Random Romantic Comedies In Which Leads Are Gaslighting Their Love Interests (15 items)

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  (#12) Failure to Launch

  • Zooey Deschanel, Sarah Jessica Parker, Matthew McConaughey, Bradley Cooper, Terry Bradshaw, Kathy Bates, Patton Oswalt, Katheryn Winnick, Justin Bartha, Rob Corddry, Stephen Tobolowsky, Mageina Tovah, Aubrey Dollar, Peter Jacobson, Elton LeBlanc, Cynthia LeBlanc, /m/026q0k_, Tyrel Jackson Williams, Geoffrey Gould, Kate McGregor-Stewart, Adam Alexi-Malle, Johnny Rock, Michael Ahl, Codie Scott, Kristi Chalaire, Stephen Rue, Larry Gamell Jr., Anne Ewen, Melissa Caudle, Stewart Skelton, Greg Cool, Jon Purvis, Michele Harrington, Sarah Lilly, Kristin Michelle Duncil, Jessica Stone, Debby Gaudet, Lawrence Broughton, Tyler Gatton, Don Lincoln, Jerrod Paige, Raymond Parker, Gretchen Cleevely, Carter Mitchell, Brian Jesiolowski, Summer Lee, Phoebe Dey, Pepper Morgan, Miladin Mutavdzic, Tim Stoltenberg, E.L. James, Tremelda D. Cobb, Jody Nolan, Charles Dey

  At the beginning of this film, the viewer is introduced to a veritable gallery of terrible people, and no one in Failure to Launch makes it out of the film without committing heinous sins against their friends, lovers, and parents. Sitting on top of the pile of rubble that is this film is Sarah Jessica Parker, who plays Paula, a woman who is paid to construct elaborate backstories for herself in order to convince men to fall in love with her so they'll move out of their parents' houses. She then leaves them high, dry, and alone in a one-bedroom apartment. 
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  (#4) How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days

  • Kate Hudson, Matthew McConaughey, Bebe Neuwirth, Marvin Hamlisch, Kathryn Hahn, Shalom Harlow, Michael Michele, Thomas Lennon, Robert Klein, Adam Goldberg, Annie Parisse, Marv Albert, Celia Weston, Natalie Madison-Brown, Tony Longo, Georgia Craig, William Duell, Ingrid Hart, Liliane Montevecchi, James Murtaugh, Warner Wolf, Justin Peroff, John DiResta, William Hill, Radio Man, Andrew Moodie, David Macniven, David C. Roehm Sr., Diego Fuentes, Julie McLeod, James Mainprize, Al Bernstein, Doug Murray, Gina Sorell, Samantha Quan, Jeff Gruich, Scott Benes, Zachary Benes, Rebecca Harris, Ross Gallo, Collin Barrett, Jody Raymond, Gery Soles, Bob Reeves, Rod MacDonald, Frank Penny, Bruce Farquhar, Jim Paris, Ames Adamson, Archie MacGregor, Randy Kerdoon

  Out of all the characters on this list who manipulate, lie, and harass their way through a relationship, Kate Hudson's Andie Anderson (seriously) is the only one who goes out of her way to completely destroy her love interest. While trying to write an article about driving men to the breaking point, she does everything from breaking into Matthew McConaughey's home, to badgering his friends and convincing McConaughey to change himself completely for her. When the target of her scheme discovers what's been done to him, he doesn't seek out therapy or rethink his entire life, he chases Anderson down to tell her he loves her - proof that her programming worked. 
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  (#8) Overboard

  • Goldie Hawn, Kurt Russell, Roddy McDowall, Katherine Helmond, Edward Herrmann, Mike Hagerty, Frank Buxton, Frank Campanella, Rielle Hunter, Jared Rushton, Jeffrey Wiseman, Doris Hess, Carol Williard, Henry Alan Miller, Brian Price, Jamie Wild

  If you watched TBS at any given moment in the '90s, then you saw the story of a man who convinces a wealthy woman with amnesia that they've been married for years before he has her take care of his house in a strange revenge plot. After she comes out of her amnesiac stupor, she leaves for a bit before returning to the man's houseboat to thank him for everything he's done. First of all, yikes. It's telling that the only other film that deals with a male captor dispensing such vile mental torment on a woman only to have her fall in love him is the little known and brutally violent The Poughkeepsie Tapes. Although if there's a scene where Kurt Russell crab walks across a room while convincing Goldie Hawn to slit another woman's throat, then it has yet to be released on Blu-Ray. 
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  (#1) Love Actually

