21 Movie Romances That Ended Up In Some Really Dark Places
These movie romances are the ones that have gone very wrong. The anti-best romantic comedies, if you will. These are disastrous relationships that get very dark, and very twisted by the end. It’s everything you never want in a relationship.
Amy And Nick - Gone Girl
Amy (Rosamund Pike) and Nick (Ben Affleck) appear to have had an idyllic marriage until their lives were uprooted and they ended up in rural Missouri in Gone Girl. Amy, who is seriously pissed off about Nick’s affair, decides she’s not only going to send him on a wild goose chase of a scavenger hunt to reveal she knows, but she’s going to fake her own death and pin it on him. Vicious.
Alex And Dan - Fatal Attraction
It’s impossible to defend Dan (Michael Douglas) completely here, after all, he chose to have the one-night stand with Alex (Glenn Close) in Fatal Attraction. Everything that happens after that though? Yeah, that’s 100% on Alex. What started as a passionate night between two successful people ends with her doing horrible things. Everyone points to the bunny scene, but let’s remember she slits her wrists to get him to stay the first time. The toxic relationship was even rebooted as a TV show.
Nicole And David - Fear
Once described as “Fatal Attraction for teens” by Brian Grazer, Fear, starring Mark Wahlberg as the just ever so slightly obsessive David, and Reese Witherspoon as the shy, sheltered Nicole, is just about as disturbing. What starts as first love soon gets very, very dark when David goes completely psycho on Nicole, including one of the most memorable confrontations on film when he appears outside her door and she watches through the peephole.
Alabama And Clarence - True Romance
In True Romance, Alabama (Patricia Arquette) is a sex worker hired by Clarence’s boss to seduce him for his birthday. Instead, she falls for Clarence (Christian Slater). In an attempt to free her from her pimp, he ends up killing a bunch of people and leaving with a suitcase full of drugs. It’s a classic story: girl meets boy, boy murders drug dealer, boy and girl get chased to California and end up almost dead at the hands of the mafia.
Veronica And J.D. - Heathers
Imagine going from the cool click in high school to a serial killer. That’s exactly what happens to very Gen-X movie character, Veronica (Wynona Rider) in Heathers after J.D. (Christian Slater) transfers to her school and they fall in love. Veronica was never comfortable in the “Heathers” click, but it goes to the extreme when she and J.D. start killing off the popular kids. After he decides everyone needs to die, Veronica finally stops the damage, though it’s too late for some.
Edward And Connie - Unfaithful
Unfaithful is a tough movie to watch at times. It's the rare example on this list where everyone is good, and everyone is bad. Connie (Diane Lane) finds herself seduced by a stranger and hides the affair from her husband, Edward (Richard Gere). She's distracted enough by her lover that Edward gets suspicious, and after a private detective finds out the truth, he confronts the lover and kills him in a fit of rage.
Tessa And David - Unforgettable
In another rarity on this list, Unforgettable actually has a happy, healthy couple: David (Geoff Stults) and Julia (Rosario Dawson). The unhappy one in the relationship is David's ex Tessa, played by Katherine Heigl. She sets out to ruin Julia's life when she finds out David is going to marry her. It's truly a rampage for the ages, as she even tricks Julia's abusive ex-boyfriend back into Julia's life and things only get worse from there.
Oliver And Barbara Rose - The War Of The Roses
The War of the Roses has to be one of the darkest of dark comedies. It's kind of Kramer v. Kramer meets a disturbing Home Alone. Oliver (Michael Douglas) and Barbara Rose (Kathleen Turner) are two very rich people going through a very nasty divorce. The level of comedic violence is through the roof. There is no one (and no dog) safe when these two are battling it out. It's funny, sure, but wow is it dark. Woof.
Claire And Noah - The Boy Next Door
It's twisted enough when a teacher sleeps with a student. It gets even more messed up when that student becomes a stalker intent on ruining the teacher's life and her family. The Boy Next Door has nothing about it that isn't completely screwed up. Claire (Jennifer Lopez) barely tries to put up a fight when Noah (Ryan Guzman) seduces her, even though she's a teacher at his school. She learns pretty quickly just how out of hand things can get when Noah gets as obsessive as Fatal Attraction's Alex.
Mickey And Mallory Knox - Natural Born Killers
There are few more messed up couples in movie history than Mickey (Woody Harrelson) and Mallory Knox (Juliette Lewis) in Natural Born Killers. Their killing spree captivates a shocked public and leads them on the kind of adventure that only the most psychotic would ever want to go on. It was always bound to end up this way, with Mallory’s horrifying upbringing and Mickey’s lifetime of crime; it only took the two meeting to set off the murder spree. They're a couple and it's a movie we still can't stop talking about all these years later
Chris And Rose - Get Out
In the instant classic Get Out, Chris Washington (Daniel Kaluuya) thinks he’s found the love of his life in Rose Armitage (Allison Williams). While he may be nervous to meet her parents, because he’s Black and she’s white, he is calmed by her welcoming and friendly mom and dad. It’s not until a little later, after noticing some very off things about the couple’s domestic help, that he senses something is wrong and by then, it’s too late. Rose’s family is nothing like he first thought and he barely makes it out alive.
