10 Great Films About Three-Way Relationships: ‘The Dreamers,’ ‘Design for Living,’ and More

From the very early days of cinema, the love triangle has been a staple of romantic comedies and heartbreaking dramas alike. In its classic form, there’s either two guys and two girls both interested in the same girl or guy, who finds themself torn between the two possibilities (this technically means that the only true love triangles are queer, as a love triangle where there isn’t any romantic interest between two parties is more of a love angle, but we digress). Fizzy screwball comedies usually ended with the love triangle resolving in favor of the lead; see, for example, how Katharine Hepburn’s free-spirited heroine in 1938 comedy “Holiday” steals Cary Grant from under the nose of her own sister (Doris Nolan). In dramas, the ending tends to be a tad more bittersweet, leading to iconically devastating moments like Humphrey Bogart saying goodbye to Ingrid Bergman before she hops on a plane to escape to safety with her husband Victor (Paul Henreid) during the climax of “Casablanca.”

However a love triangle ends, its clear why the formula is such a repeating trope in fiction: It’s a prime setup to explore very human and relatable trials of heartbreak, indecision, jealousy, lust, and confusion. At their best, love triangles are more than just about who the lead will end up with at the end: They become about who the lead wants to become, each decision representing a different path their life can take.

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And yet, as long as there’s been love triangles, there’s been a rather obvious solution to all of the drama. When a rom-com lead is hemming and hawing over what man she wants to be with, some snarkier viewers may paraphrase an iconic commercial and ask themselves “why not both?”

For most rom-coms (and, also, most people in real life) polyamory isn’t something that gets considered. But as far back as 1933, particularly daring and subversive films were playing with what love looks like, and questioning whether it always has to be between two people. That was the year that Ernst Lubitsch’s classic “Design for Living” premiered, staring Miriam Hopkins as a woman who becomes romantically involved with two best friends. The film subverts much of what you would expect from a comedy of its era, teasing out jealousy between Fredric March and Gary Cooper’s hunks, before ending with Hopkins’ merrily kissing and living with them both.

“Design for Living” still feels incredibly modern in its sensibilities today, and it likely would have been impossible to make it even a year later, when the Hays Code cracked down hard on depictions of sensuality in cinema. Even now, films that seriously consider three-person relationships and whether they can work are quite rare, and the films that do take the plunge into the world of throuples tend to be independently made and queer-themed. And it’s a shame, because one look at the rare films we do have about three-way relationships reveals how potent the subject matter is. Beyond just the potential for titillation, threesome films can explore powerful questions about the nature of love and relationships, and how people’s journey to happiness often takes unconventional routes.

With “Challengers” and its much discussed threesome teasing currently out in theaters now, IndieWire decided to look at the films that explore the excitement and complications of a three-way relationship. Entries are unranked and listed in order of release date. Read on for the 10 Best Throuple Films of All Time.

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