Movies have a special power. They make us dream and hope and love and imagine and Egyptian movies are no different. Except that instead of making us love, per say, they make us think maybe romance is a luxury we shouldn’t have after all.

We’re aware that this list is quite infinite, so even our “un-Magnificent Seven” won’t do it justice. We’ll try anyway.

Taymour and Shafika

Taymour w Shafika

This isn’t exactly the big shock of the list. Everyone who has ever seen a Sakka movie or been out in the street knows what the Taymour character is like.

Coupling that man up with an ambitious, driven woman like Shafika, who goes on to be the youngest female minister, seems like disaster waiting to happen. And it does.

Aside from all the jealousy and male-driven fever-dreams of controlling independent women, all this movie ever gave us was Mona Zaki in a Legally Blonde-inspired wardrobe.

Omar and Salma

Omar w Salma

Let’s be real, this stunningly mid-2000’s gem only did as well as it did because it was the mid-2000’s.

If we go back for a re-watch, we can just see how this couple became the ‘how to be a terrible couple‘ guide.

Omar is a narcissistic, jealous player, who uses the ‘I’ve been hurt before‘ sob story to be an absolute prick to girls, while Salma has a whole load of un-handled issues.

Naturally, this doesn’t go well, for lack of a better word. We have 3 movies to prove our point.

Aly and Layali

Kan youm 7obak

Only God knows what was going through this writer’s brain when he was putting pen to paper on this one. Yet it happened and we can do nothing now but learn from this experience.

This movie did the impossible by bringing the Manic Pixie Dream Girl to Egypt under a Before Sunrise disguise. Props for that, though they really should have run it by someone.

Why? Khaled Selim somehow fell in love with Dalia El-Beheiry in a day and he’s not letting it go, which is a pretty high score on the creepy scale.

Dr. Omar and Reem

Dr Omar gang

We would like to begin this with an apology to every psychiatrist who had to watch an hour and thirty-something minute film that slandered their whole profession.

This relationship is just beyond repair from the get-go and no amount of classic Mostafa Amar music is going to save it.

Why? Well, the psychiatrist is having a relationship with his patient and it’s kind of on top of the list ‘career misconduct in psychiatry‘.

Morgan and Jihan

Morgan Ahmed Morgan

This movie is supposed to be a lighthearted comedy about a businessman who goes back to university and is in the same class as his kids, oddly enough.

However, we really weren’t laughing when he kept basically harassing his professor for a relationship.

Really, what was the moral behind this? If at first you don’t succeed, pester her enough and she’ll come around the corner? Who wrote this, Harvey Weinstein?

Hany Salama and Every Woman Ever

el selem wl te3ban

Somehow, women in cinema and TV keep falling for Hany Salama’s charm and it just doesn’t make sense.

So, what if his hair looks like it’s been in shampoo commercials since birth? That’s not enough to take back a cheater or someone who doesn’t respect your basic being as human.

Sir, you’re a grown man, stop signing on for these projects.

Hassan and Abeer

el Zamahlaweya

If you happened to have force-deleted the existence of the 2008 El-Zamahlaweya from your memory, we really can’t blame you.

Aside from the brilliant “acting” exhibited by Essam El-Hadary and Amr Zaki, we also had the star-crossed romance between Bushra’s Abeer and Mohamed Azmy’s Hassan to look forward to.

Yes, this was a low moment for all of us. Romance has never looked so awful.

If we kept going on and on with this list, there wouldn’t be enough space on the entire internet to put it up, so we’ll stop here for now.

This isn’t an attempt to discourage any one hopeless romantic from the brilliance of cinematic love. There are always exceptions.