The Best Movies to Watch After a Breakup, Depending on Your Mood
Eight breakup movies sorted by what you need tonight, from Legally Blonde and The First Wives Club to Eat Pray Love, with running times, what to know before you watch and where each one streams.
- Eight breakup movies, sorted by what you need tonight: a laugh, your friends, a way to make sense of it, or a fresh start.
- Each one comes with the year, the running time, what to know before you press play and where it streams in the U.S. as of Oct. 24, 2026.
- Someone Great and Eat Pray Love are on Netflix, and The First Wives Club streams free on Pluto TV.
A breakup movie can make you laugh, make you cry or make you look up flights to Italy. The trick is picking the one that matches the night you are having.
These eight cover four moods, two movies each, from Reese Witherspoon at Harvard Law to Julia Roberts in Bali. None of them promises to fix anything. Each one is good company for a specific kind of heartbreak.
What kind of breakup movie do you want tonight?
| If you want to… | Watch | Why this one |
|---|---|---|
| Laugh | Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008) | The dumped guy is the punchline, and he knows it |
| Laugh | Legally Blonde (2001) | Getting dumped turns into a career |
| Be with your friends | Someone Great (2019) | One last night out with the people who show up |
| Be with your friends | The First Wives Club (1996) | Three exes, one plan, a closing number |
| Make sense of it | Celeste and Jesse Forever (2012) | When you are still best friends with your ex |
| Make sense of it | (500) Days of Summer (2009) | Replaying a relationship, out of order |
| Start over | Under the Tuscan Sun (2003) | A divorce, a bus tour and a house on impulse |
| Start over | Eat Pray Love (2010) | A year in three countries after leaving a marriage |
Which movies fit each mood?
If you want to laugh: Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Jason Segel wrote and stars as Peter, a TV composer dumped without warning by his girlfriend of five years, the TV star Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell). He flies to Oahu to forget her and finds her at the same resort with her new boyfriend, a British rock star played by Russell Brand.
Mila Kunis plays Rachel, the hotel concierge who gets him a free suite. The jokes are mostly at Peter’s expense. 111 minutes. Bell is back in a rom-com now: who’s new in “Nobody Wants This” Season 3.
If you want to laugh: Legally Blonde
Elle Woods (Witherspoon) goes to dinner expecting a proposal. Warner dumps her instead, because he does not think she is serious enough for his plans in politics. So she gets into Harvard Law to win him back, and finds out she is good at it.
The breakup lasts one scene; the rest is what she does next, with Jennifer Coolidge as the manicurist Paulette. 96 minutes.
If you need your friends: Someone Great
Jenny (Gina Rodriguez), a music journalist in New York, lands her dream job at a music magazine in San Francisco, and her boyfriend of nine years breaks up with her.
Her best friends, Erin (DeWanda Wise) and Blair (Brittany Snow), take the day off for one last adventure before she moves.
It is a Netflix original, written and directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson. Flashbacks to the relationship run through the whole day, and so does a lot of drinking. 92 minutes.
If you need your friends: The First Wives Club
Bette Midler, Goldie Hawn and Diane Keaton play college friends who reunite at a funeral and realize all three of their husbands have left them, or are leaving them, for younger women. They plan their payback together, and the movie ends with the three of them singing “You Don’t Own Me.”
Know before you watch: the funeral that brings them together follows a friend’s suicide, shown in the opening minutes. 103 minutes.
If you want to make sense of it: Celeste and Jesse Forever
Celeste (Rashida Jones) and Jesse (Andy Samberg) married young, separated and are getting divorced, but still spend every day together as best friends. It works until Jesse moves on, and his new girlfriend is pregnant.
Jones wrote it with Will McCormack, the same pair behind this year’s marriage comedy “The Invite,” whose ending is open on purpose. 92 minutes.
If you want to make sense of it: (500) Days of Summer
Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) falls for his co-worker Summer (Zooey Deschanel), who tells him early on that she does not want anything serious. The movie jumps back and forth across their 500 days, the way a memory does after it ends. 95 minutes.
The narrator warns at the start that this is not a love story. For anyone still replaying a relationship that the other person saw differently, that is the point.
If you want to start over: Under the Tuscan Sun
Frances (Diane Lane), a San Francisco writer, finds out her husband has been cheating and loses her house in the divorce. Her best friend, played by Sandra Oh, hands her a ticket for a tour of Tuscany. In Cortona, Frances gets off the bus and buys a run-down villa.
It is based on Frances Mayes’s 1996 memoir. 113 minutes.
If you want to start over: Eat Pray Love
Julia Roberts plays the writer Elizabeth Gilbert, who leaves her marriage and spends a year eating in Italy, praying in India and falling for a Brazilian businessman (Javier Bardem) in Bali. It is based on Gilbert’s 2006 memoir, directed by Ryan Murphy.
The longest pick here at 133 minutes, and, as in Celeste and Jesse Forever, she is the one who leaves. Roberts’ breakout came two decades earlier: who from “Steel Magnolias” is still alive.
What should you know before you choose?
| Movie | Runtime | Heads-up |
|---|---|---|
| Forgetting Sarah Marshall | 111 min | Raunchy humor; the ex is on screen with her new boyfriend all week |
| Legally Blonde | 96 min | The lightest pick; the ex gets engaged to someone else |
| Someone Great | 92 min | Flashbacks to the relationship; drinking and drugs |
| The First Wives Club | 103 min | Opens with a friend’s death by suicide |
| Celeste and Jesse Forever | 92 min | The ex moves on, and a baby is on the way |
| (500) Days of Summer | 95 min | She ends up married to someone else |
| Under the Tuscan Sun | 113 min | Starts with a husband’s affair |
| Eat Pray Love | 133 min | Long; she is the one who leaves the marriage |
Where can you watch them in the U.S.?
As of Oct. 24, 2026, according to JustWatch. Streaming deals change month to month.
| Movie | With a subscription or free | Rent |
|---|---|---|
| Forgetting Sarah Marshall | Not streaming | Prime Video, Apple TV, Fandango at Home |
| Legally Blonde | MGM+; free with ads on YouTube | Prime Video, Apple TV, Fandango at Home |
| Someone Great | Netflix | Not available |
| The First Wives Club | Paramount+, MGM+; free on Pluto TV | Prime Video, Apple TV, Fandango at Home |
| Celeste and Jesse Forever | Howdy | Prime Video, Apple TV, Fandango at Home |
| (500) Days of Summer | Hoopla, with a library card | Prime Video, Apple TV, Fandango at Home |
| Under the Tuscan Sun | Starz | Prime Video, Apple TV, Fandango at Home |
| Eat Pray Love | Netflix | Prime Video, Apple TV, Fandango at Home |
For the other side of a breakup, the couples who stay together in two homes: living apart together, explained. More in Love & Relationships.
— Bruno Monteiro
Sources: the studios’ official trailers and release information (Universal Pictures, MGM, Netflix, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Classics, Fox Searchlight Pictures, Buena Vista Pictures, Sony Pictures); JustWatch, for U.S. streaming availability, checked Oct. 24, 2026; Wikipedia, for running times. Photos: Sony Pictures, MGM, Netflix, Fox Searchlight Pictures.
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