While Hollywood has a complicated history with showing divorce on-screen — the censorship of the Hays Code Era from the '30s to the '60s meant it was barely shown for decades (via Film School Cred) — the movies that do center around the subject fill a welcome and necessary role of helping viewers who have gone through the painful experience of separating.

In the post Hays Code years, acclaimed features like "Kramer vs. Kramer" paved the way for the sub-genre by offering vastly different approaches to a theme that had been rendered mostly in rom-com form or not at all. Whether it's a dead-serious, incisive, and emotional drama that digs to the core of unsuccessful marriages or a light-hearted, funny, and satirical comedy that provides a release for divorcees, good films about divorce easily find their target audience in today's social climate.