- List of good and interesting Psychology movies
- Autism and mental retardation
- Schizophrenia
- Obsessive compulsive disorder
- Amnesias
- Depression and bipolar disorder
- Psychopathies
- Addictions
- Post traumatic stress
- Personality disorders
- Borderline personality disorder
- Narcissistic personality disorder
- Science Fiction and Psychology
- Other
- Other recommended lists
Today I come with a list of psychological films that make you think and reflect, of different genres, but that are related to diseases of the mind, relational problems and everything related to the brain and the mind of people.
Who doesn't love a good and interesting movie? Be it horror, adventure, psychological thriller, drama, paranoia, science fiction or cartoon, movies entertain us and also serve to change our perspective on life or motivate us.
I have tried to select the best psychology films, current and old, so if you like this kind of cinema, you will not be bored. There are all types of them: clinical psychology, educational psychology, specific mental disorders, family or couple problems… The intention is that you can enjoy them, so I will not make a detailed analysis of each one nor will I elaborate on telling you the argument;).
You will be surprised with some movies that I am going to comment on, since you have probably seen them but you do not come to think that the protagonist represented a disorder that in real life is quite common.
List of good and interesting Psychology movies
Autism and mental retardation
- Mercury Rising
Perhaps the best known film about an autistic child. A police officer is assigned to the case of a child whose parents have been murdered. It seems that the killers had been looking for the boy, but he had hidden. It is later discovered that the boy can crack government codes.
- They call me radio
This movie shares something with the typical American sports hero movie, but has something else; the story of an autistic boy who is fond of American football and especially his hometown team. Thanks to the disposition of the team coach, radio begins to socialize and start a normal life.
-Forrest Gump
Famous Tom Hanks film that tells the feats achieved by a boy with mental retardation, but who, due to his beliefs and interpretation of the world, achieves things that others would be impossible.
-I am Sam
A man with mental retardation struggles to maintain custody of his daughter.
- Rainman
This film tells the story of Charles Babbitt -Tom Cruise- who receives the entire inheritance left by his father when he dies. However, he leaves nothing to his older brother-Raymond Babbitt-, who is autistic. Charles can't think of anything other than to kidnap his brother to get half the inheritance.
Schizophrenia
- A wonderful mind
It tells the life of a boy who comes to Princeton University to study his graduate studies. However, he has psychological and relationship problems with other people.
- Donnie Darko
Donnie Darko is a film that is considered cult. It tells part of Donnie's adolescence, a boy who has visions of a giant rabbit.
- Fight club
This film talks about various topics such as anarchy and the habits that have been imposed on society. In turn, the director manages to hide very effectively the schizophrenia suffered by one of the protagonists.
-The chain
Mike discovers that he suffers from the same mental problems as his father, a kind of schizophrenia that has as symptoms memory loss or hallucinations. Therefore, he decides to end his life and travels to Los Angeles, where he meets an institution that can help him.
Obsessive compulsive disorder
- The aviator
If you are a fan of Leonardo Di Caprio, you cannot miss this movie. It is the biography of Howard Hughes, who became rich with various businesses, among the most important film producer and aircraft development and manufacturing. Something remarkable during the film is the obsessive compulsive disorder that Hugues suffered from.
- The impostors
Roy (Nicolas Cage) makes a living by scamming and suffers from obsessive compulsive disorder. Although he has never cared for his daughter, he begins to have a relationship with her at a professionally important time.
Amnesias
-Memento
Another cult film that brought Director Cristopher Nolan to fame. It is about a man who suffers from anterograde amnesia (cannot generate new memories) after the death of his wife. To avenge her death, he starts an investigation that is going to be especially difficult for him since he has to write down everything he finds out.
-The Assassin's Memory
The plot revolves around a hitman with Alzheimer's who is finding it increasingly difficult to remember and carry out his assignments.
-The dead center
A psychiatrist faces his most complicated case. A tormented patient suffering from amnesia claims that he is dead and that he brings something from beyond.
Depression and bipolar disorder
- The hours
Story that takes place during a day about three women who live in different times and whose lives are connected by a novel. One is a writer, another suffers from depression and another is homosexual and is dedicated to caring for a person with AIDS.
- The Constant Gardener
Highly recommended film that takes place in Kenya and tells the events that occur after the death of the protagonist's wife. Both were very close and that fact is a severe blow to her now widower.
- American Beauty
Oscar-winning film that you will surely enjoy. I have put it into this category because of the film in general (I don't want to anticipate anything?) But it is also closely related to mindfulness; enjoy every moment and the changes in life.
