32 movies to watch after a breakup
Aug. 21, 2024When love stops feeling rosy, mend your broken heart with these movies
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Since the start of the movie industry, the most popular stories have been love stories. Because there’s no greater fantasy than falling in love with just the right person. But what’s one to do when love has completely fallen apart? What movies can one watch when they’re in the throes of a breakup? Thankfully, there’s over 30 movies that are perfect for the (sad) occasion.
While everyone deals with breakups in their own ways with their own movie rituals - Jess from the show New Girl, for example, liked to cry endlessly to Dirty Dancing - some movies are undisputed in how they heal broken hearts without useless platitudes like “love conquers all.” Sometimes, love needs to take a hike.
If you’re still feeling raw from the end of a relationship, or even just a situationship (which you knew was going to end badly, right?), here are 32 movies to watch now that you’re sad and single again. Cheer up! Or don’t. These movies will get you feelingfeelingsno matter what you’re looking for.
32. Chasing Amy (1997)
Breakups are a time of self-reflection, meditation, and realization. Few movies capture the sad and hilarious ordeal of finding clarity like Chasing Amy. Kevin Smith’s third feature film is perhaps his most mature, in its tale of a comic book artist (Ben Affleck) who falls for breathtaking Alyssa (Joey Lauren Adams). See, Affleck’s Holden believes he and Alyssa would be great together, if she weren’t a lesbian. With writer/director Smith at the top of his game, Chasing Amy is a blaring siren warning against letting our infatuations color our perceptions.
For hopeless romantics who still want to believe in the impossible, there’s About Time. Domhnall Gleeson plays a young man in London who inherits his family’s power to travel in time. That power comes in handy when he meets and falls in love with enchanting American expat Mary (Rachel McAdams). While About Time demands a little too much suspension of disbelief, it’s an uplifting little rom-com that can reinstill a sense of hope. We can’t rewind time, but we can always try again.
Can a divorced couple stay best friends? That’s the question grilled by the funny and sincere Celeste and Jesse Forever from director Lee Toland Kreiger. The movie stars Rashida Jones and Andy Samberg as a former couple who married early but remain close friends after their divorce – their chemistry deemed awkward by everyone around them. But when Samberg’s Jesse starts a family, Jones' Celeste starts to wonder if she might have regrets. Intelligent and mature, Celeste and Jesse Forever forgo Hollywood happy endings for something more meaningful and real.
When dealing with breakups, maybe the last thing anyone needs is a sweep-off-your-feet love story. But Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant are irresistible in Notting Hill, one of the best rom-coms to come out at the turn of the century. Roberts plays Hollywood movie star Anna Scott who wanders into a humble bookstore (travel books only) owned by its lonely curator Will (Grant). Amid sparks, the two try to date while dealing with Anna’s superstar life. Notting Hill feels like a dream - a love story that only happens in the movies. For some broken hearts, there’s nothing better.
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Lost In Translation isn’t a conventional love story. Which is why it’s a near-perfect movie to heal from hurt feelings. Directed by Sofia Coppola, the movie stars Bill Murray as an aging Hollywood actor doing commercials in Japan where he meets a beautiful photographer’s wife (Scarlett Johansson). Stranded in a strange place together, the two form a deep connection - one that isn’t bound by traditional notions of attractions. An “anti-romance” romance that explores the complexities of affairs, Lost In Translation is about the thrill of finding mutual understanding in another wandering soul - a balm for all who feel suddenly abandoned by the universe.
If your breakup has you feeling funny about commitment (or lack thereof), seek out Runaway Bride. This classic ’90s rom-com co-stars Richard Gere as a magazine columnist in New York City who travels to Maryland to profile Maggie Carpenter (Julia Roberts), a beautiful young woman whose local fame comes from the many men she’s left at the altar. Inevitably, Gere and Roberts' characters fall in love while Carpenter prepares to marry - or, the town suspects, leave behind yet again - a popular high school football coach (Christopher Meloni). Runaway Bride is very silly, but through its sheer star power and effective Marc Anthony needle drop during the credits, Runaway Bride runs circles around all our hearts.
