Movies to Watch if You’re Single on Valentine’s Day

Films that will leave you feeling pretty good about not being romantically entangled.

Valentine’s Day is a fake holiday pushed on us by corporations that stand to make a lot of money from people celebrating it. But if you’re single, it can also feel like a weeks-long, multibillion dollar campaign to remind you that if you choke alone in your apartment tonight, it might be a few days before anyone finds you, at which point your pet may or may not have begun to feast on your corpse.

If you’re alone and feeling blue this Valentine’s Day and need something to watch that won’t make you wanna slit your wrists, fret not - Uncle Matt has you covered. Some of the below films are great, some are not, but they will all leave you feeling pretty good about not being romantically entangled. L’chaim!

A Face in the Crowd

This 1957 film stars Andy Griffith - no, really, Andy Griffith! - as a lowly drifter who becomes a megastar with the help of a radio journalist, played by Patricia Neal. Yes, they become romantically involved, but no, things do not go swimmingly. A Face in the Crowd comes from the same creative team as On the Waterfront - director/snitch Elia Kazan and writer Budd Schulberg - but seems to be discussed about a fraction as often, which is nuts, because it’s just as good, and arguably more relevant to the modern world. Bonus: if you’ve never seen it before, it will completely change your perception of Griffith, and make you wonder what was really going down in Mayberry.

Love and Death on Long Island

This oh-so-uplifting 1997 update of Death in Venice stars John Hurt as a Luddite writer who accidentally sees a movie called Hotpants College II and becomes dangerously obsessed with its handsome young star, played by then-heartthrob Jason Priestley. If any of the preceding sentence sounded romantic to you, seek professional help.

The Cat

This Japanese movie from 1992 is about a cat from outer space, a good alien, and a novelist that do battle with an alien that possesses both other people and animals. Not only will this make you feel better about turning into an old cat lady, but you simply have not lived until you’ve seen a feline grab a dog by its collar and flip it through the air.

The Whistlers

The American poster art for this 2019 Romanian thriller makes it look like a cheap Fast and Furious knock-off. This is very much not the case: it’s actually a neo-noir caper flick about in which a group of criminals learn to use El Silbo, a whistling language from the Canary Islands, to surreptitiously communicate during a heist. Needless to say, it has some very anti-Valentine’s-Day-appropriate betrayals. It also has great characters, sex, violence, and a non-linear structure fans of Quentin Tarantino and Christopher Nolan will appreciate. It’s also currently streaming on multiple services for free (assuming you’re willing to deal with commercials).

The Sorrow and the Pity

If you only know this 4½-hour documentary about Nazi-occupied France as a punchline from Annie Hall, Valentine’s Day is a perfect time to become properly acquainted.

DOUBLE FEATURE: Les Diaboliques and Elevator to the Gallows

Settle down and enjoy two wonderful 1950s French thrillers about women attempting to murder their husband. Les Diaboliques was directed and co-written by Henri-Georges Clouzot, who is often called ‘the French Hitchcock’ - in fact, Les Diaboliques almost was a Hitchcock picture, and clearly influenced Psycho, which Hitch made a few years later. Elevator to the Gallows, from director and co-writer Louis Malle, doesn’t have as direct a connection to Hitchcock, but is just as Hitchcockian regardless.

In the case of Les Diaboliques, make sure you don’t accidentally watch the 1996 American remake, which is just called Diabolique, and which is bad. In fact, here, I’ll make this easy for you:

Hurlyburly

David Rabe’s 1984 play about shallow douchebag Hollywood cokeheads was adapted into a movie in 1998, although Sean Penn is the only actor from the stage production to reprise his role in the film. Look, I’ll be honest with you: this one hasn’t aged well, and not just because it includes Kevin Spacey playing a character who aggressively sexually pursues a minor - as with the film adaptation of Glengarry Glen Ross, a lot of the play’s humor somehow got lost in the translation to film. But there is something fascinating about it, it will definitely make you feel good about being single, and Spacey aside, the cast - which also includes Robin Wright, Garry Shandling, Chazz Palminteri, Anna Paquin, and Meg Ryan playing against type as a “bad girl” - is excellent. It’s not legitimately streaming anywhere, but someone threw it up on YouTube. Huzzah.

Begotten

E. Elias Merhige’s 1990 experimental horror film is about… uh… I honestly could not tell you. This is a weird, weird, weird movie. I’ve heard people say that it’s like a feature length version of the video from The Ring, and I think that’s downplaying its morbid strangeness. Unsurprisingly, Merhige went on to direct multiple music videos for Marilyn Manson. Begotten is about as romantic as a colonoscopy and, once again, free to watch on YouTube.

Happiness

Todd Solondz’s 1998 indie may be the bleakest, most uncomfortable-to-watch “comedy” ever made. A trigger warning made flesh, its interweaving storylines leave few taboos untouched. It also does a remarkably good job of humanizing some truly repulsive people, including Philip Seymour Hoffman as a guy who makes obscene phone calls. The rest of the all-star ensemble cast includes Ben Gazzara, Louise Lasser, Jared Harris, Jon Lovitz, Lara Flynn Boyle, Camryn Manheim, Cynthia Stevenson, Jane Adams, Marla Maples (!), Molly Shannon, and American goddamn treasure Dylan Baker as a pedophile. Happiness won’t just make you happy to be single, it will make you wanna go buy the least fuel-efficient non-electric vehicle you can afford and run it 24/7 to help speed along climate change and wipe out Homo sapiens forever.

Unsurprisingly, this film has basically vanished like it owes money to the mob, but, once again, YouTube comes to the rescue.