Ah, weddings…who doesn’t love them? Beautiful brides, elegant decorations, people weeping everywhere, a delicious feast, a fun party, your ex sitting there regretting all of their choices (Oh sorry, that was not supposed to go in). Anyway, this is none of those things; this is a list of movies that will make you regret the sacred bonds of marriage.

The Heartbreak Kid (Palomar Pictures)

In 1972, Elaine May (one-half of the iconic comedy duo Nichols & May) released one of the most funny yet deeply tragic films of all time. The Heartbreak Kid centers around a young man named Lenny Cantrow (played magnificently by the late Charles Gordon) who marries Lila Kolodny (Jeannie Berlin in an Oscar nominated performance) out of selfishness to copulate with her. While on their honeymoon in Miami, Lenny meets the angelic Kelly Corcoran (played by Cybill Shepherd), smitten with Kelly, Lenny has an affair with her while Lila is in their hotel room in pain from a severe sunburn. Kelly’s father Mr. Corcoran (Eddie Albert in his second Oscar nominated performance) suspects that Lenny wants more than friendship from Kelly. When their honeymoon ends Lenny breaks it off with Lila and travels to Minnesota to be with Kelly. Once he is rebuffed, he keeps wearing her down until he goes to dinner at her house and proposes to her. Mr. Corcoran gives an incredible speech about how Lenny threw away Lila for Kelly and how he might throw Kelly away for another woman; he bribes him to stay away. Lenny refuses the bribe and marries Kelly.

Lesson Learned: Don’t marry someone who wants to use you in their marriage for their selfishness.

Where To Watch: DVD, and YouTube.

The War Of The Roses (20th Century Fox)

Danny DeVito directs this darkly comedic film based on the novel by Warren Adler about a marriage that is on the fritz. The film re-teams the iconic trio of Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner, and Danny DeVito who starred in Romancing the Stone and its lesser sequel, The Jewel of the Nile. Douglas and Turner play Oliver and Barbara Rose; Oliver is a lawyer and Barbara is a housewife turned caterer while DeVito plays their lawyer friend Gavin. Gavin narrates the entire story of the Roses to a client (played by a mute Dan Castellaneta of The Simpsons fame) about how they fell in love. Oliver and Barbara meet in college, get married, buy a house, and have children, and then when the children are grown they start feuding. Oliver spends most of his time at the office and Barbara is so unfulfilled she starts making pâtés. When Oliver has an episode where he thinks he is having a heart attack, becomes hospitalized, and Barbara doesn’t visit him he becomes concerned; When she tells him she was almost happy at the thought of him dying she asks for a divorce. Oliver refuses to divorce her which causes mayhem: the house is divided between them, Oliver kills Barbara’s cat on accident, Barbara almost smothers Oliver in his sauna, Oliver urinates on her food while guests are over, and so on. Each one of these moments culminates in their demise from a falling chandelier.

Lesson Learned: Marry someone you truly love and if you fall out of love; divorce in a civil manner

Where To Watch: DVD, Prime Video, Apple TV+, and Movies Anywhere.

To Die For (Columbia Pictures)

Oscar winner Nicole Kidman broke out in this dark satire about the need for fame. Kidman plays Suzanne Stone, a young woman with aspirations of being a weather girl on TV. She marries Larry Maretto (Oscar nominee Matt Dillon), while their marriage seemed picture perfect it wasn’t enough for her. Suzanne takes a job as an assistant at their local TV station but soon annoys her boss into promoting her as a weather girl. Soon letting all the local fame go to her head she starts hanging around three teens (played by Joaquin Phoenix, Casey Affleck, and Allison Folland) who she seduces, and hires to kill Larry because he doesn’t support her career. Once Larry is dead, Suzanne becomes the center of all attention, and her involvement with the teens (in which they are arrested) and her husband’s murder are uncovered as well. She ends up avoiding charges by claiming that the police didn’t use the proper routes to gain the information of her involvement. Larry’s father Joe (played by Dan Hedeya) hires a hitman to kill Suzanne because he learns that she was behind his death. After the hitman kills her, Suzanne is dead in a frozen lake while her sister-in-law Lydia (Illeana Douglas) skates over her on the ice.