-The good side of things
Story of a boy who suffers from bipolar disorder and who has just left the psychiatric internment center. Thanks to being busy with a simple activity (dancing) and socializing, he begins to recover.
In my opinion, a film that conveys well that some disorders can be recovered with this treatment: sports, social relationships and being busy.
-Inside
A woman is in a depressing state after losing her man while pregnant. Little by little she redirects her life but, just when she is about to give birth, a mysterious woman appears in her life.
Psychopathies
- The Silence of the Lambs
This movie shows something very true about psychopaths; that they do not empathize with others and that they are really intelligent. However, you should bear in mind that only a low percentage of psychopaths are murderers and that psychopathy is a personality trait that occurs much more than you think.
It is about the murderer and cannibal Hannibal Lecter, a psychopath whom a young FBI employee goes to solve the case of a serial killer of women.
-American Psycho
It is about a psychopath who leads a double life; that of a promising, rich and attractive young man and that of a serial killer.
-Seven
A serial killer chooses his victims for having committed one of the seven deadly sins.
Addictions
- Requiem for a dream
They actually tell a common story, although they tell it very well and in a big way. It is about a drug addict boy, his girlfriend and a friend who want to get rich selling drugs. His mother, on the other hand, thinks he is going to go to a television show and they will recognize him.
- Trainspotting
The story revolves around a young man who lives out of reality, due to his social relationships and especially drugs.
- Dallas Buyers Club
True story of Ron Woodroof, a drug addict who contracts AIDS. They give him a month to live and from that moment he changes his attitude, doing things that would have been impossible before.
Post traumatic stress
- The machinist
It is the story of a worker who begins to question his mental and physical health when he develops insomnia.
-Mystic river
Murder occurs in an American town. It expresses very well the terrible moments that a father must go through when faced with such an event. 100% recommendable.
- The angel
Film based on Carlos Robledo Puch "The Angel of Death", an Argentine psychopath who committed 11 homicides and is currently serving a life sentence. In the film, we see the evolution of Carlitos from his first crimes to his final capture.
-Joker
Arthur Fleck is an individual with some type of psychosis or schizophrenia whose motivation is to become a clown and perform before the general public. Society ignores him, so the disturbed person does not face it in the best way.
-Jack's house
Jack is a serial killer who considers each of his evil acts to be a work of art. The film, centered on the 70s, is told from the point of view of the irreverent murderer.
Personality disorders
- American History X
It tells the story of a Nazi man who is imprisoned for committing a racist murder. When he gets out of jail he has learned, and in fact has befriended a black man in jail, but his brother has developed the same Nazi ideology that he had years ago.
- A Clockwork Orange
The plot revolves around the gang of a somewhat antisocial and aggressive young man who is dedicated to breaking the rules and scaring citizens. After committing a murder, he undergoes a new therapy to re-educate him.
- The Indomitable Will Hunting
This could not be missed and surely you have seen or heard of it. It is about a gifted boy who has a great ability for mathematics. However, it is somewhat conflictive and to solve this, a therapist is assigned to him who will change the way he sees reality.
- Match Point
It is a drama with Woody Allen's comic-tragic twist on life. The protagonist Chris delves into the lives of the richest families in London, where he establishes roots but also serious conflicts.
- Taxi driver
The protagonist has just arrived from the Vietnam War and to cope with insomnia he is a taxi driver at night in New York City. Tired of seeing so much violence and a lack of values, he begins to take justice on his own.
- The glow
A family moves to a hotel to take care of its facilities in winter, when it is empty. Due to isolation, personality disorder and local influences, Jack Torrance (Jack Nicolson) begins to display strange behaviors.
-Doctor Sleep
Sequel to The Shining. In it, a traumatized Danny Torrance, Jack's son, begins to have some of the symptoms that his father suffered when he lost his mind (anger, alcoholism, etc.).
Borderline personality disorder
- My super ex-girlfriend
Although it is a comedy, it expresses (in an exaggerated way) how people with borderline personality disorder behave. On a much smaller scale, it is how these people behave in real life, both men and women.
- The Great Gatsby
Based on the novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, it tells the story of a millionaire somewhat obsessed with an old love.
Narcissistic personality disorder
- Zoolander
It is a comedy based on absurd humor and whose protagonist is a rather narcissistic model. He also appears to be suffering from histrionic disorder.
- The grand Budapest hotel
It is a comedy that tells the story of the theft of a painting of great value and the conflicts of the family for a great fortune.
- The Picture of Dorian Gray
Based on the book by Oscar Wilde, it tells the original story of a boy who sells his soul to the devil and becomes eternally young.
