Romantic movies aren't always necessarily such light-hearted affairs, with plenty of films centering on love quickly taking turns towards the dark and depressing. In the modern era, romantic comedies are the most commonly associated type of film with romantic love. Yet ever since William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, pairing love with tragedy has been a common practice in storytelling. Plenty of films revolving around romantic relationships can get quite morose as they progress in a multitude of different ways.

There are several different avenues romantic movies can take in order to become more bleak. In many cases, films with abrupt genre shifts will combine the typical niceties of ionate love with saddening or even downright horrifying events, making for peculiar blends of different types of movies. More rarely, a given romance film will wait until the last minute to make a grand story reveal that re-frames everything in a decidedly macabre context, twisting a heartwarming story into something darker.

10 Unfaithful

Rides The Fine Line Between Love And Hate

Eroticism and thrillers go hand-in-hand, as proven relentlessly by films like Unfaithful. True to its name, the movie's story centers on a seemingly happy married couple, Edward and Connie Sumner, whose relationship is thrown into disarray when Connie engages in a scandalous affair with a stranger after a chance encounter.

It isn't long before Edward discovers her infidelity, leading to some violent developments. In truth, Unfaithful isn't a typical romance film from its very premise, with both Edward and Paul going on their own romantic arcs with Connie.

While the taboo thrills of Connie's unfaithfulness drives the drama, the unbelievable escalation of the narrative once Edward finds out is shocking to say the least, resulting in a thriller that is, at its core, quite romantic. The downer ending of Unfaithful drives home the painful message that even the briefest of lapses in judgment can comprehensively ruin someone's life, not to mention their relationship.

9 A Star Is Born

A Disheartening Dissection Of Love And Show Business

The film that proved Lady Gaga's acting prowess, A Star Is Born is the latest of a long line of drama films of the same name stretching back to the original movie, released all the way back in 1937. Recycling the same plot, A Star Is Born posits Bradley Cooper as Jack Maine, an established musician, opposite Gaga's Ally, an aspiring artist yet to be discovered. Though both characters have their demons, the two find mentorship and romantic love in one another on their journeys as performers.

Things take a bleak turn as Jack's underlying struggles with alcohol abuse worsen as Ally eclipses him in popularity, portrayed wonderfully by Lady Gaga's very real talent as a pop star sensation. As things with Jack come to a boiling point, Ally remains hopelessly devoted to him, sacrificing everything to keep him from succumbing to his internal struggles. However sunny A Star Is Born begins, the film is likely to leave viewers wallowing in tears by the time the end credits roll.

8 Bones And All

A Twisted Tale Of Young Love

Sitting at the woefully under-explored intersection of horror and romance, Bones And All examines what ionate love is like from the perspective of two slasher villains. Taylor Russell and Timothée Chalamet star opposite one another as a pair of cannibals. While Russell's Maren feels shame for her dark urges, hoping to find a way of overcoming them, Chalamet's Lee encourages her to embrace her hunger for human flesh, showing her the ropes of an experienced murderer. The two then embark on a road trip across the country in a search for Maren's birth mother.

Bones And All doesn't keep its horrific nature a secret, with the film openly taking place in a world in which cannibals, called "eaters", are seemingly far more common, able to identify one another off scent alone. The film is mired in gore and puppy love the entire way through, making for a bizarre mix of emotional drama. As disgusting as Lee and Maren's journey gets, their relationship is oddly sweet, even if it is steeped in atrocities.

7 Me

Has One Of The Most Shocking Gut-Punch Endings In Cinema History

In stark contrast to Bones And All, the dark parts of Me don't rear their heads until the literal last minute of its runtime. Starring Robert Pattinson, the film divides most of its story between a coming-of-age story and an adorable romance. Robert Pattinson stars as a college student who begins a relationship with a young woman as a way of getting back at her father, a police detective who arrests him after a late night brawl. But before long, the relationship gets more serious due to the couple's similar journeys with grief and trauma.

In a shocking twist, one of the penultimate scenes of Me slowly pulls out to reveal Tyler standing in the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11th, 2001, shortly after dying in the infamous terror attacks. This bizarre ending that nearly ruins the movie results in a tonal whiplash, plunging the otherwise endearing story of young love back into tragedy. If it weren't for the shocking ending, Me would be a hopeful, if not lighthearted, love story.

6 Something Wild

From Romcom To Thriller In No Time Flat

While it's easy enough to corrupt a romantic drama with a downer ending, turning a straight-up romantic comedy on its head is a much more difficult task. Yet somehow, Something Wild manages to make it work, presenting a happy-go-lucky odd couple romance story that quickly devolves into a stalker thriller. The fun begins when investment baker Charlie falls for the free-spirited Lulu, breaking out of his regimented lifestyle with her whimsy and joie de vivre.

