10 Movies That Totally Destroyed You

6. One Day

One Day
Focus Features

The best romantic films are the ones that hurt a little. When Harry Met Sally puts its characters through the ringer, The Notebook likewise and even Blue Valentine is beautiful to watch in its own heart-stomping way.

You can also add Lone Scherfig's adaptation of One Day to that pile as well, since it has one of the most horribly effective emotional rug pulls in the history of cinema. It's essentially a long play romance (in the vein of When Harry Met Sally, actually) where two friends slowly realise they are made for each other after they unravel an intricately woven entanglement.

And then just as you think they're going to get a happy ending, the plot drops two bombshells on them. Or more accurately, drops one bombshell (that they can't have a baby) and then drives a truck over one of them (Anne Hathaway's Emma). In one awful moment, the promise of happiness so slowly built to is destroyed and we're forced to watch Jim Sturgess' Dexter struggling with the loss of his one.

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NCTJ-qualified journalist. Most definitely not a racing driver. Drink too much tea; eat too much peanut butter; watch too much TV. Sadly only the latter paying off so far. A mix of wise-old man in a young man's body with a child-like wonder about him and a great otherworldly sensibility.

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WhatCulture's former COO, veteran writer and editor.

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Josh has over 11 years of experience as a published writer, having worked nine of those years as a full-time content producer at WhatCulture. In that period he has created hundreds of articles, videos and podcast episodes for multiple WhatCulture channels, specialising in gaming, horror and film & TV. He now primarily works as a senior content producer and presenter on WhatCulture Gaming where he co-hosts the WhatCulture Gaming Podcast, a top 3 UK most listened to gaming podcast that he co-created in 2018. Over the years he has reviewed several high-profile gaming releases, covered industry events with on-site reporting, opined on breaking news, and even kicked off his interviewing career by chatting to childhood hero, Tommy Wiseau.