Netflix’s My Oxford Year (2025) is a tender, trope-filled romance that charms its way into your heart even as it tugs at your tear ducts. Directed with warmth and buoyed by picturesque shots of the historic university city, the film stars Sofia Carson as Anna, a young American who believes she has her life perfectly mapped out—until fate throws her into a love story she never saw coming.

Anna’s plan is simple: graduate, complete her master’s at Oxford, and step into a high-powered job at Goldman Sachs. But those plans begin to unravel when she meets Jamie (Corey Mylchreest, best known as King George in Queen Charlotte). Their romance unfolds in a flurry of Oxford pubs, quiet libraries, and stolen moments, forcing Anna to confront a life-defining question: should she stick to her carefully laid plans or embrace the unpredictable beauty of living in the present?

What makes My Oxford Year resonate—despite its admittedly familiar romantic beats—is the emotional undercurrent that comes from its central twist. Jamie is terminally ill, a revelation that shifts the tone from a lighthearted meet-cute to a meditation on the fleeting nature of life. His strained relationship with his father, William (a moving performance by Dougray Scott), provides some of the film’s most gut-wrenching moments. Supporting performances, such as Harry Trevaldwyn’s comic relief as Anna’s friend Charlie, help balance the heavier themes.

Adapted from Julia Whelan’s bestselling novel of the same name, the story doesn’t shy away from romance clichés—but instead embraces them. If you’ve ever found yourself predicting the next scene in a romcom yet smiling through it anyway, My Oxford Year is your kind of film. Mylchreest delivers an especially memorable performance, his warmth and vulnerability grounding the more predictable elements of the plot. Carson’s Anna, while sometimes a little shallow on the page, grows into her emotional depth as the film progresses.

Visually, the film is a love letter to Oxford, capturing cobblestone streets and ivy-covered walls in glowing light. The 112-minute runtime moves briskly, and while there’s no traditional “happily ever after,” the ending feels honest—reminding us that love’s worth is not measured in years, but in moments.

For viewers seeking a sweet, bittersweet romance with a touch of wanderlust, My Oxford Year is a heartfelt reminder to savor life’s smallest joys. It might be predictable, but it’s also proof that some stories are worth retelling—especially when they leave you smiling through tears. And to honor Anna’s passion for Yeats and his poetry, a poem that made me reminisce “My Oxford Year” very specifically :

He And She

As the moon sidles up
Must she sidle up,
As trips the scared moon
Away must she trip:
"His light had struck me blind
Dared I stop'.
She sings as the moon sings:
"I am I, am I;
The greater grows my light
The further that I fly'.
All creation shivers
With that sweet cry

• William Butler Yeats