9 films about mental illness

The 10th of October is World Mental Health Day. This year’s official theme is “Lived experiences heard: real voices, real change,” a theme that places lived experience at the heart of the conversation about mental health. At the same time, the BFI London Film Festival is taking place in venues across the capital, from 7 to 18 October. As a psychiatrist and a cinephile, I thought this was a good opportunity to bring the two together and look at seven films that explore mental health in very different ways, and discuss 9 films about mental illness.

Of course, this is only the tip of the iceberg. There are countless films about mental illness, psychological distress, psychiatry, trauma and the complexities of the human mind. This selection is based largely on my own knowledge of cinema and personal taste, and is by no means intended to be exhaustive. Rather, these are seven films that have stayed with me and that, in different ways, invite us to think about mental health—and about how cinema chooses to portray it.

A Beautiful Mind (2001)

Directed by Ron Howard, starring Russell Crowe as mathematician John Nash and Jennifer Connelly as his wife Alicia, with Ed Harris and Paul Bettany in supporting roles. The film won four Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress (Jennifer Connelly); Russell Crowe was also nominated for Best Actor.

The film is based on the biography (of the same name) of John Nash by Sylvia Nasar. It is about a brilliant mathematician whose promising career and personal life are transformed by the emergence of severe psychotic symptoms, forcing him to confront a reality he can no longer fully trust. The film’s central subject is schizophrenia, although its depiction takes considerable dramatic liberties with John Nash’s actual illness and recovery. It explores hallucinations, delusional beliefs, stigma, treatment and the possibility of living with persistent symptoms.

Silver Linings Playbook (2012)

Directed by David O. Russell, with Bradley Cooper as Pat Solitano, Jennifer Lawrence as Tiffany Maxwell, and Robert De Niro and Jacki Weaver as Pat’s parents. The film received eight Oscar nominations and won one, with Jennifer Lawrence winning Best Actress; nominations included Best Picture, Director, Actor (Cooper), Supporting Actor (De Niro), Supporting Actress (Weaver), Editing and Adapted Screenplay.

The film is based on the book of the same name by Matthew Quick. It is about a man with bipolar disorder, who after being released from a psychiatric hospital, attempts to rebuild his life and reconcile with his estranged wife, while forming an unexpected relationship with a young widow dealing with her own emotional difficulties. Mental illness is central rather than incidental. Pat’s bipolar disorder, including mood instability, impulsivity and difficulties with anger, is explored alongside family responses, stigma, treatment and the complicated boundary between recovery and relapse.

Die, My Love (2025)

Directed by Lynne Ramsay and starring Jennifer Lawrence as Grace and Robert Pattinson as Jackson, with LaKeith Stanfield, Sissy Spacek and Nick Nolte in supporting roles.

The film is based on the book of the same name by Ariana Harwicz. After moving with her husband and newborn child to a remote house in rural Montana, a young mother becomes increasingly agitated and psychologically unravels, threatening both her marriage and her grasp on reality. Its connection to mental illness is particularly direct. The film explores severe postpartum depression and psychosis, portraying the mother’s increasingly unstable mental state through an intensely subjective and often unsettling perspective. It is less a conventional psychiatric drama than a visceral exploration of motherhood, isolation, sexuality, rage and psychological disintegration.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)

Directed by Miloš Forman, starring Jack Nicholson as Randle P. McMurphy, Louise Fletcher as Nurse Ratched, and Brad Dourif, Danny DeVito, Christopher Lloyd and Will Sampson among the psychiatric patients. The film won all five of its major Academy Awards: Best Picture, Director, Actor (Nicholson), Actress (Fletcher) and Adapted Screenplay.

The film is based on the book of the same name by Ken Kesey. It is about a rebellious criminal who is transferred to a psychiatric institution and subsequently challenges the authoritarian nurse running the ward, inspiring the patients to reclaim some of their freedom and individuality. Mental illness and psychiatry are fundamental to the film, which examines institutionalisation, psychiatric power, coercive treatment, ECT and the labelling of people as mentally ill. Its portrayal is deliberately critical and has become one of cinema’s most influential—though also controversial—representations of psychiatric institutions.

