Love Sucks! and these 25 movies prove it!

1. COMPANION (2025)

Iris (Sophie Thatcher) met the man of her dreams, Josh (Jack Quaid), in an empty supermarket, their eyes meeting over the baskets of peaches and oranges. Ever since that day, Iris has devoted herself and everything she is to Josh; he is her world, her everything. Companion opens with that meeting as Iris talks us through the event, explaining how her life found meaning and purpose that day. However, Iris then throws us a curveball, as she says she also felt that feeling of purpose the day she killed Josh! Is Iris a psychopath dressed in pink? Or is Josh a smiling devil whose gentle eyes hide a dark secret?

Drew Hancock doesn’t keep you guessing for long as the couple head to a secluded house in the woods to meet Josh’s friends, Kat (Megan Suri), Eli (Harvey Guillén), his boyfriend Patrick (Lukas Gage) and the mysterious Sergey (Rupert Friend). Without giving away any spoilers, Companion is a story of love, lies, logins, liberation and lucidity that proves love sucks in our digital world.

The world that Companion inhabits is one that people like Elon Musk aim to create within the next decade, one where everything is commercialised and controlled by tech bro’s with few moral or ethical boundaries, including our innermost desires for companionship. Of course, many argue that the world is already partly here as we swipe through photos on apps, dismissing any potential suitor who doesn’t fit our idea of perfection. But thankfully, it hasn’t gone as far as it could yet. Drew Hancock’s satirical horror reminds us that if we don’t put the brakes on now, we all know where things are heading!

2. SLOW WEST (2015)

Sometimes, the journeys we take in life are born from innocence, naivety and love, as our young hearts guide us with little understanding of the dangers ahead.

The year is 1870, and Jay (Kodi Smit-McPhee) is a vulnerable Scottish teenager in a foreign land, his horse struggling under the weight of his suitcases while his hands nervously hold onto the reins as he passes through the deep and dangerous forests of Colorado. But what has brought Jay to this unforgiving yet hauntingly beautiful frontier? The answer lies with Jay’s sweetheart, Rose (Caren Pistorius), who fled Scotland with her dad (Rory McCann) following a tragic incident. That incident involved Jay, but he won’t let it force them apart; he plans to reunite with his first love, no matter the cost.

It’s not long before the wide-eyed Jay finds his life threatened and saved by the mysterious Silas (Michael Fassbender), who quickly takes Jay under his rugged and torn wing. But is Silas all he appears to be at first? Unlike many Western road movies, Slow West defies its title with a brisk pace and poetic, lyrical air. Maclean focuses his lens on the diverse immigrant communities and individuals who, like Jay, believed that the American frontier would offer hope and freedom but, in reality, found desperation and violence. 

By wrapping the audience in a stunning journey of hope, love, and innocence against a backdrop of melancholy and violence, Maclean creates moments of dream-like wonder and nightmare-like fear as Jay’s vulnerabilities are exposed. Jay’s mission is fatally flawed from the outset by the rose-tinted dreams he holds on to, something Silas understands and uses to further his own hidden mission. Here, the outstanding performances of Smitt-McPhee and Fassbender stand centre stage in a movie that packs an emotional punch as Jay’s foolhardy journey, built on teenage love, slowly crumbles in a world of cruelty, violence and survival at any cost.

3. HEATHERS (1988)

The high school black comedy thriller Heathers, starring Winona Ryder and Christian Slater in career-making roles, is just your average sweet story of boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, and boy suggests to girl that they take down the school clique and a gang of snobby bullies all called Heather.

Lehmann’s movie marked an important transition for the coming-of-age comedy, where the 80s template created by John Hughes gave way to something far darker as the 90s emerged. 

Heathers’ screenplay is, at its heart, a social satire, reflecting the darker hues of high school life and the ever-growing inequality of the late 1980s capitalist dream. Here, the teenage need for popularity, place, and purpose dovetails with the need to break free of parental and social chains; it’s a subverted, twisted version of The Breakfast Club that defies the suggestion that all kids are, ultimately, the same.

