Hate Valentine’s Day? The best movies for you to watch

Valentine’s Day movies usually push the same story about finding the one and living happily ever after. Singles tired of that script often look for films that skip the sentiment and show relationships as messy, temporary, or flat-out disastrous. The titles below fit that mood without sliding into the usual holiday clichés.

Obvious Child (2014)

Most comedies daren’t even utter the word “abortion”. Katherine Heigl declines “a shmamortion at the shmamortion clinic” in Knocked Up and Ellen Page decides against terminating her pregnancy in Juno, running out of the doctor’s office to a judgemental chorus of “All babies want to get borned!”. Obvious Child – the offbeat indie that sees Jenny Slate seek an abortion after an alcohol-fuelled one-night stand – categorically refuses to act as the ventriloquist of pro-life ideology. Refreshing, avant-garde, and darkly comic, the movie is a heartwarming story of one woman’s foolhardy “game of Russian roulette with her vagina”.

500 Days of Summer (2009)

The Manic Pixie Dream Girl par excellence, Zooey Deschanel stars alongside Joseph Gordon-Levitt in this romcom with a twist. Summer (Deschanel) does not believe in love, is not looking for her other half, and does not buy into coupling culture, but Tom (a misguided Gordon-Levitt) is convinced he can change her mind (because entitlement culture, he can – amirite, ladies?). 500 Days of Summer eschews grandstanding public declarations of affection in favor of anguished yearning and disappointment. Plus, there’s a scene where a chirpy flashmob dances to “You Make My Dreams”. What’s not to love? Fifteen years of rewatches have shifted focus onto Tom’s projection rather than Summer as an archetype, turning the film into a cautionary tale about reading too much into someone else’s indifference.

They Came Together (2014)

Movies, by their very nature, are based on a certain set of assumptions, well-worn codes that help the viewer process what is happening on screen. They Came Together strips back this artifice. This off-kilter romance between Amy Poehler (Parks and Recreation) and Paul Rudd (Ant-Man) makes each character’s objectives entirely transparent, belittling them to mere tropes in order to poke fun at the predictability of the romcom genre.

Annie Hall (1977)

Controversies aside, there’s no denying that Woody Allen is a pioneering filmmaker who has revolutionized the medium with his European sensibilities. Annie Hall, the Academy Award-winner for Best Picture in the 1978, is his magnum opus and chronicles the gradually deteriorating relationship between neurotic Alvy Singer (Allen) and ditzy autodidact Annie Hall (Diane Keaton). The film plays with experimental techniques (internal subtitles, split-screens, and cartoon sequences) to portray the highs and lows of their waning love. And, at just 10 years, the age difference between the male and female leads is practically progressive. Recommended for a less unsettling alternative to Manhattan.

Equals (2015)

Disaster strikes when Kristen Stewart (Café Society) and Nicholas Hoult (Mad Max: Fury Road) start to feel in Equals, a futuristic film depicting an emotionless, disease-free society. With warmly lit cinematography and impressive pseudo-passive acting, the movie raises fascinating questions about what exactly comprises a utopia.

Wild (2014)

We’re all so accustomed to Reese Witherspoon’s adorable soccer-mom persona on Instagram that it’s easy to forget she’s embodied some tough-as-nails characters over the course of her lauded career. One such woman is Cheryl Strayed, who decides to hike the 1,100-mile Pacific Crest Trail alone in the wake of her mother’s death. This true story is an empowering display of determination and resilience, anchored by an absorbing performance from Witherspoon. If you can get over the fact that Laura Dern has inexplicably been cast as her mother (despite them both belonging to the same peer group in Big Little Lies), Wild is an inspiring underdog tale. The solo-journey angle continues to resonate in an era when adventure films often still center on couples or groups.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

This cult classic focuses on the aftermath of a memory-erasure procedure that allows ex-lovers (Kate Winslet, Jim Carrey) to eliminate all facets of their failed relationship from their minds. Surely in this digital age of ex-based cyberstalking, many people wish Michel Gondry’s sci-fi medical process was available to them. Tinged with a wistful, melancholy air, the film revisits the former couple’s peaks and troughs as they are permanently (or not-so-permanently?) removed from their past. Twenty years on, the movie still ranks high on lists of the century’s best films for its philosophical take on memory and digital legacies rather than just romance.

Under the Skin (2013)

Is anything more of a middle finger to Valentine’s Day than an alien Scarlett Johansson (Lost in Translation) luring unsuspecting men to her lair and stealing their skin? Doubtful. In Jonathan Glazer’s underrated masterpiece, a largely wordless Johansson discovers what it means to be human through her social interactions amid the dramatic Scottish Highlands.

The Graduate (1977)

Set to an unforgettable Simon & Garfunkel soundtrack, Mike Nichols’ seminal work follows Ben (Dustin Hoffman) as he starts an illicit affair with his family friend Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft). The main reason The Graduate will bring joy to the downtrodden singleton? The final scene underscores the inherently fleeting nature of happily-ever-afters.

Midsommar (2019)

Breakups rarely look this literal. Midsommar follows a couple whose already fraying relationship unravels during a Swedish midsummer festival that turns cult-like and violent. The film rejects reconciliation in favor of isolation and revenge, which is why it keeps appearing on anti-Valentine’s lists alongside Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Marriage Story (2019)

Divorce proceedings rarely get this raw on screen. Marriage Story tracks a couple through lawyers, apartments, and custody talks without offering tidy lessons or last-minute hugs. Its steady presence on breakup-movie roundups stems from the way it treats the end of a marriage as ordinary mess rather than tragedy or triumph.

Blue Valentine (2010)

Blue Valentine jumps between early romance and later collapse, showing how affection turns into routine and then resentment. The non-linear structure keeps viewers from rooting for a comeback, which explains why recent cynical-romance lists still single it out as an alternative to Valentine’s Day fare.

The War of the Roses (1989)

Marital destruction rarely plays this literally. The War of the Roses watches a divorcing couple turn their shared home into a battlefield of broken furniture and broken rules. Its revival in 2026 streaming guides comes from the way it satirizes happily-ever-after myths with the same comic bite They Came Together uses on rom-com formulas.

These films share little interest in selling romance as the default happy ending. They favor characters who end up alone, changed, or simply done, which makes them useful viewing when the holiday pushes the opposite message.