Summary

• Love, Actually explores the heartbreaking subplot of a wife discovering her husband's affair on Christmas Eve, highlighting the emotional toll infidelity can take.
• American Beauty takes a bleak and cynical look at the breakdown of a family due to infidelity, showcasing the dark comedy that can arise from such a situation.
• Crazy, Stupid, Love offers a lighthearted take on cheating wife movies, with a star-studded cast and a storyline that prompts self-discovery and growth for the main characters.

Being cheated on is generally a brutal and heartbreaking occurrence, and sometimes the person doing the cheating ends up getting hurt too — this is especially explored in cheating wife movies or cheating husband movies. However, infidelity has provided Hollywood with some very compelling and dramatic cheating movies. Whether it's jilted lovers or murdered souls out for revenge, adultery has been a catalyst for some truly romantic or tragic stories that explore this subject from every angle. Movies about cheating and infidelity aren't always about sex, though.

Using the tantalizing subject matter, these movies can tell each side of the relationship's story, what led to the affair, whether it was justified, and the ramifications. Many of these cheating movies provide audiences with either a fantasy or a cautionary tale while telling them something about their own lives. They can show the damage that can be done as a result as well as the human moments that emerge from an affair. While cheating movies tend to be rarer than epic romantic films, the trope still exists.

30 Closer (2004)

An Affair Ripples Between The Lives Of Four People

Based on a play by Patrick Marber, Closer is an intense drama with a star-studded cast and overseen by an iconic director. Mike Nicholas (The Graduate) directs this tale of two couples who become intertwined by an affair. Jude Law and Julia Roberts play two strangers who meet and form a fast connection with each other, leading to them having an affair. When their respective partners find out (played by Natalie Portman and Clive Owen), it consumes the four individuals with pain and distrust.

The movie is an intimate and engrossing look at these central relationships, with the four actors being the only real major roles in the project. Closer examines the pain infidelity can cause a person and how it can manifest itself in depression, bitterness, vindictiveness, and paranoia. The four actors are excellent in delivering this brutally honest tale with Portman and Owen both receiving Oscar nominations for their performances.

29 The Man Who Wasn't There (2001)

A Man Blackmails His Wife's Lover

The Coen Brothers have been known for their love of noir movies and recreating them with their own unique touches. Such is the case with the period story The Man Who Wasn't There, which is infused with the dark and oddball humor that only the Coens can pull off so well. Billy Bob Thorton plays Ed Crane, a barber in the 1940s who keeps to himself and is withdrawn from the world. Looking for cash for an investment opportunity, Ed decides to blackmail a local businessman (James Gandolfini) who is having an affair with Ed's wife (s McDormand).

It is the kind of story that would often be seen in noir stories, but Ed gives a new kind of character at the center of it. He is a man who seems largely unbothered by things and doesn't even seem to take exception to the affair, only seeing it as an opportunity to profit from. However, there is an underlying sweetness to the movie as Ed finds himself getting deeper and deeper into trouble, coming to the realization that he might not have been the kind of husband his wife deserved.

28 Sex, Lies, And Videotape (1989)

Two People Connect Amid Sexual Frustrations

Sex, Lies, and Videotape is seen as one of the most influential movies of the American independent cinema movement of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Steven Soderbergh wrote and directed this movie that stars James Spader as a man struggling with his own sexual issues who videotapes interviews with women discussing their own sex lives. When he reunites with an old friend (Peter Gallagher), he begins interviewing the friend's wife (Andie MacDowell), who is unaware her husband is having an affair with her sister (Laura San Giacomo).

The movie is a thrilling, engrossing, and complex exploration of human sexuality and the many neurotic attributes that go along with the ionate elements. Sex, Lies, and Videotapes shares elements with the Chinese masterpiece In the Mood for Love, as it examines the way two people on the outside of an affair form a connection that is deeper than any they have experienced.

27 Walk The Line (2005)

Johnny Cash And June Carter's Legendary Affair

Walk the Line is the true story of Johnny Cash's musical career as well as his romance with fellow country legend June Carter Cash. While the movie is most ed as a solid musical biopic, it is also an examination of the more difficult aspects of this love affair. Johnny was a rising star in the music business when he first met June. He was also married but became infatuated with the singer. After developing a popular on-stage dynamic, the two began an affair as their respective careers went in different directions.

Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon are exceptional in their roles as the two music legends and the complexities of their relationship make the story all the more interesting. Both characters are filled with guilt and shame about the way their romance began and it puts a barrier between them from truly embracing their love. However, it also looks at how this developed into one of the most heart-warming music romances of all time.

Reese Witherspoon won an Oscar for her performance in Walk the Line.

