One of the saddest romantic movies of all time has now been making us cry for 20 years

By Marianne Garvey, CNN

(CNN) — If you’re in need of a good cry, release your tears and rewatch “The Notebook” as it turns 20 on Tuesday.

The beloved romance movie, starring Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams as a young couple separated by class, released on June 25 2004. Directed by Nick Cassavetes, the movie is based on the 1996 Nicholas Sparks book of the same name and follows an elderly man, played by James Garner, reading aloud from a notebook to a woman in a nursing home with dementia, played by Gena Rowlands.

As he reads, the movie flashes back to 1940s South Carolina, where Gosling’s lumber mill worker Noah Calhoun falls in love with rich girl Allie Hamilton, whose parents try to keep them apart.

Cassavetes credited the film’s costars with its staying power.

“They’re both the greatest actors in the world, and some of the things that I asked them to play were so difficult, and there was nothing they couldn’t do,” the director recalled in a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly. “If you want to know why The Notebook is considered kind of a romantic classic, the answers are Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams, and that’s the beginning and the end of it.”

Cassavetes told the publication that Rowlands, who is his mother, is now currently living with Alzheimers.

“I got my mom to play older Allie, and we spent a lot of time talking about Alzheimer’s and wanting to be authentic with it, and now, for the last five years, she’s had Alzheimer’s,” Cassavetes said. “We lived it, she acted it, and now it’s on us.”

Sparks drew inspiration from a real couple to pen the touching love story.

“It is a story of young love, it’s a story of reunited love, it’s a story of everlasting love,” the author told CBS Sunday Morning. “It’s also a story of memory.”

Here are five unforgettable exchanges from “The Notebook” movie:

• “So it’s not gonna be easy. It’s going to be really hard; we’re gonna have to work at this everyday, but I want to do that because I want you. I want all of you, forever, everyday. You and me… everyday.” Noah to Allie

• “My dearest Allie, I couldn’t sleep last night because I know that it’s over between us… I’m not bitter anymore because I know that what we had was real… And if in some distant place in the future we see each other in our new lives, I’ll smile at you with joy, and remember how we spent a summer beneath the trees, learning from each other and growing in love.” Noah in a letter to Allie

• “The best love is the kind that awakens the soul, and makes us reach for more, that, plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds. And that’s what you’ve given me. That’s what I hope to give to you forever. I love you. I’ll be seeing you.” Noah to Allie

• “Now, say you’re a bird.”

“If you’re a bird, I’m a bird.” Allie and Noah

• “Why didn’t you write me? Why? It wasn’t over for me, I waited for you for seven years. But now it’s too late.”

“I wrote you 365 letters. I wrote you everyday for a year.”

“You wrote me?”

“Yes… it wasn’t over, it still isn’t over.” Allie and Noah

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