For some, breakups mean focusing on the things that actually matter in life and letting love come last. But movies like How Stella Got Her Groove Back, directed by Kevin Rodney Sullivan, posit that maybe, there can be balance. Angela Bassett stars as a successful, forty-something divorcee and single mother whose much-needed vacation to Jamaica puts her in front of strapping islander Winston (Taye Diggs). After a dreamy escape from the real world, Stella is torn between her potentially real feelings from a steamy fling and her responsibilities back home. The end of one thing is always the start of another, and How Stella Got Her Groove Back is practically a video manual on how to get yourself back.
Do you love The Smiths? If you do, you probably already love (500) Days of Summer. The movie, which turned Joseph Gordon-Levitt into a leading man and gave Zooey Deschanel fame before her starring role in New Girl, follows an aimless architect (Gordon-Levitt) who falls for mystifying Summer (Deschanel). While the two get together, they fail to come to a shared understanding of what together actually means - and if it means forever. While the movie primarily takes the point of view of lovesick Tom, (500) Days of Summer is an everlasting portrait of those romances that we sure felt like “the one.” But as the movie’s narrator itself warns at the top: This is not a love story.
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. In Quentin Tarantino’s mid-aughts classic duology, Uma Thurman takes up a katana to scratch off the enigmatic “Bill” (David Carradine) and the squad of femme fatale assassins he used to manage. While the two movies keep the true relationship between Thurman’s “The Bride” and Bill secret until later in the story, just know that Kill Bill is a movie extremely suited to those who’ve just survived love’s violence with blood still dripping off their faces. There ain’t no crying over love here, daddy-o. There’s only revenge.
When going through a breakup, it’s important to focus on yourself. Do things you’ve always wanted to do. Go on that resort trip to Oahu - just don’t run into your ex and her new boyfriend. Because that’s the problem faced by Peter (Jason Segel), a television music composer who goes on a solo trip to cope only to end up in the same resort as his recent ex Sarah Marshall (Kirsten Bell), a TV actress, and her obnoxious new rock star boyfriend (Russell Brand). Arguably one of the funniest studio comedies about breakups ever made, Forgetting Sarah Marshall is a compulsively rewatchable 2000s classic that makes broken hearts sing like a vampire puppet musical.
Alain Resnais' beguiling French-language classic about truth and memory is not to miss, whether you’re in the throes of heartbreak or not. Released in 1961, the film takes place in a luxury hotel where an unnamed man (Girgio Albertazzi) goes up to an unnamed woman (Delphine Seyrig) and insists that they not only know each other, but are in love and have plans to get married. The woman denies any of this, kicking off a seductive odyssey about what is true - and what is real. With impeccable visual compositions that dwell in the uncanny valley, Last Year in Marienbad is a movie that invites us all to realize how our own memories of past loves are more one-sided than we care to admit.
This one’s for theboys. Directed by Doug Liman (of Mr. and Mrs. Smith) and written by and starring Jon Favreau in the movie that launched his career, Swingers charts the lives of single people chasing their dreams in Los Angeles. One of them, a comedian from New York named Mike Peters (Favreau), is still dealing with his breakup when his womanizing friend Trent (Vince Vaughn) decides to embark on an impromptu trip to Las Vegas. Over the course of the movie, Mike learns from Trent how to cut loose, make connections, and move on - critical lessons that everyone, dudes especially, need to learn when love has them feeling blue. You can’t stay in place forever, you know. You gotta keep, y’know, swingin'.
The beacons are lit! Gondor calls for aid! When a breakup inspires a call to adventure, there’s no escape greater than to Middle-earth. Peter Jackson’s definitive fantasy film trilogy, itself based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s seminal novels, clocks in at almost nine total hours - and a whopping 11 hours, if you’re doing the Extended Editions. (Which you should.) But more than just killing an entire weekend on your couch (because let’s face it, after a breakup, we’re not goinganywhere), the movies are worthwhile in their timeless portrayal of keeping a brave face and staying resolute against the infinite darkness. What’s that? You want a literal love story in there? See: Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen) and Arwen (Liv Tyler). You’ll thank me later.
