There are plenty of romance tropes: enemies to lovers, fake relationships, forced proximity … and love triangles. The latter has been a favorite of film and television creators since, well, the very beginning, because love triangles are primed for drama. Betrayal, hurt feelings, insecurity — they have it all! All you have to do is sit back and make bets on which romantic prospect is the endgame.
There are plenty of love triangles out there to keep you tied up in knots. Keep reading for a collection of romantic trios to emotionally invest in on Netflix.
The love triangles: Staten, Quinn, and Oliver; Ellie, Yancy, and Sidney; and Lucas, Lauren, and Kit
Season 2 of Ransom Canyon ups the small-town Texas drama with not one, not two, but three love triangles. Staten (Josh Duhamel) and Quinn’s (Minka Kelly) will they, won’t they dynamic continues with a new man arriving on the scene: Oliver (Ben Robson), who proposes to Quinn in the season opener, prompting Staten to deliver a resounding, “May the best man win.” Meanwhile, the mystery woman from the end of Season 1 is revealed to be drifter Yancy’s (Jack Schumacher) wife, Sidney (Heidi Grace Engerman), whose arrival throws a wrench into his future with his now-fiancée, Ellie (Marianly Tejada), who’s pregnant. And then there’s the young love brigade. While Lucas (Garrett Wareing) and Lauren (Lizzy Greene) seemed to have been on the path to high school happily ever after, Lucas’s mysterious older brother, Kit (Casey W. Johnson), begins to step up when Lucas can’t seem to understand what Lauren is going through.
The love triangle: Dawson, Joey, and Pacey
Because all six seasons of this fan-favorite drama follow friends Dawson Leery (James Van Der Beek), Joey Potter (Katie Holmes), Pacey Witter (Joshua Jackson), and Jen Lindley (Michelle Williams) through their high school years and beyond, the group dynamic is constantly shifting. When aspiring filmmaker Dawson falls for his childhood best friend Joey, it might seem like they’re meant to be. But then there’s Pacey and Joey, whose habit of squabbling and picking at each other every chance they get might hide deeper feelings. Which couple will make it all the way? You’ll just have to watch to find out.
The love triangle: Emily, Gabriel, and Camille
After a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity lands on her desk, Emily (Lily Collins) moves to Paris. Yes, so begins Emily in Paris. Ooh la la. Once she lands in the City of Lights, Emily meets two Parisians who’ll become fixtures in her new life: an attractive young chef, Gabriel (Lucas Bravo), who lives in her building, and Camille (Camille Razat), a glamorous woman who seems to be the only welcoming person in France. Just when Emily’s starting to think living in Paris might be her destiny, she finds out her now-crush Gabriel and her new pal Camille are dating, and reality comes crashing in.
The love triangle: Meredith, Derek, and Addison
Creator Shonda Rhimes’s long-running hospital drama is packed to the brim with sexy dalliances and emotionally ruinous relationships. And while Meredith Grey (Ellen Pompeo), Derek Shepherd (Patrick Dempsey), and Addison Montgomery (Kate Walsh) weren’t the only love triangle on Grey’s Anatomy, they did kick things off with a bang. In Season 1, surgical intern Meredith thinks she’s beginning to figure things out with the hospital’s dreamy new head of neurosurgery, Dr. Shepherd — only for his wife to show up in the season finale and deliver that now-infamous line: “And you must be the woman who’s been screwing my husband.” Cue the gasps.
The love triangle: Peeta, Katniss, and Gale
Team Peeta or team Gale? When The Hunger Games premiered in 2012, fans jumped into the arena with Jennifer Lawrence’s Katniss Everdeen to duke it out over which guy she belonged with: the sensitive baker’s son turned District 12 tribute, Peeta (Josh Hutcherson), or the loyal childhood best friend, Gale (Liam Hemsworth), who cared for Katniss’s mom and sister while she was away. Throughout the film’s three sequels, Katniss fights to stay alive and defeat the Capitol while also juggling both of their growing interest. But which is the greater connection: the person you were willing to die with, or the person your family would die without?
The love triangle: Chloe, Lucifer, and Eve
Detective Chloe Decker (Lauren German) and her civilian consultant, Lucifer (Tom Ellis), the king of hell, are closer to their romantic endgame than ever when Lucifer’s ex, Eve (Inbar Lavi), the first woman, comes crashing back into his life. Lucifer, whose penchant for self sabotage is rivaled only by his flair for the dramatic, inserts himself into Decker’s investigation at a black tie auction — with Eve on his arm. But as Lucifer reconnects with his first love, he begins to wonder whether that whole “serpent and the apple of knowledge” thing was real. Maybe his one true love has been with him in LA this whole time.
The love triangle: Alex, Jackie, and Cole
This coming-of-age drama follows 15-year-old Jackie Howard (Nikki Rodriguez), who’s forced to leave her life in Manhattan behind after she loses her family in a terrible accident. She moves across the country to live with her mother’s college best friend, Katherine Walter (Sarah Rafferty), in the rural town of Silver Falls, Colorado. A straight-A student who’s determined to get into Princeton, Jackie soon learns that small-town life has its charms. And as time goes on, she finds herself caught between two polar-opposite brothers: the bookish Alex (Ashby Gentry) and the troubled Cole (Noah LaLonde), who begin vying for her affections at the risk of their own sibling relationship.
The love triangle: Paxton, Devi, and Ben
In the young adult series Never Have I Ever, Devi Vishwakumar (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) begins sophomore year determined to live the life she deserves — which includes hot boys, hot grades, hot friends, and hot vibes. But in her quest to become who she thinks she is, she’s torn between two boys who are complete opposites: the sensitive bad boy Paxton Yoshida-Hall (Darren Barnet) and her debate bro frenemy Ben Gross (Jaren Lewison). Surviving this love triangle might be the most difficult thing Devi’s ever done — besides, well, the equally tough tasks of rebuilding her relationship with her mom, grieving her dad, and finding herself.
The love triangle: Maeve, Otis, and Ola
In Sex Education, an earnest, awkward high-school-aged virgin named Otis (Asa Butterfield) whose mother Jean (Gillian Anderson) is a sex therapist, starts doling out sex and relationship advice at school to impress resident bad girl Maeve (Emma Mackey). When business booms and his classmates start confessing things to him that he can’t solve using a psychology book, he realizes love and sex are more complicated than they seem. That becomes especially clear when he finds himself caught between Maeve and the sweet new girl Ola (Patricia Allison).
