The Ugly Truth is a 2009 American romantic comedy film directed by Robert Luketic, written by Nicole Eastman, Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith, and starring Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler.

Abby Richter is a morning show TV producer in Sacramento, California who believes in true love and is a big supporter of self-help books.

Coming home from a disastrous date, she sees a local television show, The Ugly Truth, featuring Mike Chadway, whose cynicism about relationships prompts Abby to call in to argue with him on-air.

[2] Mike improves the show's ratings, brings married co-anchors Georgia and Larry closer, and successfully instructs Abby to be exactly what Colin would want through a number of pointers including: always laugh at his jokes and say he is amazing in bed.

Abby is forced to cancel a romantic weekend with Colin, during which they had planned to finally sleep together, and instead fly to Los Angeles to persuade Mike to stay with her show.

Mike takes a job with a rival TV station in Sacramento and does a broadcast at the same hot air balloon festival as Abby.

[7] The film opened to third place at the box office—behind Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (in its second weekend) and the newly released G-Force—with $27,605,576 and the highest per-screen average in the top 10.

[citation needed] The review-aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives The Ugly Truth a score of 14% based on 174 reviews, and a weighted average of 3.80/10.

The website's consensus reads, "Despite the best efforts of Heigl and Butler, The Ugly Truth suffers from a weak script that relies on romantic comedy formula, with little charm or comedic payoff.

[10] Rolling Stone critic Peter Travers gave the film a half star out of four, stating: "There's not a genuine laugh in it [...] Toss this ugly-ass crap to the curb, along with the other multiplex garbage, and see a romance that gets it right.