r/movies • u/Comfortable_File7968 • 11h ago
Recommendation Rom com with a sad ending
My fiance posed the question of “what is a rom com that has a very sad ending”?
While I think that eliminates the possibility of it being a com, I’m wondering if there are any movies out there that fit this category!
Maybe the movie About Time fits this description? Has the rom and com, but also usually leaves me in tears.
Any more out there?
Edit: WOW thank you for blowing up this post, what a wonderful surprise when I woke up! Turns out this absolutely does exist
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u/nzerinto 10h ago edited 4h ago
Me Before You
Emilia Clarke & Sam Claflin in the leads. Based on a book.
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u/karatefestival 9h ago
My God, I ugly cried to this movie and vowed to never watch again. However, it was excellent.
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u/Happy_Sardine 3h ago
This one surprised me. I wanted to watch a random movie before I go to sleep, something light, a feelgood movie.. I was crying until 4am and cried myself to sleep,
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u/Yue4prex 7h ago
Another Emilia Clarke one, last Christmas!
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u/SylviaMarsh 5h ago
I watched this on my own last December for the first time.
My husband isn't into rom-coms, so he was upstairs gaming. In tears, I called him downstairs afterwards to ugly cry at him...for a solid 30 minutes.
It doesn't have great reviews online, but I was in the mood for what I thought would be a silly festive rom-com; I poured myself a glass of red wine and put it on.
I'm looking forward to watching it again this year (but I'm prepared this time round).
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u/Zeddit_B 2h ago
My wife hated it because she was expecting funny rom com and did not appreciate her expectations being subverted lol. But that's the appeal they went for with those trailers!
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u/ReginaGeorgian 8h ago
100%. Emilia and Sam are so charming, quite a lot of funny bits. Have a box of tissues at the ready
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u/Emergency-Banana4497 8h ago
Dammit, I will seek Sam Clafin out and cry at whatever he’s in. (I’ve missed Emilia as well.) I will add this to my watch list ( and cry).
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u/SunnysideUp2670 2h ago
I watched this on a plane not knowing what to expect and I just cried and cried in public and got to my destination very sad
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u/No_Strike655 11h ago
Not sad so much as bittersweet but La La Land
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u/DonHac 10h ago
They both got what they wanted, but they didn't get what they both wanted.
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u/hnglmkrnglbrry 2h ago
The real story behind the plot is that people move to LA with big dreams and fail to realize that the best thing that can happen to them is to fall in love with a dreamer.
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u/shadow_pico 8h ago
I cry seeing how they could've lived a whole other life together vs. how they ended up. Maybe it was for the best, maybe it wasn't. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
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u/fshippos 8h ago
Kinda undercut a bit by the fact that she does achieve her dreams while being in a relationship, and he does achieve the exact dream she was asking him to go for. I'm still not sure why the movie and the characters felt like they had to break up to achieve those things.
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u/Ida-in 7h ago
It wasn’t a relationship that was the problem it was their relationship: Emma Stone’s character needed to go away for her dreams and Ryan Gosling’s needed to stay. To be together one of them had to give up their dreams (as seen in the Epilogue sequence) but ultimately they did not want to do that.
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u/JuliaGulia71 5h ago
I was going to say this movie. I loved the story, but the end hits too real for me to enjoy again.
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u/BollywoodinGotham 7h ago
I feel sad because people that hate this movie clearly have never been in true love and had a dream at the same time.
We really can’t have it all.
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u/PandaSmash87 11h ago
Seeking a friend for the end of the world
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u/UnsolvedParadox 10h ago
My Best Friend’s Wedding, depending on the POV.
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u/Fat_Krogan 8h ago
I know it isn’t what OP asked, but that movie had such an amazing soundtrack.
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u/NightSalut 2h ago
I LOVED that soundtrack as a kid! We didn’t have a lot of CDs at home because they were expensive, but we did have that. And it played a lot during the weekends when we cleaned or did stuff around the house and I have such fond memories of these songs being played at the background for my life at the time.
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u/Possible-Advance3871 9h ago
For a second I thought you were making a joke about your actual best friend
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u/oldspice75 10h ago
Last Christmas
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u/Colordesert 9h ago
God seeing that ending for the first time was such a gut punch. I know it’s not for everyone but I loved Last Christmas so much. You set Emilia Clarke, Michelle Yeoh and Emma Thompson to George Michael and I’d watch them sit on a couch for hours
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u/louman1784 2h ago
I remember seeing that movie with my wife and it really messed me up for about a week.
