We all give our partners, family members or friends flower bouquets to convey meanings, from love, to affection, grief, or appreciation. Films do the same, either using flowers in their titles, the names they give to characters, or flowers in the films themselves.

Here we reflect on some of the cleverest use of floristry by films you may have seen, as well as some obscure ones you may not have watched yet.

Note: There are spoilers ahead for many films featured.

1. Magnolia (1999)

The epic psychological drama film revolves around the role of chance in human life.

Starring an ensemble cast of Jeremy Blackman, Tom Cruise, Melinda Dillon and Philip Seymour Hoffman, the film’s title comes from the beauty, complexity, and fragility of the magnolia flower, and how our own lives are fragile and prone to breaking down at the slightest bit of pressure.

The writer and director, Paul Thomas Anderson, had the title in his head before he wrote the script.

2. Driving Miss Daisy (1989)

Driving Miss Daisy is a 1989 comedy in which an African American chauffeur, Hoke Colburn (Morgan Freeman) is tasked with chauffeuring Daisy Werthan, AKA Miss Daisy (Jessica Tandy), a 72-year-old widowed Jewish retiree.

The film takes place over twenty years between 1948 and 1972 as the American South transitions from Jim Crow to the era of Civil Rights.

On the surface, the film can seem to have nothing to do with daisies. However, name choices, especially for titular characters, are never a coincidence.

Daisies are commonly thought to symbolize new beginnings, and though the film is about two elderly characters, their changing relationship throughout the film is symbolic of the changing race relations in the American South.

3. Tulip Fever (2017)

A historical drama set in the 17th century Netherlands, a married noblewoman (Alicia Vikander) has an affair with an artist (Dane DeHaan) who has been commissioned to paint her. British stars Tom Hollander and Judi Dench also star in minor roles, as does Oscar-winning actor Christopher Waltz.

Tulip traders come into the drama as characters speculate on the price of tulips during the so-called ‘tulip mania’ of the 1630s Netherlands. The trade provides the main characters with both opportunities and heartbreaks as fortunes are made and lost on the whims of a capricious, speculative market.

Though individual tulips sold for more than houses at the height of the 17th-century bubble, you can today secure an entire bouquet of Timeless Tulips from Fleur de Luxe for just £34.99. Tulip bouquets are available for Birmingham Flower Delivery on a same-day delivery basis, provided you purchase them before 2pm on the expected day of delivery.

4. The War of the Roses (1989)

A modern black comedy directed by Danny DeVito and starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner, in this film, material possessions become the center of a bitter divorce battle between Oliver and Barbara Rose.

From ‘accidentally’ running over the family cat, to the husband being locked in a sauna, the antics of the couple gradually escalate until not only their material possessions but also their friends and loved ones become collateral damage in a high-stakes conflict for a favourable divorce settlement.

The film’s title alludes to the 15th-century conflict between the white rose of York and the red rose of Lancaster. To this date, bouquets of red and white roses are meant to symbolise unity between couples that have recently gone through a conflict, so that they may avoid any further escalating acrimony.

5. Broken Flowers (2005)

Broken Flowers is a 2005 French American comedy-drama film starring Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, and Sharon Stone.

In the film, Don Johnston (Murray) is informed he has a nineteen-year-old son from a previous romantic encounter. Each of the women he reunites with is in some way damaged from their relationship with him, and each encounter Don has with former girlfriends is worse than the last.

To ease the tension of these encounters, Don brings each of his former lovers a bouquet of hand-wrapped flowers. The film demonstrates that flowers can not only be used to bolster existing relationships but ease animosity amongst former friends.

And at the end of the film, Don visits a florist and places them on the grave of a fifth woman who died before the events of the film, further demonstrating one of the other ways in which we use flowers; for grief.

6. Bee Movie (2007)

Flowers are central to the plot of this Golden-Globe nominated CGI family favourite.

Towards the end of the film, the bee Barry B Benson (Jerry Seinfeld) inadvertently bankrupts the human honey industry after a high-profile lawsuit and puts every bee in his hive out of a job, including the ‘Pollen Jocks’.

