20 notable movies about completely dysfunctional couples

Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner, and Danny DeVito made two popular ‘80s adventure-rich romcoms, and then they decided to work together again. While “The War of the Roses” has a title that feels like it could be the sequel to “The Jewel of the Nile,” it is not. DeVito stepped behind the camera to direct a dark comedy about a married couple who fight tooth and nail. In their marriage, in their divorce proceedings, you name it. This was the 1980s, though, so a movie like this could make nearly six times its budget and be a big hit.

The box-office success of “The War of the Roses” bore mentioning compared to this loose adaptation. To be fair, there was a book that came out in 1981 both are based on, so you could consider “The Roses” a fresh adaptation and not a simple remake. Plus, the central couple is British this time for some reason. “The Roses” isn’t as good as DeVito’s film, but it also made less than one-third at the box office even though it came out over 35 years later.

Albert Brooks was a specific filmmaker. Many will cite “Defending Your Life” or “Lost in America” as his best film, but we’d stump for “Modern Romance.” The sharp social satire remains insightful as to the complicated nature at the heart of many a romance. Brooks plays one half of a couple perpetually in a cycle of breaking up and reconciling, and we spend the film watching one such cycle unfold.

Written by Neil Simon and directed by Elaine May, “The Heartbreak Kid” had a lot going for it behind the camera. Then, you throw in the fact the unlikeable protagonist is played by Charles Grodin, the king of playing unlikeable in a way that is still enjoyable to watch. Grodin plays a man who, after a whirlwind romance, finds himself already burnt out on his relationship while on the couple’s honeymoon. Also on that honeymoon, Grodin meets a college girl and sets his goals on courting her. Even though, you know, he’s on his honeymoon.

Did we mostly want to include this movie because of the title? Sure, but if you’re talking about relationships not working out, “I Married a Monster from Outer Space” certainly belongs. Horror films about marrying somebody who turns out to be somebody (or something) other than what they seemed at first is not unusual. The movie, well, the plot is kind of in the title. A woman is unhappy in her marriage, and it turns out it’s because the man she thought she had married has been replaced by an alien impostor.

When people talk about the best Alfred Hitchcock movies, “Suspicion” should be more central to that conversation. Joan Fontaine won Best Actress at the Oscars for this movie, making it the only performance in a Hitchcock film to win an Oscar. It’s the 1930s, you’re a woman with little romantic experience, your parents are pressuring you to get married, and then Cary Grant shows up and seems into you. You might get convinced marrying him is a good idea, too. However, what if he then dropped the act in ways somewhat minor (degenerate gambling) and decidedly major (possible murderer)?

It’s one of the quintessential stories of a dysfunctional marriage. Based on a play, which makes sense given that it’s four characters in one room, it’s about two couples having a rather unpleasant evening of bad vibes. Mike Nichols’ film adaptation is particularly strong, with all four main actors (literally the only credited actors in the film) getting Oscar nominations, with Elizabeth Taylor and Sandy Dennis taking home the awards for Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress, respectively.

Benjamin and Mrs. Robinson are not a couple. That’s not who we’re talking about. No, we’re talking about Benjamin and Elaine, Mrs. Robinson’s daughter. You know, the woman Benjamin sees while also having an affair with her married mom. Then, of course, there’s the famous ending to the movie. A moment’s triumph quickly melts into immediate dysfunction, and possibly disrepair.

The days when an adaptation of a Tennessee Williams play could be the third-highest-grossing movie of the year. To be fair, “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” also starred Elizabeth Taylor and Paul Newman, the latter then a rising movie star and the former arguably the biggest movie star in the world at the time. Brick and Maggie are married, and stand to inherit generational wealth from Maggie’s father “Big Daddy.” And yet, Brick is miserable, constantly drunk, and completely shut off from his wife no matter what she tries. It all goes back to the death of Brick’s best friend Skipper. In the play there’s a homosexual element to that but, you know, this was a 1958 Hollywood movie.

Art imitating life, or perhaps the other way around. In Stanley Kubrick’s last film, Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman, married in real life, play a married couple with a fraught relationship. Not too long after “Eyes Wide Shut,” the couple would be divorced. You could blame Kubrick’s tenacious directing style, but both Cruise and Kidman have knocked out another divorce since then, so…

Couples who go on killing sprees are rarely #relationshipgoals. This is, of course, also a movie about a grown man and a 15-year-old girl in a relationship. Terrence Malick, in his directorial debut, took the story of an actual, disturbing series of events (which also inspired Bruce Springsteen’s “Nebraska”) and turned it into a lyrical drama. You know, as is his want.