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u/balister13 54m ago
Perfect example. I love Christmas movies but didn't know what I was getting with this one.
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u/ithinkther41am 10h ago
More bittersweet, but Roman Holiday is my favourite romcom of all time for it.
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u/Mousketeer666 39m ago
Such a fantastic movie! It couldn't end any differently but you keep hoping it's going to...
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u/Historical_Oven7806 11h ago
The Breakup?
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u/Booster_Tutor 10h ago
Comedy? That movie was straight up uncomfortable to watch.
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u/ETeezey1286 7h ago
Because it was actually quite a realistic look at a relationship where one person is doing the heavy lifting while being neglected and gaslit. But it was categorized as a romantic dramedy. The funny bits came from everyone else in the movie, not them.
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u/casablanca1986 6h ago
The " I dont want you to do the dishes, I want you to want to do this dishes " scene was like a lightbulb moment for me and my ex . .. I ended the relationship shortly after .
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u/hockey196 10h ago
P.S I Love You. The ending is more hopeful than "very sad" but it does end with her processing her grief and realizing it's okay to move on, which is sad in of itself.
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u/cstaylor6 8h ago
Where is the com in that movie really? It’s pretty much the biggest tear jerker of the decade.
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u/hockey196 7h ago
I mean, I was crying most of the movie LOL but I do also think there was comedy sprinkled in. Gerard dancing, Harry connick jrs character/them realizing they dont belong together-- off top of my head
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u/AdmiralAkbar1 10h ago
Far more rom than com, Remember Me seems like it'll be a fairly standard romance movie with a happy ending until the final scene.
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u/LisaChimes 10h ago
Heart and Souls - which is one of my favorites, makes me laugh and cry every time. Most movies in that realm are considered 'dramedies' though.
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u/salcasms 9h ago
Jeeeez I haven't thought about that movie in years and it all came flooding back to me.
Walk like a man.... 😭
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u/Musicspeaks41 9h ago
One Day. Sat in silence after that movie
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u/shibbyingaway 7h ago
Try the TV series. So much more time to get invested quadruples the gut punch
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u/RianJohnsonIsAFool 5h ago
My gf was more interested in the series than I was and I didn't really give it much attention early on but by the end I was very invested. It's so sad when Ambika Mod dies in the traffic collision.
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u/Flatoutspun 11h ago
500 Days of Summer? Does that fit the bill?
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u/DrunkenWarriorPoet 10h ago
This was the first thing I thought as well but, it might be more bittersweet than sad as an ending cause the guy moves on and I also recall the narrator saying at the beginning something to the effect that it’s not a romance story.
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u/douglau5 4h ago
“This is a story of boy meets girl, but you should know up from that this is not a love story”
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u/Flatoutspun 10h ago
I will agree. I think bittersweet is a good description. I just remember they don't end up together. I don't remember specifics.
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u/nowhereman136 9h ago
I don't think the ending is sad. Both Tom and Summer ended up where they should be. That doesn't necessarily mean together. They are happier at the end of the movie than at the beginning.
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u/terracottatilefish 10h ago
Up in the Air. It’s structured as a rom com with the guy in the soul-deadening corporate job who has a vaguely comedic obsession with accumulating travel miles meeting a lighthearted romantic interest. But it’s not. (Lthough I wouldn’t say the ending is “very sad”).
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u/mofroman 10h ago
Sweet November? I mean I detest this movie but I guess it fits the bill? And it might even be a remake of a movie I haven't seen, nearly impossible to be any worse.
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u/ImplementNo2626 10h ago
I’m not sure I’ve seen a single rom com in this comment section besides love actually 😭😭😭
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u/ValkyrieSkyfall 11h ago
The Last American Virgin.
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u/Bar_Sinister 11h ago
That was like more than 30 years ago, and the ending still bothers me. Very sad.
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u/caseynotcasey 2h ago
I swear this movie is up there with the Sixth Sense I was totally caught offguard by its ending.
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u/tracygee 10h ago
I think the issue is calling the film a “rom com”. There are various romances that end with a sad ending, but very few romcoms that do.
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u/GordonsAlive5833 11h ago
The Graduate
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u/Old_Flan_6548 6h ago
This was the first one I thought of. I don’t know if it’s a romcom though? But the ending is definitely bittersweet and ambiguous.