When heartache has you jonesing for mojitos, Miami Vice can get you there. Michael Mann’s cult crime noir from 2006 (itself a gritty reboot of the 1980s television hit that Mann produced) is the go-to movie for anyone who knows when attraction brings forth darkened clouds. While the movie is primarily about undercover Miami cops (Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx) trying to take down a trafficking operation, therealstory - the one anyone actually remembers - is the forbidden romance between Farrell’s Detective Sonny and alluring Isabella (Gong Li). In the same way one too many mojitos and joy rides on go-fast boats can make your head swirl, so too does Sonny and Isabella’s clandestine fling dizzy up the place, and in a tragic, almost Shakespearean kind of way. A star-crossed romance for calloused souls, Miami Vice captures the thrill of romance without a safety net.
He may be persona non grata, but there’s no denying that filmmaker Woody Allen is behind some of the sharpest movies about modern love ever made. While most folks tend to refer to his classics like Annie Hall, Manhattan, and Hannah and Her Sisters, it’s his 1980 comedy Stardust Memories that is the most explicit about rebounding and learning from past romances. Allen plays the role of a filmmaker (what else) whose attendance of a career retrospective inspires him to revisit the women that inspired his movies. A satirical take on Frederico Fellini’s 8 ½, Allen’s Stardust Memories is often overlooked compared to his other masterpieces. But for those still trying to emotionally rebuild, the movie is pretty much perfect in offering some tough love.
Tip: Do a double feature with Sophia Coppola’s Lost in Translation. The two filmmakers were once married and then divorced, with each of their movies fictionalizing their real feelings towards each other and the end of their relationships.
It is, just maybe,themovie to watch after a breakup. A “Top 5,” if you will. John Cusack stars in Stephen Frears' romantic dramedy High Fidelity as a Chicago record store owner who copes with his most recent failed relationship by retracing his entire romantic history to figure out why it all keeps falling apart. (All the while, Cuasck addresses the audience directly, serving as the narrator to his own story.) Reflective and witty, High Fidelity invites us all to reexamine our histories while vibing out to a most tasteful soundtrack. An acclaimed series remake ran for one season on Hulu, with Zoe Kravitz in the lead role.
Renowned Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai is loved the world over for his grasp of sensuality and desire. His 2000 romantic drama In the Mood for Love, towering in its timeless portrait of unbearable yearning, is many people’s introduction to his body of work. But his 1994 movie Chungking Express is perhaps what freshly-dumped souls are really looking for. Chungking Express tells two different stories - each centered around different men (Takeshi Kaneshiro and Tony Leung) - whose abandonment by their partners are interrupted by new people. Chungking Express has a very different vibe than his other movies; Janet Maslin of The New York Times criticized it for its “aggressive energy” akin to MTV. But for anyone still in recovery from heartbreak, any Wong Kar-wai movie will do. In the Mood for Love gets you in the mood for love, but Chungking Express is a ride to somewhere else.
There are arguments to be made that Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is the bestandthe worst movie to watch post-breakup. Jim Carrey stars as a man who learns that his estranged girlfriend (Kate Winslet) has just undergone an experimental procedure in which all memories of their relationship have been purged. Distraught, Carrey’s protagonist chooses to undergo the same procedure. But in the deep recesses of his collapsing memories, he realizes that her memory is what he holds dear the most. In the end, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’s semi-ambiguous ending has multiple suggestions. For one thing: Letting go is really, really hard, and we should all give ourselves credit for learning to do so. Second: Even doomed relationships are worth their trouble, because those are the ones that really teach us about ourselves.
Eric Francisco is a freelance entertainment journalist and graduate of Rutgers University. If a movie or TV show has superheroes, spaceships, kung fu, or John Cena, he’s your guy to make sense of it. A former senior writer at Inverse, his byline has also appeared at Vulture, The Daily Beast, Observer, and The Mary Sue. You can find him screaming at Devils hockey games or dodging enemy fire in Call of Duty: Warzone.
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