This was sort of a case of “Pick your Sam Mendes movie.” We could have gone with “American Beauty” or “Revolutionary Road.” “American Beauty” has not aged well for multiple reasons, but it won Best Picture in 1999. Also, this is not a list of the best movies about dysfunctional couples, but some of the most-notable examples of that. A film that won Best Picture certainly qualifies.

Here’s a biopic that was able to mine reality to craft a story about a highly-dysfunctional couple. Sid Vicious was the (incompetent) bass player for the Sex Pistols, making him an icon of punk rock. Nancy Spungen was around the early punk rock scene as well, and the two fell into a relationship. A relationship littered with drugs…and possibly murder. Alex Cox, perhaps the most-punk director of the 1980s, turned Sid and Nancy’s story into a movie about romance gone wrong, which became a cult classic.

Just because a couple is together at the end of a movie, and seemingly happy, doesn’t mean things are functional and healthy. Paul Thomas Anderson never does anything that straightforward. “Phantom Thread” is about a demanding dressmaker who takes up with a waitress. Their dynamic is…fraught. Poison is involved, but, like, in a way both sides seem to come down on the side of being okay with? Not PTA’s best movie, but it does star Daniel Day-Lewis, so there’s that.

One day, you’re a disaffected teenage girl looking to rebel against the social hierarchy in your school while also trying to maintain a foothold in it. Also, everybody talks in a real hyperstylized way so you have to say quippy things all the time. Then, an anarchic teenager doing a really-obvious Jack Nicholson impression shows up and you become immediately infatuated. Okay, so we’re being a little snarky about “Heathers.” It’s a good movie, if a little sweaty, especially when you recognize it is a horror film with comedic elements and not a dark comedy. After all, Veronica and J.D.’s relationship gets pretty homicidal pretty fast.

Of course, Veronica and J.D. have nothing on Mickey and Mallory Knox. After all, this is an Oliver Stone movie based on a story by Quentin Tarantino, which is to say it’s the least-subtle movie ever made. Mickey and Mallory are mass murderers who become media sensations because, you know, Stone thought he was making points about stuff.

We think Tom and Summer’s relationship is supposed to be seen as dysfunctional? We mean, it definitely is, because they are both dumb, crazy people with deranged views on relationships and, well, everything. It’s just not always clear if the filmmakers realize this. Tom and Summer are both bananas characters who are very annoying and Chloe Grace Moretz plays perhaps the worst-crafted precocious kid character in the history of film. Also at the end of the movie, after he dates Summer, Tom meets a new woman named Autumn. Sure that’s a spoiler, but this is a terrible movie and you shouldn’t watch it, so, you know, you’re welcome.

If we were talking about Richie and Margot, they would certainly qualify. So would Margot and Raleigh. However, there’s also Royal and Etheline. Sure, as the movie is beginning they are separating, en route to Etheline remarrying. And yet, their relationship remains as fraught, and as dysfunctional, as ever. “The Royal Tenenbaums” was a film in which Wes Anderson really started to codify what his films are, and it’s also a movie about promise unfulfilled in about a dozen different ways.

During a time when the Coen Brothers’ career was in a weird place, they did a pass on the screenplay for “Intolerable Cruelty” as writers for hire. When directors kept falling by the wayside, they ended up taking that role on as well. It’s not very “Coen Brothers,” but this snappy romantic comedy is quite good. George Clooney, a Coen Bros. favorite, stars alongside Catherine Zeta-Jones. It’s the story of a divorce lawyer and a gold digger in a battle of wits as sparks fly. Hey, if it were a simple relationship, it wouldn’t make too much of a movie.

Robert Pattinson and Zendaya are famed movie stars who have been in blockbuster franchises. However, they both, and Pattinson especially, like to roughen up the edges every now and again. Thus they stepped into “The Drama.” Reasonably, the two were cast to play a couple that, on the surface, seems dreamy and cinematic. The problem is that the past doesn’t always stay in the past, and when that becomes an issue right before the wedding day, well, there’s drama.