As Good as It Gets (1997)

Directed by James L. Brooks, starring Jack Nicholson as Melvin Udall, Helen Hunt as Carol Connelly, and Greg Kinnear as Simon Bishop. It received seven Academy Award nominations and won two, with Nicholson winning Best Actor and Hunt Best Actress.

The film is about a misanthropic novelist whose life is governed by rigid obsessive-compulsive behaviours. When circumstances bring him into closer contact with his neighbour and a waitress, he is gradually forced out of his isolation. Melvin is explicitly portrayed as having obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), including contamination fears, repetitive rituals, avoidance and rigid routines. The film uses comedy and romance to explore how OCD affects relationships and functioning, although its relatively rapid improvement through interpersonal connection should not be taken as an accurate representation of how OCD is generally treated.

Psycho (1960)

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates, Janet Leigh as Marion Crane, Vera Miles as Lila Crane and John Gavin as Sam Loomis. The film received four Academy Award nominations—Best Director, Supporting Actress (Janet Leigh), Black-and-White Cinematography and Art Direction—but won none.

The film is based on the book of the same name by Robert Bloch. After stealing money and stopping at an isolated motel, a woman encounters its apparently mild-mannered proprietor, setting in motion a chain of events that exposes a horrifying secret about him and his mother. Psycho is strongly connected to mental illness through Norman Bates’s dissociative identity presentation, traditionally interpreted in the film as a split personality or psychosis. The psychiatric explanation offered at the end reflects outdated mid-20th-century ideas and is not an accurate representation of dissociative identity disorder or schizophrenia by modern clinical standards. Its importance lies partly in how profoundly it shaped popular culture’s association between mental illness and dangerousness.

Side Effects (2013)

Directed by Steven Soderbergh, starring Rooney Mara as Emily Taylor, Jude Law as psychiatrist Dr Jonathan Banks, Catherine Zeta-Jones as Dr Victoria Siebert, and Channing Tatum as Martin Taylor.

After her husband’s release from prison, a severely depressed woman attempts suicide and is prescribed a new antidepressant, setting off a chain of events in which psychiatric treatment, medication side effects and deception become increasingly difficult to disentangle. Mental illness is central to the film, particularly major depression, suicidality, psychiatric medication and the doctor–patient relationship. It also becomes a psychological thriller about the possibility of manipulating psychiatric diagnoses and medication, raising questions about the pharmaceutical industry, informed consent and the difficulty of distinguishing genuine psychiatric symptoms from deliberate deception.

Through a Glass Darkly (1961)

Through a Glass Darkly was written and directed by Ingmar Bergman and stars Harriet Andersson, Max von Sydow, Gunnar Björnstrand and Lars Passgård. The film won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and remains one of Bergman’s most powerful explorations of mental illness and the limits of human understanding.

It follows Karin, a young woman recently discharged from psychiatric hospital after being diagnosed with schizophrenia, as she spends a few days with her husband, father and younger brother on a remote Swedish island. As Karin’s grip on reality begins to deteriorate, her illness exposes the emotional fractures within the family—particularly her father’s emotional distance and his disturbing tendency to view his daughter’s suffering as material for his writing. Bergman presents psychosis not simply as an individual illness, but as something that profoundly affects the entire family. The film is also deeply concerned with faith, love, isolation and the search for meaning.

Persona (1966)

Persona is another psychological masterpiece by Ingmar Bergman, starring Liv Ullmann as Elisabet Vogler, a successful stage actress who suddenly stops speaking, and Bibi Andersson as Alma, the young nurse assigned to care for her. Elisabet is taken to a secluded seaside house with Alma, where the boundaries between patient and carer, self and other, gradually begin to dissolve. As Alma talks increasingly openly about her own life, she becomes emotionally entangled with the silent actress, while her sense of identity begins to fracture.

Unlike Through a Glass Darkly, Persona does not offer a clear psychiatric diagnosis; instead, Bergman deliberately leaves the nature of Elisabet’s condition ambiguous. The film explores identity, silence, emotional projection, dissociation and the fragile boundaries of the self, making it particularly fascinating from a psychiatric perspective. Its experimental style mirrors this psychological uncertainty, constantly challenging the viewer’s sense of what is real and what is imagined.

Further reading

If you enjoyed this post and would like to watch more films about mental illness, check out the following:

From ‘No Time to Die’ to 5 films about grief

Alex

(the Traveling Psychiatrist who loves films)