This leads to the world’s supply of flowers, with no bees to pollinate them, dying out, straining Barry’s friendship with Vanessa Bloome (Renée Zellweger) who, before Barry’s lawsuit, was a New York City florist with dreams of entering an arrangement in the Tournament of Roses, which is a real parade held in Pasadena California.

Eventually, Benson comes up with a plan to fix his mistake, which, hilariously, involves hijacking a plane with the world’s last living flowers intended for the world’s last Tournament of Roses festival. He and some other former Pollen Jocks take the pollen from these flowers and begin to reverse the damage caused by Barry’s lawsuit.

While a movie one can praise for a realistic plot, it has some popular culture references that were dated even in 2007. Bee Movie nonetheless has played a role in highlighting how important bees are to the world’s floral ecosystem.

7. The Wizard of Oz (1939)

The musical fantasy film that introduced a generation to the magic of colour cinema, The Wizard of Oz features flowers as a crucial plot device in a scene halfway through the movie.

After emerging from the enchanted forest, Dorothy (Judie Garland) and her companions race through the field of Red Poppies to reach the Emerald City and meet the Wizard of Oz.

Unfortunately, the Wicked Witch of the West (Margaret Hamilton) has laced these Poppies with sleeping spells that affect Dorothy, Toto, and the Lion. The Scarecrow and the Tin Man, inorganic in composition, appeal to Glinda the Good Witch (Billie Burke) to rain snow on the poppies and re-awaken Dorothy. Though lost on younger viewers, the poppies Dorothy and the Lion fell asleep in were likely meant to be Papaver Somniferum, more commonly known as ‘opium poppies.’

While we primarily think of opium poppies as the root ingredient of drugs such as heroin, they are also used in prescription medications and for edible breads and oils.

Some gardeners even keep them for ornamentation, valuing their colourful blooms and ease of growth. Not all members of the Papaver somniferum genus contain opiates, and even the ones that do are not likely to have anaesthetic effects just from being smelled.

So, like Bee Movie, the Wizard of Oz does not get huge marks for a realistic use of flowers.

7. The Wizard of Oz (1939)

The musical fantasy film that introduced a generation to the magic of colour cinema, The Wizard of Oz features flowers as a crucial plot device in a scene halfway through the movie.

After emerging from the enchanted forest, Dorothy (Judie Garland) and her companions race through the field of Red Poppies to reach the Emerald City and meet the Wizard of Oz.

Unfortunately, the Wicked Witch of the West (Margaret Hamilton) has laced these Poppies with sleeping spells that affect Dorothy, Toto, and the Lion. The Scarecrow and the Tin Man, inorganic in composition, appeal to Glinda the Good Witch (Billie Burke) to rain snow on the poppies and re-awaken Dorothy.

Though lost on younger viewers, the poppies Dorothy and the Lion fell asleep in were likely meant to be Papaver Somniferum, more commonly known as ‘opium poppies.’

While we primarily think of opium poppies as the root ingredient of drugs such as heroin, they are also used in prescription medications and for edible breads and oils.

Some gardeners even keep them for ornamentation, valuing their colourful blooms and ease of growth. Not all members of the Papaver somniferum genus contain opiates, and even the ones that do are not likely to have anaesthetic effects just from being smelled.

8. Memoirs of a Geisha (2005)

Memoirs of a Geisha is a film produced by Stephen Spielberg and based on the 1997 novel of the same name by Arthur Golden. The film depicts the challenges to traditional geisha society posed by the modernisation of Japanese society during the 1930s and WW2.

The cherry blossoms in the movie foreshadow the fleeting joy experienced by Sayuri (Ziyi Zhang) as she gets to spend time with her love interest Chairman Ken Iwamura (Ken Watanabe). Like a cherry blossom, such romances cannot last forever, and in this case, their love is disrupted by the Second World War.

The film is credited with popularising Japanese cherry blossoms to American audiences.

9. The Hunger Games film series (2012-2015)

Flowers are often featured in a symbolic capacity in this four-part dystopian science fiction series.

Most obviously Primrose Everdeen, whom Katniss volunteers to replace in the Hunger Games at the start of the series, is named after the evening primrose. Just as primroses bloom early in the spring, Katniss recognizes that her sister, aged just 13, was not ready for the trials of being selected for the Hunger Games tournament.