Romeo And Juliet - Romeo + Juliet
Romeo Montague (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Juliet Capulet (Claire Danes) in Baz Lehrman’s film version of the classic Shakespeare tragedy, Romeo + Juliet, are lovestruck teenagers who cannot live without each other. Sadly, it’s a forbidden love, as their families are the Hatfields and McCoys of 16th-century Italy. That doesn’t stop the two lovebirds, but by the end, as the world knows, it all ends in the most tragic way possible.
Tony And Maria - West Side Story
The West Side Story...story... has been told countless times on high school stages across the country, and of course on Broadway, but it's the two movies (the first in 1961 with Richard Beymer and Natalie Wood as Tony and Maria and the 2021 version with Ansel Elgort and Rachel Zegler in the roles) that have become beloved classics. Based on Romeo and Juliet, it tells the story of forbidden love between two people in rival gangs in New York in the 1950s, and like the Shakespeare play, it ends in tragedy, with Maria witnessing the Tony's murder.
Carly And Zeke - Sliver
Carly (Sharon Stone) is excited to move into her new apartment, and is more excited when she meets a neighbor, Zeke (William Baldwin). They begin a steamy romance, but that causes another neighbor, Jack (Tom Berenger), to get insanely jealous. Jack stalks Carly and tries to convince her that Zeke is a bad person, but Jack has been murdering other tenants of the building. Finally, Zeke reveals he's got cameras in every apartment, and Carly confronts Jack, shooting him in self-defense after he tries to attack. She ends it with Zeke, who it turns out is pretty damn creepy himself, watching the tenants in his secret monitor room.
Cecilia And Adrian - The Invisible Man
In the latest, great take on The Invisible Man, the marriage between Cecilia (Elisabeth Moss) and Adrian (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) is already really bad, but it gets much worse. Adrian is controlling and abusive, so Cecilia drugs him and gets away. Adrian, she's led to believe, dies by suicide and leaves her millions. That's only the beginning, as it turns out he can make himself invisible and the the physical and psychological torture increases to nightmarish levels.
Laura And Martin - Sleeping With The Enemy
It's not that hard to deduce what is going on in a movie called Sleeping with the Enemy, but that only begins to describe how awful Martin (Patrick Bergin) is to his wife, Laura (Julia Roberts). The level of violence is, frankly, shocking. He abuses her in every way possible until she is finally able to fake her own death and escape to Iowa. Martin finds her eventually, and the confrontation at the end is epic, with Laura getting the revenge she desperately tried to avoid by disappearing.
Nick And Catherine - Basic Instinct
Sharon Stone, who plays Catherine in Basic Instinct, made a name for herself playing sexy sirens in steamy romance films, but this one put her on the map in that regard. Catherine is an accused murderer being investigated by Nick (Michael Douglas). She's diabolical in her deceit, or at least the viewer is led to believe so, until we learn that the truth is something completely different, with a twist at the end...or was it?
Joel And Clementine - Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a pretty weird movie, which fits the pretty weird nature of the relationship between Joel (Jim Carrey) and Clementine (Kate Winslet). In a new type of procedure, both separately have their negative memories of their relationship erased after they break up. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately?) they keep the good ones. In the end, they try to make a go of it one more time, but you can't help but wonder if it's going to end well or not, as it's never resolved.
Lee And Gray - Secretary
Years before 50 Shades Of Grey became a cultural phenomenon, there was Secretary, starring Maggie Gyllenhaal as Lee, a submissive in work and eventually sex, to Gray, played by James Spader. He is ashamed of his behavior, but can't stop, and she doesn't want it to. It's a disturbing movie for some, but really, we don't want to kink shame anyone and in the end, maybe this is how they are supposed to be.
Slim And Mitchell - Enough
The violent abusive husband Mitchell (Billy Campbell), is like the Terminator in his relentless pursuit of his wife and victim, Slim (Jennifer Lopez). He seems to find her wherever she is and continues to abuse and torment her. Finally, Slim has had enough and hatches a plan to end the pursuit forever.
Dean And Cindy - Blue Valentine
Blue Valentine is just tragic all around. Barbie star Ryan Gosling plays Dean, a down-on-his-luck slacker and heavy drinker who somehow gets Cindy (Michelle Williams) to date him, despite being way out of his league. The movie goes back and forth between the beginning and end of their relationship, and it's a powerful way to show that not everything has a storybook ending. Sometimes, things can go very, very wrong, even in relationships that start off higher than the moon.
Everyone has gone through difficult breakups, and had hard relationships. Hopefully, very few have anything even remotely close to the ones on this list. Still, it's good to reminder how good some of us have it even when things aren't going exactly as we want.
