Happy endings are nice and all, but even the most idealistic among us know they don't always last. Sometimes, the happy ending is just the start of a larger story that ends with someone weeping into a pint of ice cream alone on the couch, flipping channels in search of something to mend a broken heart, or at least distract from the pain for a bit.
In other words, sometimes what you need is not a love story but a breakup movie. We've compiled 31 of the best breakup movies to help you process your sadness, exorcise your rage, or encourage you to dust yourself back up and move the hell on.
Here are the 31 best breakup movies streaming and where to watch them.
1. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
They say it's better to have loved and lost, but try telling that to someone still smarting from a breakup. This trippy love story follows Joel (Jim Carrey) as he tries to wipe his ex (Kate Winslet) from his mind, only to wonder if some of those memories may be worth keeping after all.
How to watch: Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is available on iTunes.
2. Marriage Story
A clean break may be ideal, but it isn't always an option. In Marriage Story, Charlie (Adam Driver) and Nicole (Scarlett Johansson) suffer through an ugly custody battle — and come out the other side with a new sort of relationship, one based not on sex and romance but shared parenthood.
How to watch: Marriage Story is streaming on Netflix.
3. High Fidelity
High Fidelity is the breakup movie you turn to when you've just had your heart crushed, and you've got a sneaking suspicion that at least some of it might have been your fault. But if Rob (John Cusack) can learn to grow up a little, maybe you can, too.
How to watch: High Fidelity is available on iTunes.
4. Forgetting Sarah Marshall
This film is nothing if not a promise that it'll get better. Sure, it sucks to lose your S.O., especially when she's a famous TV star whose face is plastered all over the place. But who's to say you can't rebound with an even cooler girlfriend to love, like Forgetting Sarah Marshall's Mila Kunis?
How to watch: Forgetting Sarah Marshall is available on Tunes.
Want more about the latest in entertainment? Sign up for Mashable's Top Stories newsletter today.
5. Midsommar
Because some breakups call for something a bit more dramatic than the usual sobfest. Some breakups come at the end of a relationship so grandly shitty, you need to travel to rural Sweden for a once-in-a-lifetime festival put on by an obscure death cult in order to really get your point across.
How to watch: Midsommar is available on iTunes and Prime Video.
6. Waiting to Exhale
Waiting to Exhale combines the visceral satisfaction of setting a cheating ex's car on fire with the comforting reassurance of close-knit friendship, and serves as a gentle reminder that better things lie ahead after all the pain and suffering.
How to watch: Waiting to Exhale is available on iTunes and Prime Video.
7. Celeste and Jesse Forever
It's a sad truth that two people can like each other very much, and still not be meant to love each other. Rashida Jones and Andy Samberg play a pair of high-school sweethearts who remain best friends after seven years of marriage, but feel the need to move on from each other romantically.
How to watch: Celeste and Jesse Forever is available on iTunes, Prime Video, and Starz.
8. The Holiday
Remember, the only reason Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz get to stay in fabulous homes and flirt with Jack Black and Jude Law in this very charming movie is because they previously broke up with two other dudes who totally sucked.
How to watch: The Holidayis available on iTunes and Prime Video.
9. The Souvenir
The Souvenir is an exquisite portrait of the doomed relationship between naive Julie (Honor Swinton Byrne) and the mysterious Anthony (Tom Burke), acknowledging both how difficult it can be to disentangle from a toxic relationship, and the bruises it can leave behind.
How to watch: The Souvenir is available on iTunes and Prime Video.
10. Blue Valentine
Watching Blue Valentine while in the throes of heartbreak is like pressing down on a bruise — the pain is what makes it so satisfying. The film cuts between the tender start of Dean (Ryan Gosling) and Cindy's (Michelle Williams) romance and its jagged end, to tearjerking effect.
How to watch: Blue Valentineis available on iTunes, Prime Video, and Tubi.
11. Casablanca
Few of us get goodbyes to love as epically romantic as the one between Rick (Humphrey Bogart) and Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman). But wouldn't it be nice to imagine we did? They'll always have Paris, and we'll always have Casablanca to weep over when we're at our most tragically brokenhearted.
How to watch: Casablanca is available on iTunes, Prime Video, and HBO Max.
12. Gone Girl
Gone Girl is about a disappearance, not a breakup — but it does have plenty to say about the hazards of modern marriage. Watch how Nick (Ben Affleck) and Amy (Rosamund Pike) went from meet-cute to fairy-tale courtship to...well, you'll see...and you may decide you're better off single.
How to watch: Gone Girlis available on iTunes and Prime Video.
13. (500) Days of Summer
Let Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) serve as a warning against looking back at past relationships with rose-colored glasses. It's only when he starts to see Summer (Zooey Deschanel) with clearer eyes that he's able to understand what went wrong, and move on to the next stage of his life.
How to watch: (500) Days of Summer is available on iTunes and Prime Video.
14. Crazy, Stupid, Love
Crazy, Stupid, Love puts more than one of its characters through heartbreak, but its star-studded cast reminds you through swoonworthy smooches, grand romantic gestures, and one hilarious brawl that the right one is worth fighting for. (Just try to ignore the outdated gender roles.)
How to watch: Crazy, Stupid, Love is available on iTunes and Prime Video.
15. Appropriate Behavior
Anyone who's tried to remedy a broken heart with petty confrontations and ill-advised hookups will recognize themselves in Shirin (Desiree Akhavan, who also wrote and directed) and her halfhearted attempts to get her life back together after she's dumped by her girlfriend (Rebecca Henderson).
How to watch: Appropriate Behavior is available on iTunes, Prime Video, Vudu, and Tubi.
