Hollywood has produced a plethora of great romantic comedies that have happy endings, for natural reasons. However, while a successful meet-cute or romance can end in an official coupling, love sometimes may also end in separation, whether this leads to an upsetting heartbreak or liberation of independence.
From romantic comedies to dramas to coming-of-age films, there are many protagonists who end up alone after a romance. Such separation can be optimistic, though, and contribute to a protagonist’s stronger understanding of themselves. A romance is comforting, but so is a solo journey. Here are ten great romantic films to watch where the main character ends up alone.
Someone Great
When New Yorker Jenny (Gina Rodriguez) gets her dream job to write for Rolling Stone in San Francisco, her boyfriend of nine years decides it’s time to part ways. To cope with the breakup, Jenny and her best friends, Erin (DeWanda Wise) and Blair (Brittany Snow), embark on a journey through the city to secure drugs and tickets for an upcoming concert that Jenny used to go to every year with her ex-boyfriend.
While Jenny slips into momentary lapses of heartbreaking memories throughout the film, in the end, she finds closure on her own and moves towards an exciting new chapter in her life – liberated from a romantic partner, but nonetheless empowered by her own drive and her best friends.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
The Perks of Being a Wallflower is full of character arcs and winding plotlines involving Charlie (Logan Lerman), Sam (Emma Watson), and Patrick (Ezra Miller). One of the most endearing storylines is Charlie and Sam’s relationship, which begins and ends as a friendship, despite Charlie’s feelings for Sam.
Charlie struggles with his feelings for Sam, but Sam doesn’t want to pursue a romantic relationship with Charlie, trusting in their friendship more. At the end of the film, when Sam and Patrick reunite with Charlie after the hospital, it’s clear that the strongest – and most infinite – relationship of all is friendship.
500 Days of Summer
Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Summer (Zooey Deschanel) weather a rocky relationship throughout 500 Days of Summer, as Summer is a free-spirited and independent lover, who is more interested in the companionship of a lover than the love itself. Tom, on the other hand, struggles to keep up with Summer’s spontaneous tendencies that, in the end, leave him on his own.
While Tom copes with the heartbreak Summer left him, he slowly discovers something he is even more in love with – himself, and his passion for architecture. Although Tom ends up alone while Summer ends up married, he still finds something he truly loves, which leads a liberated Tom to a new chapter (season) in his life.
Begin Again
Another empowering movie about falling in love with the self is Begin Again. As songwriter Gretta (Keira Knightley) picks herself up after her long-term boyfriend cheats on her, she runs into a former record label executive Dan (Mark Ruffalo). The two strike up an artistic partnership to record Gretta’s album around the city of New York, and they develop a deep friendship.
In the end, Gretta realizes there is nothing she loves more than her music, and, as Dan goes back to work at a record label, Gretta discovers she’s sold 10,000 copies on the first day alone of the album she and Dan recorded. She decides to sell the album for only $1 a piece because she wants her music simply to be heard and enjoyed. Driven purely by her passion, Gretta is a liberated artist who only needs herself.
Roman Holiday
Although there are some moments of this movie that haven’t aged well, Roman Holiday was a highly successful romantic comedy when it was initially released in the 1950s. The movie follows journalist Joe Bradley (Gregory Peck), who inadvertently ends up spending the day with crown princess Ann (Audrey Hepburn) after she runs away from the embassy.
Employing the classic enemy-to-lovers trope, this film shows a romance full of Vespa rides through Rome, confessions of love in secrecy, and, as many such stories end, separation. In the last scene, Princess Ann returns to her role as royalty and Joe to his reporting work, but the two share a last glance as he smiles at her among the throng of reporters below her. The two acknowledge that, though in love, they cannot be together, but, more importantly, acknowledge what they shared together, if only for a single day.
La La Land
Simultaneously inspiring and heartbreaking, La La Land chronicles the ups and downs of Hollywood, as well as the ups and downs of a relationship. Effectively portrayed through the changing seasons, the film follows Mia (Emma Stone) and Sebastian’s (Ryan Gosling) relationship as they navigate their romantic life and their hopeful careers as artists.
Inevitably, they go in their own directions, but sometimes that is what it takes to succeed – to work on the self on their own. When Mia and Sebastian run into each other after some time, in the end, they share eye contact that seems to play back their entire nostalgic past, a fleeting look that acknowledges their shared growth that has led them to their own paths.
Crazy Rich Asians
One of the most interesting storylines in Jon Chu’s summer blockbuster is Astrid’s (Gemma Chan) plot, amidst Rachel’s (Constance Wu). Although Astrid isn’t exactly the protagonist, she is a strong female lead whose story many viewers found even more intriguing and relatable than Rachel’s.
Astrid begins in a steady relationship, but she ends up alone on her own accord. She breaks off a stable but emotionally draining relationship with her husband when he lets his insecurities get in the way of his ability to love. She lets him go, saying it isn’t her job to make him feel like a man, and she becomes all the stronger on her own because of it.
Portrait of a Lady on Fire
Marianne (Noémie Merlant) and Héloïse (Adèle Haenel) begin as a painter and her unwilling subject, then move to unlikely friends, and eventually become intimate lovers. They develop a deeply emotional relationship, but it must end as quickly as it begins.
Perhaps the most heartbreaking element of the relationship is that it must end simply because Marianne must leave, and Héloïse must carry on with her life as guided by her mother’s expectations. In the end, Marianne lives on her own as an artist, but she continues to reminisce on her past lover – even stealing a last glance at her across the theater years later.
Lady Bird
Greta Gerwig’s Oscar-nominated coming-of-age film is led by a strong, young-spirited, and fiercely independent protagonist Lady Bird (Saoirse Ronan) who learns, through trial and error, the obstacles of adolescence.
From dating a teen who is beginning to come to terms with his sexuality to losing her virginity to a jerkish classmate - Lady Bird doesn’t end up with a love interest. Not in the initial sense anyway. Rather, in her final call home to her mom (Laurie Metcalf), Lady Bird realizes her true love is home, the place she’d rebelled against and detested for so long while she still had it.
Her
Her already challenges the convention of a traditional romance by centering the core relationship on Theo (Joaquin Phoenix) and his operating system Samantha (Scarlett Johansson). The film does a great (and all the more heartbreaking) job of showing the process of falling in love, a feeling of passion with a mind of its own.
Unfortunately, the romance ends in resigned tragedy, as Theo and Samantha realize that, although love between them exists, they are simply incompatible. Theo ends up alone, though it seems that sometimes it is worth loving even if there is the risk of losing it in the end.