4. THE RULES OF ATTRACTION (2002)

Roger Ebert called Roger Avary’s film, based on the Bret Easton Ellis novel, “a skillfully made movie about reprehensible people”. I think the word reprehensible is a bit strong. Yes, some characters in this knotty tale of unrequited love, sex, and adolescent desire are indeed reprehensible. Still others are simply trying to navigate the pitfalls of university life with little success.

The Rules of Attraction could be described as American Pie on speed, as we join Sean Bateman (James Van Der Beek), Lauren (Shannyn Sossamon), Paul (Ian Somerhalder), Victor (Kip Pardue) and a host of others at Camden College’s toxic “End of the World” party, before rewinding several months to see how the events opening the movie unfolded in the past. At breakneck speed, we explore our lead characters’ lives, loves, hopes and disappointments before ending where we began.

Many say your University years are the best in your life, and in many ways, they are. However, romantically, they can also be tricky, as newfound independence, sex, alcohol, drugs, and self-discovery merge into one challenging and exciting bubble of hormone-driven decisions. The Rules of Attraction captures that in spades as it explores how sex, attraction and love often sit uncomfortably together, no matter our age!

5. DEEP END (1970)

Life as a teenager is a complex and uncertain journey of thrills, new experiences, uncontrollable desires, fear, and anxiety. It is a time in our lives that most of us, by our forties, would be happy to forget as we look back on the choices we made and the actions we took with a mixture of belly laughs and horror.

Jerzy Skolimowski’s Deep End long sat on the fringes of cinematic discussion, forgotten, lost and disregarded by critics and the public alike. But in recent years, Deep End has finally earned the praise it deserved as a masterful reflection of just how messy and confusing teenage life can be when desire, lust and jealousy take hold of our adolescent minds and bodies.

Skolimowski’s film is set in and around a public swimming pool, where teenage Mike (John Moulder-Brown), fresh out of school, has just taken a job as an assistant. Here, in the sterile corridors, changing rooms and private cubicles, Deep End quickly lives up to its title as young Mike dives headfirst into desire. The object of Mike’s uncontrollable and urgent lust is an older colleague, Susan (Jane Asher), who toys with Mike’s desires, viewing his puppy love as nothing more than an innocent game. However, all games come with risks, and Mike is naive to the sexual gameplay surrounding him and the outcomes of pursuing Susan to the ends of the Earth, or Soho, at least!

Brave, bold, and utterly of its time, Deep End lurches uncontrollably between comedy, horniness, drama, and anxiety, just like the doe-eyed teen at its heart, offering us a coming-of-age movie that defies labels and reminds us just how horrific first love and first lust can be.

6. MEET JOE BLACK (1998)

Here’s a tricky one. You meet the man of your dreams (hell, anyone’s dreams!) in a coffee shop (Brad Pitt), where you get talking, even though you are already committed to a far duller fellow. As you depart the coffee shop, you know you will never meet this gorgeous young man again. So when this random hunk appears mysteriously at your father’s side, you are taken aback. However, what is even more strange is that he now carries a mysterious air and the emotional wonder of a child.

What you don’t know is that this beautiful stranger is, in fact, death. That’s right, death! Unfortunately, the man you met in the coffee shop didn’t look twice before crossing the road (a fatal mistake). As the man lay dying from multiple injuries, death saw an opportunity for life by stealing the sexy guy’s body, with a mission to experience love for the first time. Susan is unaware that Death (Brad Pitt) has made a secret deal with her father (Anthony Hopkins), which would bring the gorgeous coffee shop boy back to life if Hopkins took his place.

Most sane people would run a mile at this point, but when death looks this pretty, how can you avoid his allure? For Susan, remaining single and moving to a monastery would have undoubtedly been a safer option.

7. CAGE OF GOLD (1950)

“Be careful who you give your heart to” has never been more apt than in Basil Dearden’s 1950 tale of love, lies, secrets and blackmail, Cage of Gold.

Hailing from the famous Ealing Studios in the final five years of Michael Balcon’s ownership, Dearden’s cautionary love triangle thriller carries all the hallmarks of classic crime noir in a knotty tale of deceit, love and tangled choices. Judith (Jean Simmons) is a woman torn between her doctor boyfriend, Alan (James Donald), and a former boyfriend, Bill (David Farrar), who mistreated her in the past but whose unexpected reappearance triggers unresolved feelings of attraction.