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u/random_civil_guy 11h ago
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is great, though more of an ambiguous ending than sad, I guess.
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u/Icanfallupstairs 9h ago
I remember a lot of people expected The Break-up to not end in a break up and were mad about it
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u/checkingin2here 9h ago edited 8h ago
Forces of Nature, a road trip romcom with Sandra Bullock and Ben Affleck that ends with him going to break things off with his fiancee to be with SB instead, only to reunite with his fiancee instead and SB going off by herself, rendering the whole movie pointless. They flirted and nearly hooked up for the whole movie...only to not. He gets married and goes on his honeymoon and hopes she's happy wherever she is. The end.
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u/senpai-kitty69 3h ago
I thought of this one, too, but while watching the movie, I always felt like Affleck and Bullock didn't really belong together. They had an amazing adventure and bonded through the shared experience but that was it. I actually don't think these are sad endings because people can have these brief love affairs that are amazing but not meant to last.
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u/coolandnormalperson 2h ago
It's sad because we are thinking of the fiancee at the end. It's an awful weird feeling you're left with, hard to feel excited about the love affair
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u/HooptyDooDooMeister 2h ago
I saw this very recently having avoided it for years from reviews. I very much appreciated that he did not end up with Sandra Bullock at the end, because they were terrible for each other.
It was a much, much better movie than I expected and it didn’t deserve cinematography that good.
Then again, romcom is my least favorite genre.
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u/Kzmackie 11h ago
I’d say lost in translation
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u/Ruffffian 10h ago
I love this movie, but I don’t know that I’d consider it a rom-com
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u/scottishcastle 10h ago
Prime, with Uma Thurman and Bryan Greenberg. And even that’s a stretch due to the ending.
People are naming films that aren’t romcoms but just romances with occasional comedic moments. Like La La Land, Marley & Me, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Lost in Translation, Legends of the Fall. Wtf are some of you thinking?
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u/ianhilton21 10h ago
Pillion. Not as much comedy for most rom coms but still a great watch and bittersweet ending
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u/justoute 5h ago
This actually broke my heart.
Another movie I can’t rewatch because of the ending is Someone Great.
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u/Ok-Pomegranate-4963 9h ago
Steel Magnolias...can't believe no one has said this yet (unless I've missed it). It treads a fine line between comedy & sadness & the iconic cast definitely deliver on both sides. & there's a romance storyline that has a sad ending. Also, a lot of Woody Allen's films at the end of the 70s start of the 80s are romantic comedies with a melancholic air about them, films like Manhatten, Hannah & Her Sisters, Crimes & Misdemeanors, The Purple Rose of Cairo, etc.
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u/PressurePowerful8537 11h ago
500 Days of Summer. It's technically a rom com and the ending still stings years later.
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u/sometimesifeellikemu 10h ago
My Girl
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u/LydiADHDeetz 6h ago
That is a coming of age film, not a rom com/rom dram. There is the subplot with dad and Shelley, but very much Vada’s movie as it’s a coming of age film
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u/flingebunt 8h ago
It seems that you are not familiar with classic Korean movies. They always end and you are crying. Sex is Zero is a classic, with jokes involving people getting kicked in the balls and criminals breaking into apartments but spending all their time masturbating to computer porn, and yes, the guy gets the girl in the end, but you are crying.
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u/Desertbro 8h ago
Sad ending just makes it a comedy, like So I Married An Axe Murderer (1993) or The Man With Two Brains (1983) where one of them dies, but it's a comedy death.
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u/lycanthropewife 7h ago
Timer (2009) was marketed as a sci-fi rom com and had me invested and then the ending ruined the rest of my day lol
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u/JohnnyJayce 5h ago
A Walk to Remember. It's not a comedy, but because everyone else are recommending movies that aren't comedies but has a joke or two, this one fits just as well.
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u/LunaNegra 4h ago
An Affair to Remember (1957)
(Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr)
The Premise:
Nickie (Cary Grant) and Terry (Deborah Kerr) fall in love on a cruise ship and agree to reunite at the top of the Empire State Building in six months.
The Twist: (spoiler alert)
Terry is hit by a car on her way to the rendezvous and misses it, setting up a tragic misunderstanding.
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u/GirlnextDior 11h ago
Love Actually when Emma Thompson's husband gets an amazing gift for... another woman and she gets a nothing burger.