden Pond (1981)

These days it’s getting harder and harder to find someone with married grandparents (I, myself, have a grandmother who’s been married four times and a grandfather who’s been married three times), so after 28 years, On Golden Pond remains the first film most of us cite when we think of movies about the twilight years of marriage. It’s hard not to wish Spencer Tracy had lived long enough to play opposite Katherine Hepburn once again here, but Hepburn is nearly as good with Henry Fonda. Maybe it’s the fact that in the film Fonda wears Tracy’s “lucky hat,” which Hepburn supplied him with in their first ever meeting before starting production. Or, more likely, it’s that these two legendary actors could still make us believe in love between two people in their 70s. Actually, it’s mostly to Hepburn’s credit, as she’s the one who primarily makes us believe Ethel still finds Norman sexy and believes him to be her “knight in shining armor.” Fonda, on the other hand, comes off as an “old poop,” just as he’s meant to. But we know better about him, again thanks to Ethel, who tells him, “you really are the sweetest man in the world, but I’m the only one who knows it.”

Alabama and Clarence Worley in True Romance (1993)

We figure there needs to be one modern-era film in the bunch (On Golden Pond hardly counts since its couple is a remnant of the Golden Age), and one released at the dawn of the Clinton presidency to boot. The film selected, however, is still emblematic of the age of cynicism. Hardly realistic and barely even a desirable fantasy, this violent fairy tale from the mind of Quentin Tarantino via Terrence Malick via Tony Scott is nonetheless the best love story involving a married couple made in the last twenty years. The majority of the film takes place during what’s basically the honeymoon of Alabama and Clarence (Patricia Arquette and Christian Slater, respectively), who also only got married immediately after meeting each other. But if we’re apt to dismiss the ideas of love at first sight, marrying a call girl and a happily ever after life on a beach somewhere as complete figments of Hollywood imagination it’s only because we’ve for so long been under the impression that love and marriage are like oil and water.