In another instance, the White Rose is the favourite flower of Pan-Am’s ruler, Cornelius Snow. He is nearly always seen with them in his lapel and he even leaves one behind in District 12 after he bombs it into submission.

This is a powerful instance of reverse symbolism; Snow is a brutal tyrant, but he uses the White Rose, a symbol of innocence and purity, to legitimize his rule over Pan-Am, or possibly to convince himself that he is doing the right thing.

10. Midsommar (2019)

Flowers are used in Midsommar, the US-Swedish folk-horror film written and directed by Ari Aster, to enhance the film’s visual theme of juxtaposition.

After a series of traumatic events, the main character, Dani Ardor (Florence Pugh) is elected May Queen at a local festival, and she is adorned in an elaborate dress made of flowers that completely engulf her.

Fact: The dress, which features over 10,000 flowers, was recently sold at a charity auction for a reported £50,000.

This dress is a symbol of the acceptance this Swedish folk community gives Ardor, an acceptance she lacks in the family and friends she has lost.

Ultimately wearing the dress allow Dani to become one with nature and, like the 10,000 flowers on her dress, flourish and grow in her new identity.

11. The Great Gatsby (2013)

In Baz Lurhman’s adaptation of F Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novella, Jay Gatsby (Leonardo Di Caprio) adorns the cottage of poor Nick Carraway (Toby Maguire) with flowers, cake, tea, and servants in a futile attempt to demonstrate his newly found wealth to Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan).

Gatsby is hoping to reunite with Daisy after a brief fling with her a few years earlier. While Gatsby is now rich, Daisy is married, and the film follows Gatsby’s ill-conceived plan not only to break her marriage, but convince Daisy she never loved her husband at all.

This involves opulent displays of wealth, of which the reunion scene with the flowers is just the first of many designed to impress Daisy.

Particularly conspicuous in Gatsby’s arrangements are orchids, which are one of the longer-lasting flowers once cut. However, this longevity, like the supposed longevity of Daisy’s affections for Gatsby is deceptive.

Even orchids wither and die eventually, and if grasped too tightly they die even quicker. Such is the fate of Gatsby and Daisy’s brief fling, a victim of Gatsby’s own attempt to manipulable reality, as well as unfortunate external circumstances.

12. Alice in Wonderland (1951)

Roses in the 1951 animated Disney adaptation of Lewis Carrol’s novel come to symbolize cruelty more than affection.

The Queen of Hearts orders the beheading of gardeners who accidentally plant white roses instead of red ones.

So ironically, whereas white roses can symbolize innocence more conventionally, in Alice’s world they become the very thing that incriminates the gardeners.

Their desperate attempts to paint the white roses red does not save them from a gruesome off-screen execution.

13. Alice in Wonderland (2010)

Tim Burton’s more surreal 2010 adaptation of the same novel features a similar Queen of Hearts (Helena Bonham Carter) monomaniacally obsessed with the colour of her roses.

But it also features a myriad of flowers from daisies to violets to roses with animated faces, though only the roses seem interested in talking to Alice as she makes her way through the garden.

Tim Burton’s adaptation, as well as being live action, has been argued to be somewhat truer to the surrealist nature of the novel than the 1951 cartoon.

14. Beauty and the Beast (1991)

Another Disney classic to utilize roses as a form of symbolism is Beauty and the Beast, written by Linda Woolverton and starring Paige O'Hara as Belle and Robby Benson as Beast.

After rejecting a rose from an enchantress disguised as a beggar, an arrogant prince is cursed and turned into a beast.

Red roses are a common symbol of love, but in this film, the meaning is subverted a little as the rose also comes to represent death; if Beast does not find love before the rose dies on his 21st birthday, he too will remain a Beast forever.

The rose also takes on the symbolism of unrequited love and rejection, first the rejection of the enchantress by the prince and then the rejection of Beast by Belle, before their happily-ever-after.

15. Plucking the Daisy (1956).

Plucking the Daisy (or in French, En effeuillant la marguerite), is one of the earliest films in the career of iconic French actress and activist Brigitte Bardot.

The film covers the life of Agnès Dumont (Bardot) as she flees her father and, in search of money, enters an amateur stripping contest.

Her outfit is a dainty daisy bralette, which subverts our traditional understanding of daisies as symbolic of innocence and purity.