Lesson Learned: Don’t marry a narcissist who’s hungry for fame; they might do anything to achieve it.

Where To Watch: Prime Video, DVD, The Criterion Collection.

Gone Girl (20th Century Fox)

In 2014 David Fincher, Gillian Flynn, Ben Affleck, and an Oscar nominated Rosamund Pike gave us the best psychological thriller of that year…Gone Girl. Gillian Flynn adapted the screenplay from the novel of the same name. It’s a twisted tale of a married couple playing mind games with each other. On the day of their fifth wedding anniversary Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) comes home to find that his house has been ransacked and his wife Amy (Rosamund Pike) has disappeared. What starts as a missing persons investigation turns into a homicide case…and Nick is the prime suspect. As the film goes along it is revealed that Amy was the mastermind behind her “disappearance and murder” (she gives a phenomenal monologue about it). After changing her appearance, losing her money, and murdering her high school stalker; Amy “magically” reappears again and comes back into Nick’s life, and the kicker is…she’s pregnant.

Lesson Learned: Don’t marry a psychopath, they might ruin your life.

Where To Watch: Hulu, Disney+, Apple TV+, Prime Video, Movies Anywhere, DVD.

Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Warner Bros.)

In Mike Nichols’ filmmaking debut he gave us the most intense depictions of a marriage ever to be seen in Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor’s, George and Martha. The entire film takes place in George and Martha’s house (with the exception of a small trip to a bar). A young twenty-something couple named Nick and Honey (played by the late George Segal and Sandy Dennis) are invited by George and Martha to have drinks after attending a college staff party where George and Nick teach. An already drunk Martha starts the night off by being overly kind (yet slightly mean) to Nick and Honey, while also being extremely belittling of George (which causes him to fight back). As the night goes on Nick and Honey become involved in the married couples dramatics and everyone ends up drunk and regretful by the end. From shooting a prank gun to having an affair less than 100 feet from your husband, this film is full of mistakes and toxic characters.

Lesson Learned: When the hosting couple starts dragging you into their personal matters, excuse yourself and leave.

Ready Or Not (Searchlight Pictures)

Radio Silence (the team behind the recent reboot of Scream and its sequel Scream VI) brought this wholly original satire to life on screen. Ready or Not is a bloody, laugh-out-loud, horror-comedy that is lead by Samara Weaving. Weaving plays Grace, a young woman who has been orphaned all of her life and she is finally marrying Alex Le Domas, a son of the affluent Le Domas gaming empire family. But there’s a twist…every new addition to the family must play a game, if the person makes it to sunrise of the next day then they are family. What Grace doesn’t know is that the games involve death. When she draws hide-and-seek from a deck of cards, Grace is hunted by her new found family and she starts to defend herself (in many bloody ways) against the Satan-worshipping millionaires.

Lesson Learned: Do deep research into the family of your partner, you wouldn’t want to be married into a family of murders.

Where To Watch: Hulu, Apple TV+, Prime Video, Movies Anywhere, and DVD.

Very Bad Things (Polygram)

Christian Slater, Cameron Diaz, Jon Favreau, and Jeremy Piven…what can go wrong? The answer is a lot of things. Peter Berg directs this chaotic tale that possibly inspired The Hangover (but this contains more blood). Jon Favreau and Cameron Diaz play the newly weds Kyle and Laura. When Kyle and his friends go to Las Vegas to celebrate his bachelor party, things go awry. They hire a stripper but she dies accidentally and then they purposefully kill a security guard to cover up the incident. Now the men are hours away from a wedding and two bodies are in their room. After they dispose of the bodies, even more chaos ensues more people die, there’s blackmail, and Laura’s life is ultimately ruined by her husband and his friend’s actions.

Lesson Learned: If you’re going to have a bachelor party don’t commit murder before the wedding.

Where To Watch: Prime Video, Apple TV+, and DVD.