The film features an ensemble cast, composed predominantly of British actors, many of whom had worked with Curtis in previous projects.

The film delves into different aspects of love as shown through 10 separate stories involving a variety of individuals, many of whom are interlinked as the plot progresses.

The film received mixed reviews and a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy.

The wedding of Juliet (Keira Knightley) and Peter (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is videotaped by the best man, Mark (Andrew Lincoln), where a surprise band plays the Beatles' "All You Need Is Love" as they walk out of the church.

Juliet insists she wants them to be friends, but when she views the wedding video Mark recorded, she sees many extreme close-ups of herself and few of Peter's face.

While Peter is inside watching television, Mark shows a message of his love to Juliet through a series of cue cards.

Crushed, Jamie withdraws to his French cottage, where he meets Portuguese housekeeper Aurélia (Lúcia Moniz), who does not speak English.

He is almost caught by his wife purchasing an expensive necklace with a gold heart pendant from the jewelry department when the salesman, Rufus (Rowan Atkinson), takes an inordinate amount of time to wrap it.

Opening a similarly shaped box on Christmas Eve, she is heartbroken to find it is a Joni Mitchell CD, realises he bought the necklace for someone else, and cries in their bedroom alone.

Daniel (Liam Neeson), Karen's close friend, mourns the recent death of his wife, Joanna, as he tries to care for his stepson Sam (Thomas Brodie-Sangster).

There, he immediately meets Stacey (Ivana Miličević), Jeannie (January Jones), and Carol-Anne (Elisha Cuthbert), three stunningly attractive women who instantly fall for his Estuary English accent, and invite him to stay at their home, where they are joined by their "sexiest" roommate Harriet (Shannon Elizabeth).

They carefully pursue a relationship, attending the Christmas pageant (involving David and Natalie, Harry and Karen's children, Daniel and Sam) at the local school with John's brother.

Rufus (Rowan Atkinson) is the jewellery salesman at Department Store whose meticulous gift-wrapping nearly results in Karen seeing Harry buying a necklace for Mia.

These scenes dissolve into footage of actual arrivals at Heathrow, as the screen is divided into an increasing number of smaller segments to form a photographic mosaic of a heart.

Harry and Karen's children (and thus David's niece and nephew), Natalie's siblings (and thus Mia's neighbours), and Carol's son are all schoolmates of Sam and Joanna.

[9] For the scene in which Rowan Atkinson's character Rufus annoys Harry, Alan Rickman's reaction was reportedly genuine, having been "driven insane" by the time constraints.

[19][20] Most of the film was made on location in London, including Heathrow Airport, Trafalgar Square, the central court of Somerset House in the Strand, Grosvenor Chapel on South Audley Street near Hyde Park, St Paul's Church, Clapham, the Millennium Bridge, Selfridges department store on Oxford Street, Lambeth Bridge, the Tate Modern in the former Bankside Power Station, Canary Wharf, Marble Arch, St. Luke's Mews off All Saint's Road in Notting Hill, Chelsea Bridge, the OXO Tower, London City Hall, Poplar Road in Herne Hill, Elliott School in Pullman Gardens, Putney, and Marseille Airport.

[21] Following Tony Blair's resignation as Prime Minister, pundits and speculators commented on a potential anti-American shift in Gordon Brown's cabinet as a "Love Actually moment", referring to the scene in which Hugh Grant's character stands up to the US President.

[25] In the scene in question, the swaggering president bullies the prime minister and then sexually harasses a member of the household staff.

[27] In the first scene, Anne Reid, as the headmistress of Karen's children's school, is revealed to be going home to her terminally ill partner, Geraldine, played by Frances de la Tour.

It was commercially unreleased until 19 November 2021, when it was released digitally by Universal Pictures' Back Lot Music, and on CD by La-La Land Records.

In the UK cut, the montage leading up to and continuing through the first part of the office party is set to the song "Too Lost in You", by the British group Sugababes.

[38] Michael Atkinson of The Village Voice called it "love British style, handicapped slightly by corny circumstance and populated by colorful neurotics".

[39] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three and a half out of four stars, describing it as "a belly-flop into the sea of romantic comedy ...

"[41] In his review in The New York Times, journalist A. O. Scott called it "a romantic comedy swollen to the length of an Oscar-trawling epic" and added, "It is more like a record label's greatest-hits compilation or a very special sitcom clip-reel show than an actual movie.

"[42] In Rolling Stone, Peter Travers rated it two stars out of a possible four, saying "there are laughs laced with feeling here, but the deft screenwriter Richard Curtis dilutes the impact by tossing in more and more stories.

"[43] Christopher Orr of The Atlantic was negative toward the work and described it as the least romantic movie of all time, considering its ultimate message to be "It's probably best if you give up on love altogether and get on with the rest of your life.

"[44][45] Since its initial release some publications have come to regard Love Actually as a cult film as it is habitually watched by many people as a holiday staple.

Publications such as CNN,[47] The Atlantic[48] and The Telegraph[49] have written positively about Love Actually whilst others such as The Independent,[50] Cosmopolitan[51] and The Guardian[52] have panned the film.

[56] In 2017, Richard Curtis wrote a script for Red Nose Day that reunited a dozen characters and picked up their storylines fourteen years later.