We suppose it’s principally the inherent darkness that’s attracted generations of randy romantics to take their dates to the movies, but the wrong film choice can seriously hamper your chances. Here’s a selection that work like a cold shower right up there on the screen.

9 SONGS (2004)
On paper, a great date movie. A couple indulge in the most sexually explicit scenes ever granted UK certification, performed against a backdrop of going to Primal Scream and Franz Ferdinand gigs. Sweet as. But the reality is a date no-no – she kind of turns into a pain in the arse and they pretty much stop the sexy stuff after a bit. Then she cries a lot while the bloke gazes at boring glaciers for his work. A relationship’s weary decline that the money shots do little to rescue. (NC)

CLOSER (2004)
Glamorous Jude Law and Natalie Portman in a film about relationships. That’s got to be a winner, right? Er, no. Closer is a 104-minute long argument and will have you immediately breaking up with your date just to save yourself inevitable future heartache. “You like him coming in your face?” asks Clive Owen of his adulterous girlfriend Julia Roberts before thanking her for her honesty (she did like it, apparently) and shouting, “Now fuck off and die, you fucked up slag.” Happy never after. (JK)

NIL BY MOUTH (1997)
Ladies: if your fella insists this is “nothing like Scum, honest”, he’s right. It’s worse. Ray Winstone’s idea of knockabout fun in this bleak family drama extends only to domestic violence, and the sheer unpleasantness of everyone on the screen seems unlikely to foster any notions of you ever settling down and having a lovely family, or ever even dating anyone again. Fellas: Winstone is pretty much date suicide whatever the film, but this is the true Daddy of bleakness. Don’t even think about it. (NC)

SLEEPING DOGS LIE (2006)
We knew our new advertising manager was going to fit right in when she offered up a film about a bored woman who gives her dog a blow job in college and then, years later, admits as much to her new fiancé. It’s the height of awkward – partly because it was written in three days and shot in a couple of weeks for $50,000 – and likely to lead to conversations on the way home you want to avoid. “So, what’s your dark secret?” asks your date as you run away, imagining theirs. (JK)

SCHINDLER’S LIST (1993)
A money-spinning multiplex awards magnet, as a Spielberg title this might have confused some dim-witted fans of the director into jolly Raiders Of The Lost Ark-type adventure expectance. Wrong. Schindler’s List’s relentlessly gruelling torrent of Nazi barbarity has no place whatsoever in dating, save perhaps for the gentleman to mentally refer back to as he attempts to delay ejaculation. That would only be some considerable time later, though – no one ever got laid after watching this film. (NC)

HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN 10 DAYS (2003)
OK, so we’ve seen the obvious genres to avoid, how about some safe ground? Rom coms might not push you mentally, but they’re perfect gentle fodder for a first date. Unless they star Hollywood’s-most-hated, Matthew McConaughey, and Kate ‘disappointment to my mother’ Hudson (see also Fool’s Gold). The hamfisted premise here leads to disgusting gender stereotypes that won’t have you looking at the opposite sex with anything other than pure contempt. By the end you don’t know which of them you want to snap and commit murder first. (JK)

Words by James Kendall and Nick Coquet