The moment Judith meets Bill again, a long-simmering spark of love and lust rekindles, and we, the audience, shout “run” at the screen, hoping that Judith stays with the gentle, loving, and sincere Alan. But Judith chooses the champagne-loving ex-air force bad boy who lavishes her with gifts and quickly and quietly marries the now pregnant Judith, much to the concern of those around her. It’s clear Judith is blinded by love, and even when snippets of Bill’s past surface and she questions where his money comes from, she remains loyal. But it’s not long before Bill’s true intentions, his secretive lifestyle, and dastardly motives become apparent, and Judith and Alan are pulled into a wicked game of cat and mouse that could have been avoided if Judith had stayed with Alan in the first place.

Also starring Herbert Lom, Madeleine Lebeau, Bernard Lee, and Harcourt Williams, Dearden’s atmospheric mix of the classic love triangle and crime noir has long been relegated to the sidelines of Ealing Studio’s history and Dearden’s catalogue of work, but if there’s one movie that proves love can suck based on the choices we make, it’s this one.

8. MANNEQUIN (1987)

Do you ever watch an ’80s movie and wonder, “How did this ever reach cinemas?” Mannequin is one of those movies that, despite its age, still has something that keeps people coming back thirty-five years later. Is it the soundtrack? Andrew McCarthy’s boyish charm? Or is it Kim Cattrall’s beauty? In my opinion, what continues to pull people back to Mannequin is the utterly ridiculous yet strangely intriguing premise of its screenplay. Mannequin is so bad, it’s good!

This is the story of a struggling artist (McCarthy) who has more than a passing love for shop mannequins. Each to his own, of course. When a mannequin magically comes to life, this struggling artist finds his creative voice and, in the process, saves Timpkin’s Department Store from closure. However, the mannequin is far more than a magic hunk of plastic; she is an ancient Egyptian goddess with a soft spot for 80s culture, boys in tailored trousers and lavish shop window displays.

Director Michael Gottlieb clearly intended to offer audiences a modern take on the legend of Pygmalion (from Ovid’s Metamorphoses) and the 1948 movie One Touch of Venus. But instead, we ended up with a very 80s romantic comedy that appears to have been written on the back of a cigarette packet. However, Gottlieb also gave us a supporting lead who was black, gay and not dying of AIDS; a bold move in 1987, even if the stereotypes attached are now dated. At its heart, Mannequin is a film about sexuality, desire and a plastic fetish, and that’s a damn rare thing outside of the horror genre.

9. BABYGIRL (2024)

Romy (Nicole Kidman) has it all; she is the CEO of her own company, has a family she loves, and has a husband (Antonio Banderas) who treats her like a queen. But under the surface, her suppressed desires are reaching a boiling point, and an opportunity to finally explore the fantasies she has kept locked away for so long is about to come knocking as a new intern at her company, Samuel (Harris Dickinson), opens a door that can never again be shut.

Romy may be in control of everything in her life, but what she craves in secret is to be controlled, to be a “Babygirl” to a dominant man who makes the rules in the bedroom and follows her instructions outside of it. She wants to be treated as a pet in a game of subservience and domination, yet equally intends to retain her sense of power outside of the bedroom. Samuel sees Romy’s innermost fantasies from the first meeting because he shares them.

Samuel wants to be an alpha male in the bedroom to a powerful woman. He wants to play with the power dynamics inherent in every office across the land, and unlike Romy, he isn’t going to suppress the desires he wants to explore.

Babygirl never passes judgment, as it asks the audience to question the messy feelings of shame that sit behind many long-suppressed desires. It is the story of a young man keen to play out his deepest fantasies in the company of an older woman who has never explored the full spectrum of her sexuality. The age gap between them is ultimately irrelevant in their brief union. Yet, power dynamics, position, and place are far trickier to navigate in a game that both frees and entraps during an uneasy yet intoxicating sexual rebirth.   

10. DOG DAY AFTERNOON (1975)

Based on the real-life bank robbery carried out by John Wojtowicz to pay for his partner’s gender-affirming surgery, Dog Day Afternoon is celebrated for Sidney Lumet’s gritty direction and a bravura performance from Al Pacino. However, the film is also pioneering and complex in its depiction of queer relationships and the fear of difference in a city consumed by crime.

