If you’re not into “Fifty Shades Free” this Valentine’s Day, there are a few anti-romantic movies you can hit up as everyone else celebrates a holiday made by a greeting card company.
A number of smaller cinemas are taking advantage of the holiday to show more harrowing stories of love gone wrong, including a screening of “We Won’t Grow Old Together” and “Possession.”
So grab your popcorn, ditch that person who won’t commit, and embrace the horror that these movies instill.
Here’s a list of what to see and where:
Valentine’s Day Massacre film series
Anthology (32 Second Ave., Bowery)
This series of five “radically anti-romantic” films are bookended by two movies — “We Won’t Grow Old Together,” a French drama about a highly unstable couple who can’t stay apart, and “Modern Romance,” which follows a film editor who breaks up with his girlfriend and tries to get back with her despite his jealousy and psychological dysfunction.
Other films include “A New Leaf,” “Heartbreak Kid,” and “Possession,” all of which completely annihilate the idea of a happy ending.
Shows run from Feb. 14 to Feb. 18. A schedule can be found at anthologyfilmarchives.org.
Anti-Valentines ‘18
Spectacle (124 S. Third St., Williamsburg)
In what this theater calls a “celebration of love,” this film series lasts through the month and centers on stories that are more gruesome than lovely, like the French movie, “The Blood Rose.” The film is about a man who hires an out-of-practice plastic surgeon to graft a new face onto his wife, who was horribly scarred after a burn incident. It doesn’t end well, as you might imagine.
Other movies include “Alraune” from Germany about a mad scientist who tries to impregnate a woman with a mandrake root. It works, but there are consequences. “Four Sided Triangle” from the U.K. is about a genius who creates a machine that can duplicate anything, including a young woman.
Screenings will take place through Feb. 26. Check out the times at spectacletheater.com.
“The Female Brain”
IFC Center (323 Sixth Ave., West Village)
This comedy explores what is behind our romantic and sometimes regrettable romantic impulses by following a neuroscientist, Julia, as she researches three couples — newlyweds, a long-married couple and a couple who can’t seem to get on the same page. Meanwhile, Julia meets a new subject in her study.
The movie runs through Feb. 22 with times listed on ifccenter.com.
“Pleasures of the Flesh”
The Metrograph (7 Ludlow St., Lower East Side)
“Pleasures of the Flesh” is an outlier among the romantic comedies Metrograph is showing for the holiday. The Japanese film follows Atsushi, who commits murder and is blackmailed into keeping a suitcase of embezzled money. He falls into lustful and reckless actions that cause him regret. The director, Nagisa Oshima, also did “In the Realm of the Senses,” a sexually explicit film set in 1930s Japan.
“Pleasures of the Flesh” is on at 9:30 p.m. with tickets at metrograph.com.
“How Stella Got Her Groove Back”
Alamo Drafthouse Cinema (445 Albee Square West, Downtown Brooklyn)
Angela Bassett is Stella, who doesn’t need a man in her life, or so she thinks. Taye Diggs makes his film debut as her Jamaican lover, but will their romance last?
Alamo’s drink specials for the movie includes “The Art of Seduction.”
The movie begins at 6:30 p.m. with tickets at drafthouse.com.