Things go awry when Lulu's ex, the dangerously unstable Ray (fittingly played by Ray Liotta), barges back into her new relationship. Before long, Ray is forcing both Lulu and Charlie to commit criminal acts with him, drastically changing the tone of the narrative. As tensions boil over, what was a screwball romcom becomes a tense fight for survival as Ray presents more and more of a danger to the newly-formed couple.

5 Miracle Mile

Takes Its Simple Love Story To Apocalyptic Territory

Miracle Mile starts off innocently enough, with a meet-cute at the La Brea tar pits between twin leads Harry and Julie offering prospects of a new relationship. As the two agree to meet again, their plans are interrupted when Harry hears something he wasn't supposed to on a payphone.

A frightened voice identifying himself as Chip warns Harry that an all-out nuclear war is imminent before seemingly being shot, plunging the lovestruck protagonist into a state of terror. Indeed, it isn't long before word gets out about the impending disaster, and Miracle Mile places itself on a fast-track to becoming a post-apocalyptic film.

The incredibly depressing ending makes Miracle Mile's beginning and end the two terminal points of a long sliding scale from hopeful heat-flutters to world-ending doom and gloom.

Harry and Julie's desperate bid to escape to safety together turns what could've been an easygoing romance into a desperate bid for survival. The incredibly depressing ending makes Miracle Mile's beginning and end the two terminal points of a long sliding scale from hopeful heat-flutters to world-ending doom and gloom.

4 Life Is Beautiful

One Of The Most Poignant Holocaust Films Ever Made

A period movie set at the precipice of World War II, the dark places Life Is Beautiful quickly heads into shouldn't altogether be a shock, but that doesn't make them any less painful when the film eventually gets to them. Starting in Tuscany, Life Is Beautiful begins as a slapdash romance between a Jewish waiter and a school teacher. Despite coming from different worlds, they manage to make a relationship work, and even have a child together.

Flash forward a few years, and the onset of the holocaust sees the lovable Guido and his son, Giosuè, interned in a concentration camp. Guido does his best to assuage his son's fears by making the atrocities of the war out to be a game him and his son are participating in, but he can only stave off the horrors from his child's perception for so long. Ending with one of the most tear-worthy beats ever put to screen, Life Is Beautiful proves the thesis statement of its title with high highs and low lows.

3 Colossal

A Quirky Monster Movie Romance That Gets Dark Quickly

Combining the thrills of a typical giant monster movie with a genuine romance doesn't seem like a formula that would work, yet Colossal manages to balance these two concepts quite deftly. The film revolves around a failed writer who returns to her hometown, standing on the edge of a budding romance with her childhood friend.

Complicating matters is the fact that both are somehow able to conjure huge creatures that follow their movements, a lizard and a robot, in South Korea while standing on a certain spot in a local playground at a specific time of day. Subverting expectations yet again, Colossal goes into shockingly dark territory when the initially lovable Oscar becomes controlling and threatening, abusing the power of his kaiju for selfish means.

Before long, the struggle between giant fighters turns into a metaphor for breaching the atmosphere of a toxic relationship, making for a fascinatingly unique experience. It seems unlikely that romance, giant monsters, and serious themes of abuse could mesh together so well, but Colossal stands tall, making it all somehow work.

2 He Loves Me…He Loves Me Not

Changes Genres Alongside The Perspectives Of Its Characters

Also known by its native French title, À la Folie... Pas du Tout, this foreign language film gives a new meaning to limerence and obsessive romance. The story first follows a young art student named Angélique, who naively engages in an affair with the charming and successful cardiologist, Dr. Loïc Le Garrec.

When he seems unable or unwilling to ultimately return her affections, Angélique becomes morose, resorting to violent ends in the wake of her spurned adoration. A simple tragic romance takes a turn for the horrifying when the film replays the same events halfway through, this time from Loïc's perspective.

A simple tragic romance takes a turn for the horrifying when the film replays the same events halfway through, this time from Loïc's perspective.

It turns out that the two never actually slept together, with Angélique's unreliable narration early on being merely representative of her delusions. What seemed like a heartening romance drama from the earliest scenes quickly becomes something more sinister as Loïc discovers the depths of his secret irer's psychosis.

1 Stranger Than Fiction

A Contemplative Romance That Breaks The Fourth Wall

One of the more cerebral films of Will Ferrell's typically comedic filmography, Stranger Than Fiction merges heady explorations of drama with novel magical realism. The film positions Ferrell as a Type A IRS agent who lives his life planned to the last meticulous detail, thriving in routine. However, when the narration of a famous author begins to overtake his thoughts, he finds himself swept up in a whirlwind romance with a baker he's in the process of auditing.

Things go awry when Ferrell's character learns that his "author" has a habit of killing off her protagonists, starting a nerve-wracking countdown. In the end, the hapless IRS agent has to choose between a noble sacrifice and his own life, flinging the story into an anxiety-ridden moral conundrum. Even if Stranger Than Fiction ultimately has a happy ending, its quite unsettling and dark for a typical romance movie, regardless of its fantasy elements.