Science Fiction and Psychology
-Interstellar
For me it is one of the best science fiction films in history, but also one of the most emotional.
Would you be willing to sacrifice your relationship with your family to save humanity? Would you rather survive or let the rest of humanity survive?
I believe that the situation it raises could occur in the not too distant future. In fact, although it is different, the issue of the father-daughter separation will soon appear in people who travel to Mars.
- Ex-Machina
What will the appearance of artificial intelligences mean in the future? Can we distinguish them from humans? Will we have relationships with them? Will they manipulate us or will we manipulate them?
- Chappie
How will we relate to the artificial intelligences or robots that will appear shortly?
Will we treat them well or use them like slaves? Will they be able to feel emotions and want to survive like humans do? Will they be able to surpass us in intelligence and reach the singularity?
- Transcendence
I think that one of the messages that this film sends is the innate fear that human beings have towards the unknown.
One of the smartest scientists in the world - Raymond Kurzweil - has predicted that around 2035 the singularity will occur; an artificial intelligence will surpass us in intelligence and an exponential technological advance will occur that humans will not understand.
It is the main theme of this movie. How will we humans handle this possible situation? Will we reject the changes? Will we hug them?
-Setback
Adrián is a young, conceited and narcissistic successful businessman who one morning appears in bed at the hostel with his dead lover. This causes him to be accused of murder, so he hires a witness preparation expert to save the situation.
Other
- The butterfly effect
A teenager wants to change his painful childhood memories and for this he discovers a way that allows him to travel through time. However, she also realizes that everything that changes in the past produces an important change in the future.
-Boys don´t cry
Story of a young woman who decides to be true to her identity; she shaves, covers her chest and begins to live a life as a man. It's about gender identity.
-A dangerous method
It tells the story of the relationship between Freud and Jung. Recommended for any professional or amateur of psychology and especially psychoanalysis.
-Cube
6 people are locked in a kind of jail with a strange mechanism of connected rooms that change position. From there fear, confusion, paranoia and suspicions arise.
-The Truman show
Truman is a normal man with a quiet life and a good job. One day he begins to suspect that his world is not real and that he is haunted. We can stay with the simple plot and the movie is an exaggeration, but if you think about it, isn't it something similar with us? They educate us, they watch over us, we believe that we are free.
- blind love
It is a comedy about a boy somewhat obsessed with the physique of girls. From an event, he begins to see the other beauty of people, which is inside.
- Deja Vu
It is a film that deals with the phenomenon of deja vu from science fiction.
-Some one flies over the cuco's nidus
It deals with the events that take place in a psychiatric hospital when Randle McMurphy, a convicted robbery, arrives. Upon his arrival, he revolutionized the hospital and caused conflict between healthcare personnel and patients. One of the great films in the history of cinema.
- Shutter Island
It is a psychological thriller about two agents who go to an island where the most dangerous criminals with psychiatric illnesses are confined.
- Origin
Although it is science fiction, some of what is said about dreams is true, among other things that you can learn to control and be aware of.
- The black swan
It is about a girl whose life revolves around ballet, is a professional and therefore a lot is demanded of her and has a lot of competition. Such a stressful situation leads him to show a behavior that he had not had before and that it is difficult for him to distinguish reality from the imaginary.
- Moon In my opinion, the film that best represents the effects of social isolation. Sam Rockwell is the protagonist and plays a scientist who works alone on a lunar base. - Shipwrecked It tells the story of a man who survives a plane crash by ending up on a tropical island. As in the previous one, it represents very well the psychological effects that social isolation can have.- A dangerous therapy
It is about a New York mobster who falls into a crisis of insecurity and self-esteem when there is little time left for a meeting in which it will be decided who will be the next mob boss.
- Mulholland Drive
The film revolves around a young woman who dreams of success in Hollwood. It's actually quite a surreal film, although it also touches on psychological aspects. The problem is that it is so difficult to understand that everyone can make their own interpretations. The only way to be clear about the argument is to ask its director David Lynch. Despite this, I recommend you see it, since it is one of a kind.
- 12 monkeys
In a post-apocalyptic world, James Cole (Bruce Willis) volunteers to travel to the past and find out the causes that led to the fatal future. After meeting a mental patient, they begin to search for the army of 12 monkeys.
-The sixth Sense
It is about a child psychologist with a painful past who treats a very special child - with a sixth sense - and with whom he develops a deep relationship.
-Side effects
It revolves around the world of psychopharmacology, two clinical psychologists and a troubled couple.
-Demolition
The protagonist loses his wife and enters a somewhat rebellious stage in which he has the urge to take things apart, destroy things, and be completely honest with others.
