Francesca Sylph
From The Shape of Water to The Social Network, these offbeat romances make the perfect movie night for anyone sick of boom boxes and rain-soaked declarations.
Valentine’s Day is lurking around the corner, which means overpriced pink teddy bears and sad-looking supermarket flowers.
If you also feel nauseous at the sight of heart-shaped chocolates, then you’ve stumbled across the right article.
Instead of filling your screens with John Cusack in a badly-fitting trench coat, causing a public noise nuisance, why not have a more unconventional movie night this February 14th?
The fictional characters from this list of movies have the oddest dating lives. From falling in love with a fish-man to a computer operating system, or, the worst of all, Mark Zuckerberg.
They will undeniably make you feel better about your own sticky situationships and dating app horror stories.
“One of the oddest love stories ever seen on screen unfolds next.”
Her (2013)
Joaquin Phoenix stars as Theodore, a lonely writer who falls in love with his computer while listening to “melancholy songs” and crying a lot.
Scarlett Johansson voices his glorified ChatGPT girlfriend, and the two bond over discussions of love, life, longing and letting go.
Her is a sweet and soulful exploration of humanity’s need for one another and how technology isolates and connects us all.
Lars and the Real Girl (2007)
A few years after The Notebook (2004), Hollywood heartthrob Ryan Gosling took a break from kissing Rachel McAdams in a rain-soaked white t-shirt to put on an ugly sweater and grow a disappointing moustache.
In Lars and the Real Girl, he plays a sweet but painfully shy man who pursues a romantic relationship with a life-size plastic doll.
It sounds strange, and it is, but it is also unfailingly kind.
Lars’ family and friends rally around him, helping him learn how to love and be loved.
The Shape of Water (2017)
Guillermo del Toro’s twisted yet benevolent mind births another fantastical fable of otherness, ostracisation and the transcendent power of love, kindness and community.
At the centre of his story, Sally Hawkins stars as ‘Elisa’, a mute janitor at a secret government facility during the Cold War, where she stumbles across their latest scientific discovery: a humanoid amphibian.
“From falling in love with a fish-man to a computer operating system, or, the worst of all, Mark Zuckerberg.”
Ultimately, The Shape of Water is a monster movie with a heart so human that you will inevitably fall in love with a six-foot-tall fish-man.
Harold and Maude (1971)
A death-obsessed young man and a happy-go-lucky elderly woman walk into a stranger’s funeral.
One of the oddest love stories ever seen on screen unfolds next.
Riddled with angst and existential dread, Harold spends his free time contemplating creative ways to commit suicide. Meanwhile, eighty-year-old ‘Maude’ opens his life up to the pleasures of banjo-playing, car-stealing and falling in love.
Morbid and life-affirming, Harold and Maude is guaranteed to cheer anyone up.
The Social Network (2010)
Okay, stay with me on this one.
While David Fincher is often listed among the ‘Film Bro’ canon of directors, his casting of Jodie Foster and Kristen Stewart in Panic Room (2002) proves that he makes movies for the girls and the gays.
Only Fincher could turn a film about Facebook into a queer-coded, Shakespearean tale of backstabbing and betrayal.
Othello and Iago walked so Mark and Eduardo could run.
From lingering glances to a laptop-smashing breakup, The Social Network is an utterly devastating story of love and loss.
“They will undeniably make you feel better about your own sticky situationships and dating app horror stories.”
Pillion (2025)
A leather-clad Alexander Skarsgård stars as a BDSM biker who becomes entangled with a timid, younger man played by Harry Melling (who you may recognise as an all-grown-up Dudley Dursley).
Perhaps best described as a dom-com, Pillion explores the pleasure and pain of discovering yourself and asking to be loved.
Featuring hardcore intimate scenes, unexpected moments of vulnerability and a sporadic sense of humour, Pillion proves that love is the whole point, even if it looks a little different.
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Featured image courtesy of Christian Agbede on Unsplash. No changes were made to this image. Image license found here.