  • Keira Knightley, Elisha Cuthbert, Liam Neeson, January Jones, Denise Richards, Emma Thompson, Shannon Elizabeth, Hugh Grant, Claudia Schiffer, Alan Rickman, Colin Firth, Billy Bob Thornton, Rowan Atkinson, Laura Linney, Martin Freeman, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Andrew Lincoln, Bill Nighy, Sienna Guillory, Rodrigo Santoro, Martine McCutcheon, Ivana Miličević, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Richard Curtis, Frances de la Tour, Joanna Page, Declan Donnelly, Nancy Sorrell, Meredith Ostrom, Anthony McPartlin, Heike Makatsch, Gregor Fisher, Michael Parkinson, Julia Davis, Kris Marshall, Anne Reid, Edward Hardwicke, Marcus Brigstocke, Lúcia Moniz, Ruby Turner, Jo Whiley, Adam Godley, Margery Mason, Nina Sosanya, Brian Bovell, Olivia Olson, John Sharian, Meg Wynn Owen, Caroline John, Sheila Allen, Abdul Salis, Jamie Edgell, Peter Marinker, Shaughan Seymour, Gillian Barge, Rebecca Frayn, Sarah Holland, Arturo Venegas, Wes Butters, David Lynden Hall, Laura Rees, Rory MacGregor, Elisabeth Margoni, Jont, Lulu Popplewell, Glenn Conroy, Tuuli, Carla Vasconcelos, Bill Moody, Nat Udom, Emma Buckley, Dan Fredenburgh, Patrick Delaney, Stewart Howson, Paul Heasman, Richard Wills-Cotton, Adrian Preater, Kate Bowes Renna, Richard Hawley, June Flewett, Tony Lucken, Ciaran O'Driscoll, William Wadham, Georgia Flint, Joanna Thaw, Frank Moorey, Michael Fitzgerald, Keir Charles, Matt Harvey, Junior Simpson, Dave Fisher, Ines Boughanmi, Katharine Bailey, Catia Duarte, Yuk Sim Yau, Tiffany Boysell, Carol Carey, Terry Reece, Doraly Rosen, Nicola McRoy, Raul Atalaia, Helen Murton, Sarah McDougall, Clare Bennett, Hélder Costa, Katherine Poulton, Billy Campbell, Paul Slack, Tim Hatwell, Kate Glover, Wyllie Longmore, Vicki Murdoch, Amanda Garwood, Gemma Aston, Alan Barnes, Joanna Bacon, Igor Urdenko, Sarah Atkinson, Colin Coull

  Love Actually, the king daddy of ensemble films about sad attractive people becoming happy attractive people, is full of disappointing and unsettling storylines, but the worst of them all involves Andrew Lincoln falling in love with his best friend’s new wife Juliet (played by Keira Knightley). Lincoln's character, Mark, goes out of his way to be distant from Juliet - which seems oxymoronic - but it's all a part of his plan to make her realize that her affable, handsome husband is boring and not the guy for her. When she finds out that he ruined her wedding video by completely focusing on her (and constantly zooming in on her face with a disregard for the audience not seen since The Blair Witch Project), she's intrigued. But it isn't until Lincoln shows up on her door with a collection of threatening cue cards that she knows that the truest love actually (sorry) exists between the two of them. 
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  (#6) Drive Me Crazy

  • Ali Larter, Melissa Joan Hart, Adrian Grenier, Stephen Collins, Keri Lynn Pratt, Mark Webber, Susan May Pratt, Lourdes Benedicto, Keram Malicki-Sánchez, Mark Metcalf, Jordan Bridges, William Converse-Roberts, Faye Grant, Kristy Wu, Andrew Roach, Elizabeth Hart, Derrick Shore, Gabriel Carpenter, Terry Walters, Ivey Lloyd, Natasha Pearce, Kris Park, Jacque Gray, Joey Lopez, Lauren Reneé Boyer, Jessica Frandsen, Lee Holmes

  When a movie is literally called Drive Me Crazy, you have to be aware that you probably won't be watching morally upstanding characters handling their problems with the ease and grace of conflict mediators. Both Melissa Joan Hart and Adrian Grenier play characters who are so filled with hate for their respective exes that they begin a campaign of subterfuge in order to make the objects of their desire mad with envy. In a classic bit of not being able to see the forest for the trees, neither Hart nor Grenier realizes that they've found their romantic and psychologically damaged match in each other until it's too late. Sad.
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  (#9) Wedding Crashers

  • Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn, Christopher Walken, Rachel McAdams, Isla Fisher, Bradley Cooper, Jane Seymour

  You know what all women love? When they meet someone at a wedding who specifically attends a ceremony they weren't invited to with a carefully constructed false identity in order to sleep with random people who might be more emotionally open to the idea of hooking up with someone either because they feel lonely, or the idea of finding "the one" seems all the more possible after witnessing your friends get married in front of their loved ones. Who doesn't like to be manipulated into sex by two schmucks who probably have matching Fight Club posters in their bedrooms? What makes Wedding Crashers worse than your average movie about guys trying to get their f*ck on is that the characters played by Vinch Vaughn and Owen Wilson legitimately believe that if they can lie hard enough and manipulate enough people, then no one will care that all of their relationships are based on horrific intentions. 

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