-Life is Beautiful
Up to what limits can the human being support? This film is about the experience of a father and his son in a concentration camp during World War II. Despite the terrible conditions, the protagonist Guido has a positive coping style and manages to make life more bearable for his son in that place.
-Remember
It all starts in a psychology sanatorium. Its director Hitchcock once again surprises us with a beautiful love story between the doctor and a man with mental health problems.
-Repulsion
This film tells the story of Carol a shy and discreet girl who lives with her sister in London.
Carol one day meets a boy named Colin, and they make a date but this will not go any further, due to the sexual revulsion she suffers towards her sister's boyfriend. Her sister and her boyfriend go on a trip for a day, but Carol in her loneliness enters a state of psychological imbalance.
-Pi the order of chaos
It is a movie where a mathematical genius named Maximiliam Cohen suffers from paranoia, migraine and believes that all of nature can be represented through numbers. Obsessed with the existence of a number pattern that could reveal an important secret. From there he will be involved in a succession of events.
-The pianist
Erika Kohut, a piano teacher, lives with her mother with whom she maintains a love-hate relationship, due to her mother's dominance and control. Ericka hides her dark relationships with sex from him.
-The blame
It tells the story of an assistant to a doctor, who is engaged in clandestinely practicing abortions in the Spain of the 60s. But when it is the assistant herself who has to abort is when strange things start to happen.
-Spider
A man with an unstable mind after being discharged from a psychiatric hospital is admitted to a nursing home. That is when his mind begins to reproduce stories from his childhood.
-The reader
It is based in Germany after World War II. Michel Berg, a fifteen-year-old boy meets Hanna, a girl twice her age, and they begin to have a secret relationship. This relationship will be interrupted by Hanna's disappearance, but 8 years later they meet again, but in a situation that Michel would not have imagined.
-The twilight of the gods
3 Oscar winning film. Joe Gills, a young writer who is haunted by debt, has a stroke of luck while walking through the luxurious neighborhood of Sunset Boulevard. There he meets Normad, a silent film actress who wants to relaunch his career with his own play Salome. Joe Gill starts working with her and they will have a relationship of hate and contempt.
-What became of baby Jane
Two brothers of movie stars Jane and Blanche, begin their trajectory in different ways.
While Jane was forgotten by the public, Blanche became a successful star. Blanche suffered a mysterious accident and from then on it is her sister Jane who takes care of her by tormenting her.
-The Skin I Live In
Well-known work of Almodóvar, in which a plastic surgeon destroyed by the death of his wife, tries to find a technique that could have saved her.
-The painted veil
It is a story based on the 20s, where Kitty, a wealthy English girl, decides to marry Walter, a doctor, in order to get out of the oppression in which she lived. They move to a remote village in China where they will have to fight the deadly cholera epidemic.
-Shame
Brandon, a 30-year-old boy, is a sex addict and spends his day looking for all kinds of sexual adventures, but one day he decides to throw out all the pornography and start a relationship with Marianne, a co-worker.
- melancholy
Justine and her fiancé Michael are married in a lavish party at Justine's sister Charlotte's home. They both hope for the end of the world that will occur when the planet Melancholy collides with Earth. The show is incredible.
-Funny games
It is a story where a family formed by Ana, George and their son Georgie go to a lake for a few days of vacation. There they meet their neighbors Fred and Eva, and a boy who is staying with them as well. Anna one day meets the boy inside the house, and wonders where he could enter.
-Misery
It is a film in which Paul, a writer of great success for his romantic stories, decides to kill the protagonist of his novels called Misery. But Paul suffers an accident and a follower of hers takes care of him so that Misery returns to history again.
- Multiple
Three girls are kidnapped by a man with a diagnosis of multiple identity disorder (up to 23 personalities). They must try to escape before the apparent emergence of a new and dreadful 24.
-Disturbed
A girl feels that she is persecuted, however, she ends up in a mental institution to find out if it is a delusion or not.
-The invitation
A couple loses a child and she disappears overnight without explanation. Years later, she reappears married and showing a totally different appearance that makes her unsettling.
-Hush
A deaf-mute writer lives isolated in the middle of the forest in the cabin where she lives alone. Suddenly, a masked stalker appears on the scene, which he does not know how to get rid of.
Other recommended lists
Recommended movies of all genres.
Sad movies.
Movies based on real events.
Movies to reflect on life.
Movies to watch as a family.
Educational films.
Philosophical movies.
Stock movies.
Romantic movies.
Movies of personal improvement.
Adventure movies.
Music movies.