Maguire and Dunst in Spider-Man

What makes a great move kiss?

At the movies, there are kisses in the rain (Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdam in The Notebook, Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst in Spider-Man, Hugh Grant and Andie MacDowell in Four Weddings and a Funeral).

There are kisses at one with nature (Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr bussing amid crashing waves in From Here to Eternity, Simon Baker and Sanaa Lathan kissing in the park in Something New, Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan finally smooching amid irises in You’ve Got Mail).

There are stolen kisses (Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal in Brokeback Mountain, Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity).  There are hungry kisses (Greta Garbo devouring Robert Taylor’s face in Camille, Will Smith gobbling Eva Mendes in Hitch.)

And then there are Hitchcock kisses, which occupy their own special place in the pantheon of movie kisses. If I were an Olympic judge, bronze goes to Jimmy Stewart seizing Kim Novak in Vertigo, silver to Grace Kelly awakening sleeping beauty Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window, and gold to the 2 1/2-minute smoochathon between Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant in Notorious. Hitchcock circumvented the Motion Picture Production Code’s ban against “excessive kissing” by having the pair come up for air every three seconds,  unofficial time limit for a movie kiss. The result leaves the audience as breathless as the characters.

Great movies kisses carry an element of surprise, furtiveness, trangression  or Hitchcockiness.

Surprising: Spider-Man (2002), when title figure Tobey Maguire slithers headfirst down a wall to give girlfriend Kirsten Dunst an upside-down kiss. (If memory serves, Tony Curtis does something like this in Trapeze[1956] hanging from his feet, swinging to meet the mouth of Gina Lollobrigida in mid-air.)  Lady and the Tramp licking kissers — and meatballs — in their self-titled film.

Furtive: Atonement (2007), when James McAvoy pins Keira Knightley against the library shelves, thinking nobody is watching. (Likewise Mississippi Masala [1992], when Denzel Washington and Sarita Choudhury sneak off to Biloxi so they can meet far away from her disapproving family. Or A Place in the Sun [1950], when Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor kiss on the patio, where the partygoers inside can’t see them.)

Trangressive: The Hunger (1983), when vampire Catherine Deneuve seduces medical researcher Susan Sarandon. (Likewise Twilight [2008], when vampire Robert Pattinson kisses, but does not bite, Kristen Stewart. Or when the leonine Beast Jean Marais first kisses Beauty Josette Day in Jean Cocteau’s La Belle et La Bete [1946]. Or Brokeback Mountain [2005], when Jake Gyllenhaal kisses Heath Ledger away from the prying eyes of the city.)

Other movie kisses to build a dream on are Jimmy Stewart springing a kiss on Donna Reed while she’s on the phone in It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), Nic Cage kissing Cher (who is engaged to his brother) in Moonstruck (1987), John Wayne subduing reluctant Maureen O’Hara in The Quiet Man  (1952), Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn sharing their first — and last — kiss in Roman Holiday (1953), Simon Baker overcoming Sanaa Lathan’s resistance in  Something New (2006), Lauren Bacall planting a wet one on Humphrey Bogart in To Have and Have Not (1944), Drew Barrymore practicing her wedding smooch on good pal Adam Sandler in The Wedding Singer (1998) and Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver devouring each other’s lips in The Year of Living Dangerously (1983).