Dog Day Afternoon is far more than another ’70s heist movie. It’s a stinging portrait of the failed American Dream, a city melting under the heat of its failed politics, and a Vietnam veteran (Al Pacino) just trying to find a way to support his transgender partner (in an era long before ‘transgender’ was even a word).

What opens as a darkly engaging farce of the highest order quickly becomes a tragedy as we realise there is no happy ending for Sonny (Pacino) or his hapless partner in crime, Sal (John Cazale). From the moment they enter the bank, their time is up, no matter how they shake the dice.

11. LOVE AND MONSTERS (2020)

Love and Monsters was yet another movie denied a cinema release due to COVID, and more’s the pity, because it deserved a big-screen release rather than a decidedly quiet arrival on Netflix. Michael Matthews’ delightful post-apocalyptic adventure, starring Dylan O’Brien, was packed full of B-movie charm while embracing a family-friendly, Spielberg-esque tone, making it a perfect monster-sized treat.

As an asteroid named Agatha 616 hurtled towards the Earth, scientists did exactly what we would expect them to do: they blew it up with multiple rockets. However, the chemical compounds in the missiles fell back to Earth, turning the animal kingdom on its head and enlarging every insect, bug, crustacean, and lizard to monster size. The result would place humans at the bottom of the food chain, as they became lunch for every creature that got a shoe in the face or was devoured on a dinner plate. As a result, 95% of the world’s population was wiped out, leaving small bands of survivors in secluded underground bunkers.

For our narrator and unlikely hero, Joel (O’Brien), the disaster came just as he had found love with Aimee (Jessica Henwick); I told you that love sucked! In the seven years since his mum, dad, and friends were either squashed or eaten, Joel has dreamed of reuniting with Aimee from the underground bunker he calls home. The trouble is, Joel isn’t exactly a bug-killing hero, and Aimee is eighty-five miles away in a different colony on the coast. After a giant ant breaches his settlement, killing one of the survivors, Joel decides to set off on a quest to reunite with Aimee, meeting new friends along the way, including an intelligent dog called ‘Boy’. But can Joel survive on the outside in a new world where he is just a tasty lunchtime snack? And is his quest based on an idea of love that no longer exists?

Michael Matthews’ movie is a visual and auditory delight, mixing elements of the classic road trip with Ray Harryhausen-inspired monster horror. The narrative conveys profound eco-messages, from our treatment of the natural world around us to our capacity to coexist harmoniously with the diverse array of creatures that inhabit it. While there is a predictability to our hero’s journey, Dylan O’Brien keeps things fast-paced, humorous, energetic, and thoroughly engaging throughout.

12. UNDER THE SILVER LAKE (2018)

Sam (Andrew Garfield) is a 30-something slacker living alone in an apartment he cannot afford. Sam’s days are spent looking for no-strings sex, chain-smoking and reading comics as he tries to dodge the landlord at every opportunity. His very existence is one of habit and repetition as he watches the city around him consume everyone it invites into its circus.

One afternoon, as Sam sits spying on the neighbours, he is fascinated by an attractive newcomer in the communal swimming pool, the mysterious Sarah (Riley Keough). But just as Sam gets close to Sarah in a haze of weed, she vanishes, and her apartment is cleared overnight, almost as if she never existed. Offering us a love letter to Hitchcock, Lynch and Kubrick, director David Robert Mitchell takes us down a rabbit hole of desire, uncertainty, and intrigue as Sam desperately seeks understanding and closure.

13. THE LOVED ONES (2009)

Do you remember those innocent school days, when we made out behind the bike sheds? The Loved Ones is about to pour petrol over those memories before devilishly dancing around the roaring fire. If there’s one film on this list that will have you thanking the heavens for your single life, it’s this one. This gruesome Aussie tale of sexual obsession, psycho parents and forced lobotomies will have you regurgitating your heart-shaped chocolates.

