
The Best On-Screen Love Triangles of All Time for Your Watch (or Rewatch) List
Two’s company, three’s the reason we kept watching.
If you haven’t been keeping a close eye on the press junket for Materialists, you’re lying, and I don’t want to talk to you. But I do want to talk about the fact that love triangles are back.
It’s a tried and tested storytelling technique that truly gnaws at the innate human desire to be, well, desired. Themes of jealousy, competition, personal growth all woven in too. We’ve seen it played out in books and film for eons now.
But if Dakota Johnson finding herself stuck between two of our internet boyfriends, Pedro Pascal and Chris Evans, has you rediscovering your hunger for romantic entanglements – in other people’s lives, not your own – we’ve compiled the perfect Watch This Next list.
These are the best on-screen love triangles of all(ish) time.

1. Titanic
Where Can I Watch It? Amazon Prime Video
Let’s forget about the fact they both totally could’ve fit on the floating door, and focus more on their fleeting love. So Rose (Kate Winslet), feeling trapped in her engagement to Cal (Billy Zane), is liberated by a very immediate and intense connection with Jack (Leonardo Dicaprio) onboard the Titanic. Coming to terms with societal expectations versus genuine happiness, Rose runs from her responsibilities in the face of tragedy, to feel free for the last time.

2. My Best Friend’s Wedding
Where Can I Watch It? Amazon Prime Video
A classic let’s-get-married-later-in-life pact, gone wrong. Julianne (Julia Roberts) and Michael (Dermot Mulroney) said if they were both still single by the time they turned 28, they would marry each other. But when Michael announces his engagement to Kimmy (Cameron Diaz), Julianne quickly realizes she wanted him along. Despite these feelings not being reciprocated, she begins scheming to break up the happy couple before they can say ‘I do’.

3. Center Stage
Where Can I Watch It? Paramount+
Yep, the one that bombed at the box office before being crowned as “the greatest dance movie of our generation” some 20 years later. And within it we have a love triangle playing out both on and off stage. Our sweet, young protagonist Jody Sawyer (Amanda Schull) is charmed by fellow ABC alumni Charlie (Sasha Radetsky) and infamous bad boy ballet star Cooper Neilson (Ethan Stiefel). A very steamy performance dictates the working dynamic between the three before Jody makes a final decision.

4. Bridget Jones’s Diary
Where Can I Watch It? Amazon Prime Video
The first in a four-part series about our favorite singleton, Bridget Jones (Renée Zellweger), who winds up as the kooky and charismatic love interest of both her womanizing boss Daniel (Hugh Grant), and her childhood friend turned successful barrister Mark Darcy (Colin Firth). In the Pride And Prejudice-inspired film you’ll laugh and cry and cringe as Bridget follows the famed trajectory of Elizabeth Bennet in realising Mr Darcy was the best possible partner all along.

5. The Notebook
Where Can I Watch It? Amazon Prime Video
The tear-jerker of all tear-jerkers. But you already know that. Set in the 1940s, we watch Allie (Rachel McAdams) painstakingly choose between her wealthy war veteran fiancé Lon (James Marsden), and her very first all-consuming love in Noah (Ryan Gosling). The hotheaded carpenter who drives her nuts. In the best possible way. Based on the bestselling Nicholas Sparks novel of the same name, The Notebook is one of those romcoms that lets you believe in soulmates.

6. She’s The Man
Where Can I Watch It? Paramount+
Perhaps the most comedic, chaotic, cheesy (“My favorite’s Gouda!”) love triangle of them all. Here goes: Viola (Amanda Bynes) disguised as her brother Sebastian (James Kirk) starts to develop feelings for his college roommate and soccer teammate Duke (Channing Tatum). Who is pining over Olivia (Laura Ramsey). And Duke, while being schooled on how to ask a girl out, by Viola, undercover as Sebastian, realizes how enjoyable and easy his connection is with Viola. All that’s without even commenting on why Viola is cosplaying as a male soccer star. Don’t think. Just watch.

7. Twilight
Where Can I Watch It? Netflix
It’s all fun and games to say you’re team Jacob (Taylor Lautner) or team Edward (Robert Pattinson). But imagine being in Bella’s (Kristen Stewart) shoes, and actually having to choose. Some might even go so far as to deep this early noughties romantasy and say the love triangle is representative of her internal struggle to decide between a life of immortality, with Edward, as a vampire. And one slightly more human-esque, with Jacob, as the wife of a werewolf.

8. It’s Complicated
Where Can I Watch It? Amazon Prime Video
A middle-aged, post-divorce love triangle. How damn refreshing this is. A humble reminder that dilemmas in love and life don’t discriminate based on experience. Watch as Jane (Meryl Streep) is drawn back into a very familiar and nostalgic relationship with her ex-husband Jake (Alec Baldwin), after Adam (Steve Martin) has only recently entered her life in a romantic way. Sometimes new paths open up old wounds and it’s okay to give yourself space to heal.

9. Something Borrowed
Where Can I Watch It? Amazon Prime Video
What happens when you have to choose between friendship and love? Things get messy. Rachel (Ginnifer Goodwin) learns that her best friend Darcy (Kate Hudson) is engaged to her college crush Dex (Colin Egglesfield). Only, college crush is putting it lightly. She’s been in love with the guy for years. And decides to tell him as much, despite the path to marriage he is already set on. Boundaries are crossed. Loyalty is tested. Rachel, Darcy, and Dex are forced to live with their choices.

10. Materialists
Where Can I Watch It? At The Cinema
Like the name suggests, this is a film about choosing love and connection over money and status. A modern day matchmaker, Lucy (Dakota Johnson) is stuck in a rut for thinking about relationships only in terms of checking boxes. Age, height, wealth. So when Harry (Pedro Pascal) presents as the ‘unicorn’ in her dating life, she jumps at the opportunity to be wined and dined at the finest restaurants in Manhattan, also nabbing keys to his $12 million penthouse. Except the ex-boyfriend John (Chris Evans) crawls back into the picture with little to offer besides a lifetime of unrequited love.
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