Valentine's Day Movies to Watch if You Hate Valentine's Day
If you’re looking to curl up with someone this Valentine’s Day, there are whole continents of cinema devoted to that mood. As usual on February 14, however, the less romantically inclined amongst us will likely reach for something a little different; something a little more nihilistic, perhaps; the kind of movie that reminds you that, despite it all, there are far worse things than being single.
If you feel like going out, there’s a good chance that Emerald Fennel’s “Wuthering Heights” will satisfy viewers of both persuasions. For anyone looking to stay at home, however, we’ve got you covered. The following list, which I’ve arranged in no particular order, contains rom-coms, thrillers, sex, sci-fi and even a movie from 82 years ago, and any one of them should pair nicely with a glass of something strong as it’s raised against this allegedly “most romantic” day of the year.
Read on to discover more and use the guide below to find them on services like AppleTV, Netflix, Prime Video and elsewhere.
It took a minute before people came around to the fact that David Fincher’s Gone Girl was a modern pulp classic. On first viewing, the movie leads you to believe you’re watching it from the man’s perspective—a New York writer (Ben Affleck) who believes he’s being framed for his wife’s, at best, disappearance, at worst, murder.
Without giving too much away, the movie then pulls the rug from underneath you with a delicious second-act swerve that’s punctuated with one of the great anti-romance monologues of the last 20 years. Come to this one if you’re a fan of Fincher's work (Zodiac and Mindhunter in particular) but stay for Rosamund Pike’s career-best performance.
Ten years before Gone Girl was released, Charlie Kaufman wrote a screenplay that also focused on the mistruths we choose to tell about each other while in relationships—albeit through the lens of a science fiction movie.
That screenplay became Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: a movie about falling in love too easily that also asked if, during the depths of a break-up, you might consider having all those memories removed, good and bad, as if the whole thing had never happened to begin with. Check this one out if you like Kaufman’s other work, like I’m Thinking of Ending Things and Being John Malkovich—either of which would be worthy of a place on this list, too.
Derek Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine takes place over two time periods, flicking back and forth. The first shows the impossibly romantic early days of a relationship between two beautiful young people (played by Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling). The second shows how, just six years later, even this idyllic beginning can lead to heartbreak and catastrophe.
Few movies in recent years have delivered such a bummer message about the disastrous possibilities of romance as Cianfrance’s 2010 indie classic, which is exactly why it’s ideal fodder for our list. For similar movies stylewise, think Cianfrance’s Place Beyond the Pines or his recent and criminally underrated Roofman.
For something with a more rousing ending, at least in the spirit of the anti-Valentine’s Day movie, consider putting on director Ari Aster’s (he of Hereditary and Eddington) 2019 horror movie Midsommar. This is the one where a group of friends take a holiday to Sweden but end up in the midst of a pagan death cult.
This one is more than eligible for our list as the protagonist (played in a breakout performance by Florence Pugh) has to try and process these new and terrifying surroundings while also coming to terms with the fact that her boyfriend kinda sucks. Needless to say, it doesn’t end well for him.
George Cukor’s 1944 movie Gaslight makes our list because a) it’s a low-key classic, and b) it quite literally coined the name of one of the most talked-about relationship red flags of the last decade. The plot is set in 1880s London, where a husband begins to quietly manipulate his wife into thinking she’s lost her mind.
Come for that early (and possibly accidental) dissection of toxic male behaviour, but stay for the great Ingrid Bergman playing off an adorably fresh-faced Angela Lansbury in one of her very first Hollywood roles.
Given the memes that do the rounds these days from (500) Days of Summer—think Joseph Gordan Levitt being surprised that Zooey Deschanel knows who the Smiths are—you might think that the film is totally unaware of its protagonist’s softboi behaviour. That might still be true, but the movie (despite being written and directed by three dudes) was actually relatively self-aware for its time—Deschanel’s casting, for one, was more of an attempt to weaponise her manic pixie persona than indulge in it.
As indie romances go, (500) Days offers a sharp critique of how people (mainly men, but not always) sometimes fall in love with the idea of another person before taking the time to get to know them. For some more genre-based comps, movies like Ruby Sparks and Ex Machina aren’t a million miles off.
Enough of all that melancholy self-reflection. Eyes Wide Shut is Stanley Kubrick’s last ever film, and it’s about as cynical about the possibilities of love and marriage as anything out there. Filmed over a record 400+ days, the experience of watching this movie is a bit like seeing a relationship fall apart in real time—it will come as no surprise for viewers to learn that its lead actors, Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise, divorced not long after its release.
The movie follows Cruise’s New York City doctor over a single, depraved night, during which he thinks about sex, talks about sex, and watches people having sex without ever having any himself—in other words, a perfect watch for all the Valentine's haters in your life.
If you do make it out to a preview of “Wuthering Heights” before February 14, you might be interested in going back and watching Emerald Fennel’s previous work. Her 2023 movie Saltburn is plenty of fun, but for a good reminder of worst-date-scenarios, look no further than her 2020 breakout, Promising Young Woman.
This pulpy revenge flick can get a bit messy from a narrative standpoint, but it mostly works thanks to Carey Mulligan’s dedicated—and Oscar-nominated—performance in the central role.
If you’ve never seen a Todd Salontz film, it’s almost best to go in blind. Few filmmakers have ever reached the levels of discomfort that the director plunged to with his singular 1998 breakout hit, Happiness, a movie that really has no comparison since or before.
The best way to think of it is to imagine Philip Seymour Hoffman’s most unhinged performances (think Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights and Punch-Drunk Love) but with those characters’ knack for self-loathing turned up to 11. That’s the energy that the actor brings to this movie about depraved people and their depraved desires. Wherever you land on this one, you certainly won’t be feeling romantic afterwards.
And speaking of depraved desires, no movie in the current century has sounded the alarm for what all that easily available pornography might be doing to people than Steve McQueen’s Shame—a movie that feels like American Psycho with a fraction of the humour and a hundred times the futility.
This endlessly stylish, endlessly sad movie stars a perfectly-cast Michael Fassbender as Brandon Sullivan, an affluent Manhattanite with an insatiable appetite who has to re-jig his daily rituals when his sister (an even better Carey Mulligan) comes to visit.