Sean Byrne’s movie is a relatively unknown and deliciously twisted horror gem where the high school prom is unceremoniously turned on its head in a whirlwind of gore, drills and cerebral trauma. The quiet, outcast and edgy Lola Stone is determined to find her perfect prom date and has her eyes set on grungy Brent (Xavier Samuel). However, this is going to be a date like no other, with the whole family invited to a celebration of ropes, nails, drills, and paper hats.

14. DINNER IN AMERICA (2020)

Kyle Gallner plays a reckless punk, and Emily Skeggs a socially awkward misfit – an unlikely pair of young lovers in the perfect rom-com for the 21st century. Dinner in America is rude, crude, totally off the rails, yet incredibly heartwarming.

Simon (Gallner) is a rebellious punk rocker who doesn’t fit in small-town Midwest America. At the same time, Patty (Skeggs) is a super-fan of a local punk band, for which Simon provides lead vocals. However, Simon’s identity is kept hidden. Initially, Patty has no idea who he is, and he doesn’t know that it’s Patty who has been sending him dirty pictures and strongly worded love letters.

Adam Rehmeier joyously dissects modern America, the nuclear family, the bland monotony of suburbia, and the all-American dream in a richly dark, delightfully delicious, offbeat punk rock comedy/drama. Held aloft by the exquisite performances of Gallner and Skeggs, Dinner in America proves that love often sucks, but it can equally be one hell of a ride when coupled with freedom, risk and a sense of forbidden adventure.

17. THE BEACH (2000)

Do you remember the adventure, opportunity, desire and wanderlust that followed you like a shadow during your late teens and twenties? This wanderlust sits at the heart of Danny Boyle’s adaptation of Alex Garland’s novel in a sexy yet dark story of decaying innocence and escape. As we follow our intrepid young backpacker Richard (Leonardo DiCaprio), his journey morphs from adventure to deception and loss as sex and desire clash with a fairytale notion of escape.

Throughout Richard’s journey, the phrase “two’s company, three’s a crowd” resonates as a complicated friendship born of adventure leads to the destruction of individuals within a Garden of Eden that is, in fact, a sun-soaked prison.

18. TITANIC (1998)

Poor Leonardo doesn’t seem to have much luck in the love department. In The Beach, DiCaprio plays Richard, the third spoke in a complicated love triangle, and in Titanic, he plays Jack, a young whipper-snapper who meets the rich girl of his dreams on a doomed ship. In both cases, Leo’s characters really should have stayed at home! However, hindsight is a wonderful and profoundly unhelpful thing!

The ship in question is the fated RMS Titanic, and Jack is an aspiring artist working his way back to the United States of America after a stint painting prostitutes in Paris. As Jack walks the ship’s deck, he meets the depressed Rose (Kate Winslet), and his life instantly takes a decidedly deadly turn. The pair meet through Rose attempting suicide, which is not the best introduction, as I am sure you will agree. Jack saves her life and sees an opportunity to make mini-Jacks along the way. However, once again, I digress, as before, we have a sweet little romance that includes some sketching, spitting, and dancing before a heated shag on the cargo deck.

By the time the dreaded iceberg comes into view, the two are inseparable despite the snobbery and hate surrounding Jack’s presence. Therefore, it is all the more depressing that as the ship goes down, Jack is left to freeze in the water as Rose hogs a door plenty big enough for his slight frame.

19. I LOVE YOU TO DEATH (1990)

Lawrence Kasdan’s deliciously dark comedy about marriage, murder and mascarpone is loosely based on the 1983 trial of Frances Toto, a woman who repeatedly tried to kill her husband with little success. For his fictionalised comedy of errors, Kasdan brings together a truly sublime cast, including Kevin Kline, Tracey Ullman, Joan Plowright, River Phoenix, William Hurt, and Keanu Reeves, to create a sharp, entertaining comedy.

Exploring themes of revenge, love, coercion and forgiveness, I Love You to Death proves marriage can indeed be murder. So, pour a glass of wine and order a takeout pizza, but whatever you do, don’t invite the pizza delivery guy to join you on the sofa.

