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This weekend heralds the opening of what is surely to be one of the great, truly groundbreaking comedies of this or any era. Okay, that was a late April Fools' joke, but I am talking of Date Night, the first film to combine two stars from the NBC Thursday night comedies, 30 Rock's Tina Fey and The Office's Steve Carell. It's too early to say, of course, but if the previews are any indication, I think I'll stick with their TV shows. However, the plot of the film, while seeming a bit too derivative of Scorsese's 1985 black comedy After Hours, does hinge on one somewhat unique idea: that a married couple can still have fun. Frankly, the idea that any couple can have fun in a movie is pretty rare in movies these days, and even harder to find if you're looking for good movies.

Yes, I'm assuming that Date Night is going to suck, and all of that despite Carell, Fey, James Franco, Mila Kunis, and a large enough cast that should impress most people. Granted, I could be wrong (but the mere presence of Shawn Levy as director fills me full of unease). For all I know, the characters Carell and Fey play could become among the best couples ever captured on screen. This week's A-List will look at five truly iconic cinematic couples, married or otherwise. Some of these films are not action movies, some are not comedies, but all feature truly exciting male-female duos (sorry, all of you readers hoping for me to throw in a Butch and Sundance combination), which is rarer and rarer these days.

What makes this list a bit bittersweet - again, assuming that Date Night isn't, at the very least, a potentially classic comedy - is that Steve Carell and Tina Fey should be a perfect pairing. No, scratch that: they are a perfect pairing. Hell, I'm going to end up seeing Date Night at some point, but probably on Netflix, and not because of my feverish excitement. No, I feel an obligation to support Liz Lemon and Brick Tamland (or, fine, Michael Scott), and I'm even a bit admiring of the idea of a married couple having their relationship get rekindled. If only it didn't involve them getting in car chases, facing down Ray Liotta, and dealing with a shirtless Mark Wahlberg. Anyway, none of these movies involve any of those people, so it's a start, to be sure. Let's get to the list.

Nick and Nora

There can be no list about couples in film without including, at the very top, without any hesitation, Nick and Nora Charles, first seen in 1934 in The Thin Man. Though there were plenty of sequels, it's the original film that you must see if you haven't. The Thin Man is ostensibly a detective story, a whodunit in the drawing room genre, but what makes the film a classic are William Powell and Myrna Loy, who play Nick and Nora, respectively. Any time we talk about two actors having chemistry in film or on television, this should be the standard. Why? It's not so much that Powell and Loy create sparks - they do - so much as that you absolutely believe that they've been married for years. Nick and Nora Charles were, as mentioned in previous articles by far smarter critics, kind of alcoholics, and were somewhat bonded in their love of the drink. But their love for each other is as obvious and hard to avoid.

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