Listicle: 10 movie couples that didn’t make it and totally broke us

Unrequited love, unfulfilled longing, romances that didn’t work out. These 10 onscreen couples broke each other’s hearts, and ours too

Listicle: 10 movie couples that didn’t make it and totally broke us

• 
  La La Land (2016)

  Aspiring actress Mia (Emma Stone) meets jazz musician Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) in busy, crazy LA. Their love is real. But it can’t hold up against individual ambition and the demanding city. She moves to Paris to pursue acting. He stays back to open a jazz club. Success feels wonderful, but was it worth losing each other along the way? It’s a question that goes deeper than the film’s song, dance and glib dialogue.
• 
  Call Me By Your Name (2017)

  Summer is short. So was the romance between the 17-year-old Elio Perlman (Timothée Chalamet) and 24-year-old Oliver (Armie Hammer). Luca Guadagnino’s film is set in the Italian countryside in the ’80s. Love blossoms slowly, burns fierce. But it’s taboo and stays hidden even as the two men explore their love for literature, history and music. The end leaves you devastated. Watch it to see how even short-lived love can cut deeply.
• 
  In The Mood For Love (2000)

  It’s impossible to watch this movie, set in ’60s Hong Kong, and not crush on both Chow (Tony Chiu-wai) and Su (Maggie Cheung). They’re neighbours, each married to a spouse who travels often on work. Dining alone sucks, so they meet for meals. Turns out, their spouses are seeing each other. Our cuckolded couple must take the high road even as they fall fiercely, privately in love with each other too. Shared silences, stolen glances, miscommunication – director Wong Kar-wai really twists the knife!
• 
  Her (2013)

  Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) is in love with Samantha, his AI-driven operating system. She’s a secretary, gopher, confidant, comforter and is voiced by Scarlett Johansson – who wouldn’t grow dependent on something like this? Samantha, however, outgrows Theodore and is decommissioned, leaving him to heal on his own. He does end up embracing human relationships again, and regaining his inspiration as a writer. But where does all that love go?
• 
  500 Days Of Summer (2009)

  Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) meets Summer (Zooey Deschanel) at work. He’s smitten. She’s… not even seriously interested. But he falls for his fantasy anyway, setting himself up for disappointment. Then, Summer gets engaged to someone else, and his world falls apart. We’re glad they didn’t end up together. This loss teaches Tom to grow. And how clever is it that the woman he meets next is called Autumn?
• 
  Lars And The Real Girl (2007)

  Lars (Ryan Gosling) lives in a frosty American town with few people. Then, one day, he introduces everyone to his new girlfriend – a life-sized, anatomically correct, sex doll, Bianca. The love story here is not man and doll, but man and townspeople. Everyone subtly plays along while they get him the counselling he needs and heals enough to let Bianca ‘pass away’. One love was not meant to be. The other was there all along.
• 
  Edward Scissorhands (1990)

  Before Johnny Depp was problematic, right when Winona Ryder was her generation’s darling, Tim Burton took a tale of a man with scissors for hands (What? Yes!) and made it a Kafkaesque movie about how we treat those who are a little different. Edward can literally kill anyone who gets too close. Kim is the girl of his dreams. They have to let each other go. It’s probably what makes the love story so pure and perfect.
• 
  Lost In Translation (2003)

  ScarJo’s breakout film is set in late-night Tokyo. She plays Charlotte, a Yale grad and wife of a celebrity photographer who is jet-lagged in the day and largely isolated in a Japanese-speaking land. She meets Bob (Bill Murray), a fading movie star who’s also adrift in Tokyo. Their bond is brief, intense and life-changing without being romantic. Not all love stories need permanence to be meaningful. Arigato!
• 
  Love, Simon (2018)

  Simon (Nick Robinson), is gay but not out. He’s in an online relationship with a classmate known only as Blue. But when Simon and his love letters are outed (but Blue stays closeted), it gets hurtful and complicated. Simon’s journey isn’t just about finding romance. It’s about finding himself. The LGBTQ+ slogan, It Gets Better, is personal not political here. And, gosh, we want Simon’s super-supportive fam!
• 
  Becoming Jane (2007)

  Jane Austen (Anne Hathaway) is an aspiring writer in a world where women are expected only to marry well. Naturally, there’s temptation in the shape of Tom Lefroy (James McAvoy), a law student who challenges Jane intellectually and emotionally. Naturally love blossoms. Alas, dear reader, society and money get in the way. She walks away rather than ruin his future. One the bight side, Austen leaves us six books that sparkle 200 years later...