20. HARPOON (2019)

Are you dreaming of a luxurious vacation following the oppressive boredom of the global pandemic? If so, how about a leisurely trip out to sea on a yacht owned by your best friend? It all sounds so idyllic. But add to the holiday a brutal brawl just a few hours before departure, over a girl, and a toxic friendship based on jealousy, secrets, and lies, and maybe the planned excursion wasn’t the best idea. Thus begins Canadian writer/director Rob Grant’s delicious tale of friendship, betrayal, and bloody revenge, starring Munro Chambers, Chris Gray, and Emily Tyra.

Harpoon is packed to the gunwales with survival movie clichés, richly dark comedy and wince-inducing bodily trauma as the ocean gobbles up our dysfunctional trio. Harpoon takes its inspiration from Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket” and weaves it with the true story of the “Mignonette” from 1884, resulting in a darkly delicious joy that culminates in a beautifully twisted finale.

21. BONES AND ALL (2022)

Giving new meaning to the phrase, “Aww, you’re so cute, I could just eat you up!” The horror and beauty at the heart of Luca Guadagnino’s complex portrait of two lost lovers is stunning and bound to cause indigestion as it reaches a heartbreaking finale. Bones and All may well feature moments of gut-wrenching horror, but at its core, it is a coming-of-age road trip romance that transforms cannibal horror into something new through the dynamic performances of Timothée Chalamet and Taylor Russell, and Mark Rylance’s chilling portrayal of Sully.

Based on the young adult bestseller by Camille DeAngelis, the macabre themes of Bones and All are laced with a disconcertingly tender tale of young love that transcends genre boundaries. There’s much to savour in this buffet of beauty and terror, but one can’t help but wonder whether our young lover’s fate was signed and sealed the moment they met!

22. I LOVE MY DAD (2022)

Chuck (Patton Oswalt) knows he hasn’t been the best dad, but the rejection hits hard when his twenty-something son Franklin (James Morosini) blocks him on social media! He needs to suck it up, right? Unfortunately, that option doesn’t land with Chuck; instead, he creates a fake Facebook account, steals a picture of Becca, a young woman who works at a local diner, and adds his son as a friend! But what starts as a simple chat soon leads Franklin to fall head over heels for a girl who is really his dad! It’s like Chuck wrote the book “How to fuck up your son in five easy steps.”

Director James Morosini knows the subject will make his audience squirm, and he delights in it, turning the cringeworthy dial to the maximum as we watch through our fingers. There is undoubtedly bravery in doing this, and that bravery is only strengthened by the artistic decision to have the actors play out their online conversations in a physical space. The result is a ticking bomb that you know will explode, but the timer is faulty, and you have no idea when it will go off.

23. SUPERMAN II (1980)

Everything was going well for the Man of Steel until he went soft for one Lois Lane. After turning the Earth back to save her from a gigantic earthquake caused by Lex Luther’s stray missiles, before once again saving her from a bomb at the Eiffel Tower and from drowning at Niagara Falls, Superman is happy to give up his powers for a shag in his ice fortress under some lovely fur throws. Hey presto, the Man of Steel gives up his powers for Lois, with Clark Kent now entirely in charge of the romantic endeavours, which clearly involve marriage and many mini-Kents.

However, Clark didn’t expect three deadly villains from his home planet to turn up and trash the party! So he ditches Lois and searches for a way to get his powers back before the baddies destroy everything in sight, including, god forbid, the Marlboro cigarette delivery vans and Coca-Cola hoardings all over Metropolis!

24. THE SOUVENIR (2019)

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 2019, The Souvenir was Joanna Hogg’s most personal work to date. Using the medium of film to explore the intensity and naivety of first love, Hogg’s delicate yet striking drama is a palette of emotions, from manipulation to unconditional love and acceptance, as she dissects the light and dark of relationships and the abundance and drawbacks of a privileged life.

The Souvenir is a melancholic film, a slowly unfolding character study of a woman learning the harsh truths about a relationship. Julie’s frailty maddens and frustrates you so much that you are shouting at the screen! While Tom Burke’s deception, control, and fragile state of mind weave a new world through addiction and lies – a world that demonstrates how much blind love can suck! However, it also feels detached from the majority of its audience, with wealth, privilege, and opportunities that are a world away from most people’s experiences. For this reason, The Souvenir ultimately left me cold, despite its beauty and exquisite performances.