26 An Education (2009)

A Young Girl Falls For An Older Conman

Carey Mulligan earned her first Oscar nomination for her breakout role in the coming-of-age drama An Education. Mulligan stars as Jenny, a teenage schoolgirl with a bright future who finds herself being seduced into an exciting romance with an older man named David (Peter Sarsgaard). While Jenny is caught up in the romance, it becomes clear that David is not who he says he is and she eventually learns that he is married.

The movie is a compelling and heartbreaking story of Jenny being exposed to the lies and deceit of an adult romance at such a young age. There is a devastating scene in which Jenny goes to David's house to confront him about the truth only to meet his wife and learn that this is not the first time this has happened. It makes it all the more harrowing as Jenny was balancing the idea of giving up her bright future to be married to a man who she didn't truly know.

25 Love, Actually (2003)

A Heartbreaking Case Of Cheating In A Romantic Film

While it is also a great Christmas movie enjoyed by many during the holiday season, Love, Actually offers an intimate look at a variety of different relationships. While most of them are sweet stories of new romances blooming or people expressing their love for each other, there is one heartbreaking cheating subplot. The movie takes a look at various intersecting stories of love and romance around the holidays with an all-star cast.

The most memorable scene in the movie is Thompson sneaking away from her family's celebrations to cry alone in her bedroom.

One of those stories features Emma Thompson as a wife and mother married to Alan Rickman, who finds out he is having an affair with his employee on Christmas Eve. While there is also a cheating element to another story with Colin Firth's character finding out that his girlfriend is sleeping with his brother, the storyline between Thompson and Rickman is more central. Despite the humor and big romantic moments, the most memorable scene in the movie is Thompson sneaking away from her family's celebrations to cry alone in her bedroom.

24 American Beauty (1999)

Infidelity Breaks Down A Family

Sam Mendes' Best Picture-winning American Beauty takes a bleak and cynical look at suburban life and the need to escape its monotony. Kevin Spacey won an Oscar for his role as a bored family man going through a midlife crisis while his wife has an affair with her colleague. The movie treats the affair as one more example of this family's broken nature that none of them are willing to fix.

The movie is an intense drama at times, but there are also moments of dark comedy, such as when Spacey's wife and her lover go through a fast food drive-thru in the midst of their affair, only to find Spacey working his new job and taking their order. His smiling and happy demeanor while taking their order is matched by their hilarious shocked and confused reaction to being caught in such an unexpected way.

23 Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011)

Infidelity Prompts A New Lease On Life

One of the funnier and more lighthearted cheating wife movies, Crazy, Stupid, Love is a hilarious and charming star-studded movie. Steve Carell stars as a man going through the motions in life only to learn that his wife (Julianne Moore) is having an affair. The moment shakes him out of his funk as a younger man (Ryan Gosling) takes him under his wing to teach him how to pick up women.

The movie gives a refreshing approach to this story, as Moore's character is not seen as a villain but rather someone who was at a loss in her marriage and made a mistake. While Carell's main character finds his more charismatic side as a single man, he also realizes that he took his wife for granted. Crazy, Stupid, Love features a likable ensemble with a secondary romance story between Gosling and Emma Stone adding to the story and also setting up a hilarious twist.

22 The Descendants (2011)

George Clooney's Character Learns To Grieve For His Cheating Wife

The moment a character learns their wife has been cheating on them is often a powerful scene, but The Descendants sets up a very complicated set of circumstances with a lot of emotions at play. George Clooney received an Oscar nomination for his role in this complex comedy-drama as he plays a man whose wife falls into a coma after an accident and with no chance of her waking up. As he makes arrangements for her ing on, he finds out that she was cheating on him with another married man.

The concept of dealing with losing a partner while also dealing with their betrayal is a fascinating one, as Clooney's performance sells the conflict in this man who is filled with anger and sadness simultaneously. The Descendants earned several Oscar nominations while also winning Best Screenplay.

21 Blood Simple (1984)

A Cheating Wife And Her Beau Are Targeted By A Hitman

With their debut movie, the Coen Brothers delivered an expert noir movie as well as one of the most intense cheating movies of all time. Blood Simple follows a man who begins an affair with his cruel boss's wife. When the boss becomes overcome with rage when the evidence of the affair is presented to him, he hires a seedy private detective to kill them.

What follows is a brilliant and exciting tale of suspicion and broken trust that showcases the Coens' brilliant style. It is a small movie but feels thrilling with the intense sequences and rich characters who fill out the story. It marks s McDormand's breakout role as the cheating wife who becomes the hero of the story. It also features one of the most underrated movie villains of all time in M. Emmett Walsh's disturbingly gleeful detective.