In this talk, we begin with a brief review of the construction of finite element complexes with varying degrees of smoothness using the BGG framework. We then motivate the development of distributional finite element complexes, including the distributional div div and curl div complexes. In the main part of the talk, we discuss applications of these complexes to partial differential equations, such as the biharmonic equation, fourth-order elliptic singular perturbation problems, quad-curl problems, and the Stokes equation. We also present a distributional formulation and a corresponding discretization for strain gradient elasticity.