Leave it to Olivia Rodrigo to put one of the most complicated yet universal feelings into words — or should we say, lyrics. The singer's new album hasn't even dropped yet, and already our brains are ruminating on sad girls in love throughout history. Whether you've felt it firsthand or witnessed the nauseating mix of heartbreak and ecstasy through film (and soon, music), we're pretty sure you'll know exactly the girl we're talking about.
On screen, she’s everywhere. She’s Belly aching for Conrad in The Summer I Turned Pretty, Glinda swallowing her feelings in Wicked: For Good, Cathy devoting herself to Heathcliff even throughout his years-long absence in Wuthering Heights. She’s romantic, restless, introspective, occasionally self-destructive. The girl who gets everything she wanted, only to realise that love doesn’t always feel the way she thought it would.
We'll no doubt be emotionally wrecked come June 12 when you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love drops, but we thought: why delay the pleasure? Below, a non-exhaustive list of cinema and television’s most memorable iterations of sad girls in love, who prove love and being unhappy are far from mutually exclusive.
Belly, The Summer I Turned Pretty
The blueprint for the modern sad girl in love. She's in a relationship that looks like everything she's ever wanted, but dreaming of someone else (and his brother, at that) instead. She’s chosen, desired, and yes, still sad. Aren't we all?
Marianne, Normal People
Marianne doesn’t just fall in love, she completely dissolves into it. Her connection with Connell is magnetic but, like every romance on this list, never simple. Miscommunication, distance, timing, and immaturity all conspire to keep them slightly out of sync. Her sadness isn’t separate from the relationship; it’s embedded within it.
Glinda, Wicked
Glinda is often glossed over, but we'd argue she's far more emotionally complex beneath that exterior. She's constantly negotiating between who she is and who she’s expected to be. Love, in her world, is complicated by ambition, perception, and a simmering sadness.
Cathy, Wuthering Heights
Cathy is perhaps the original sad girl in love. Her bond with Heathcliff is less a romance and more a force of nature, something that defines her as much as it destroys her. She doesn’t just love him — she is him. If you've seen Emerald Fennells' recent remak, you'll know that kind of love comes sans any sense of piece.
Lux, The Virgin Suicides
For Lux, love is less of a feeling and more of an escape from her tightly controlled world. But in her pursuit of it, what she finds is something fleeting, unreliable, and ultimately hollow. Moments of romance are devastating in Virgin Suicides, but are we really surprised, given Sofia Coppola is at the helm?
Priscilla, Priscilla
In Sofia Coppola’s devastating portrait of one of the most famous couple's in history, Priscilla exists in the shadow of a love that is as intoxicating as it is isolating. Swept into Elvis' world as a teenager, what first seems like a dream scenario is actually a story of loneliness, in which her sense of self slowly slips away at the pursuit of being everything he needs.
Tashi Duncan, Challengers
Tashi reframes the sad girl trope entirely. She’s in control in how she navigates love and power. And yet, beneath that precision is something unresolved, and a deep unhappiness. Even when you think you’re orchestrating the game, love can still destabilise you.
Lucy Harmon, Stealing Beauty
Lucy arrives in Italy carrying both grief and romantic curiosity. And through her romantic entanglements she makes several discoveries — about herself and her own desires, but also the complicated weight of first love. Sadness threads through her experiences, even against the picturesque Italian landscapes in which she finds herself.
Isabelle, The Dreamers
Isabelle navigates love with a heady intensity. Her relationships are charged and all-consuming, revealing how infatuation can be both intoxicating and isolating. Isabelle’s sadness comes from the collision of desire and reality — the awareness that some passions, no matter how vivid, are fleeting.
Marie Antoinette, Marie Antoinette
Another Sofia Coppola masterpiece (are we sensing a theme here?). The French public might have had a (somewhat accurate) idea of Marie Antoinette as a woman of excess, but in this film, we see her for what she really is: a young girl displaced. Her marriage is distant, her desires unmet, and her attempts at pleasure are nothing more than temporary distractions from a deeper loneliness. Love, in her world, is elusive.
Monica, Love and Basketball
Monica loves with the same intensity she brings to basketball. She’s focused, driven, and all-in, which makes her relationship with Quincy feel both inevitable, and frustrating to watch. Their connection is shaped by the push and pull of two people trying to choose themselves without losing each other. And then, even when she’s heartbroken, she keeps going. She chooses her career, her goals, and her sense of self, showing that love isn’t always the thing that wins in the end.
Marianne, Portrait of a Lady on Fire
Marianne falls in love with Héloïse in a way that is intense and consuming, even though they both know it can’t last. The film captures the ache of knowing what you want most is also out of reach. Marianne’s sadness comes from understanding the cost of love — and feeling it deeply, even when there is no future to hold onto.