16. Swingers
Swingers knows that what every freshly dumped person needs is a friend who'll take you out on the town, look at you in your sorry state, and remind us that you're so money and you don't even know it. If that friend has the charisma of a young Vince Vaughn, all the better.
How to watch: Swingers is available on iTunes, Prime Video, and HBO Max.
17. Closer
Here's a movie for those dark days when you find yourself wondering if love even exists, or if it's just a cruel joke designed to destroy peoples' lives. Clive Owen, Julia Roberts, Jude Law, and Natalie Portman play four people who can't stop cheating on each other, with bitter results.
How to watch: Closer is available on iTunes and Prime Video.
18. Legally Blonde
Reese Witherspoon's Elle Woods is a role model for anyone smarting over an unappreciative ex. Just do what she does: Work your butt off to win him back, discover exactly how awesome you are in the process, and realize you never needed him in the first place. What, like it's hard?
How to watch: Legally Blondeis available on iTunes and Prime Video.
19. The Wedding Singer
Breakups are never fun, but it can be a consolation to remember that sometimes, they're for the best. Just ask Robbie (Adam Sandler) and Julia (Drew Barrymore), both engaged to the wrong people at the start of The Wedding Singer, and both about to find out that their true loves are each other.
How to watch: The Wedding Singer is available on iTunes and Prime Video.
20. La La Land
Er, spoilers: Breakup movie king Ryan Gosling makes his third appearance on this list as Sebastian, whose passionate relationship with Mia (Emma Stone, also in Crazy, Stupid, Love) falls apart over their divergent dreams, but leaves both of them changed for the better in the end.
How to watch: La La Land is available on iTunes and Prime Video.
21. Call Me by Your Name
Most of the movie is about Elio (Timothée Chalamet) and Oliver (Armie Hammer) getting together, not splitting apart, but hanging over their entire romance is the poignant knowledge that it can't last forever. Put this one on when you're reflecting back on a brief but passionate affair.
How to watch: Call Me by Your Name is available on iTunes and Prime Video.
22. The Break-Up
An exaggerated battle of the sexes between two exes (Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston) gives way to a bittersweet dramedy about damage that can't be undone, even between two people who loved each other once and still might.
How to watch: The Break-Upis available on iTunes and Prime Video.
23. Birds of Prey
It's not easy striking out alone after an explosive breakup — but Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) serves as a reminder that all things are possible with a can-do attitude, some rad new friends, and a really, really good egg sandwich.
How to watch: Birds of Prey is available on Prime Video and HBO Max.
24. The War of the Roses
Oliver (Michael Douglas) and Barbara (Kathleen Turner) duke it out for the house in this acerbically funny divorce comedy, and along the way serve up a cautionary tale about taking that understandable impulse to "win" the breakup way, way, way too far.
How to watch: The War of the Roses is available on iTunes and Prime Video.
25. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
The thing about relationships is that even once they're over, they're still a part of the history you bring to your next romance, for better or for worse. That idea becomes literal for Scott (Michael Cera), who must battle his girlfriend's seven evil exes while dealing with a couple exes of his own.
How to watch: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is available on iTunes and Prime Video.
26. Kill Bill
Kill Bill is for when you're in a post-breakup rage so potent, nothing but (cinematic) violence and bloodshed will do. Vol. 1 is the more action-packed of the two, to help you work out that anger, while Vol. 2 goes deeper into the feels — albeit still with plenty of super cool kills.
How to watch: Kill Bill, Vol. 1is available on iTunes and Prime Video, and Kill Bill, Vol. 2 is available on iTunes and Prime Video.
27. Force Majeure
Being single can suck, but being coupled isn't always what it's cracked up to be, either. In Force Majeure, awkward fissures form in a marriage after a man makes a questionable decision in a moment of crisis. (If you hate subtitles, Downhill is the less-good English-language remake.)
How to watch: Force Majeure is available on iTunes and Prime Video.
28. The First Wives Club
Perhaps the only thing more gratifying than watching a shitty ex get what's coming to him is watching three shitty exes get what's coming to them, served up with a smirk by the powerhouse trio of Goldie Hawn, Bette Midler, and Diane Keaton.
How to watch: The First Wives Club is available on iTunes and HBO Max.
29. Magic Mike XXL
Magic Mike XXL is only kind of a breakup movie (Mike gets dumped very early in the film), but it does do a great job of celebrating one of the upsides of a breakup: the freedom to join your bros on an epic road trip of sexual pleasure and self-discovery.
How to watch: Magic Mike XXL is available on iTunes and Prime Video.
30. Her
Spike Jonze's Her is probably best saved for that post-heartbreak period of self-reflection. Joaquin Phoenix plays an about-to-be-divorced man who starts dating what is essentially a more advanced Siri (Scarlett Johansson), but finds that his new relationship has complications, too.
How to watch: Heris available on iTunes and Prime Video.
31. The Breaker Upperers
Need someone to dump your partner so you can avoid a messy confrontation? Call on Jen and Mel (co-writers/co-directors/co-leads Jackie van Beek and Madeleine Sami). For a reasonable fee, these fearless Breaker Upperers will impersonate police officers, play pregnant, or even fake your death to help you ghost an ex. Whatever the shenanigans, van Beek and Sami sparkle. Booming with wild humor and big heart, this New Zealand comedy is guaranteed to leave you cackling. — Kristy Puchko, Film Editor (*)
Where to watch: The Breaker Upperers is streaming on Netflix.
(*) indicates the blurb appeared in a previous Mashable list.
UPDATE: Oct. 23, 2022, 5:00 a.m. EDT This post has been updated to reflect current streaming options.
Comments