20 movies about depression to understand this disorder

Depression is surely the most well-known psychological disorder in popular culture, so it is not at all strange that there are countless books, plays and movies in which the protagonist or one of the characters is going through this problem.

We'll see now 20 movies about depression well-known, in which either the protagonist is deeply depressed or this disorder is addressed from a comic but rigorous approach.

• Related article: "20 films about Psychology and mental disorders"

20 movies about depression

Here you will find several films in which the theme of the depression, without gutting the ending.

1. The Skeleton Twins (2014), by Craig Johnson

This movie addresses the issue of depression from a somewhat light and comical perspective, but no less dramatic for that nor deep. She explores the vital tragedy of two twin brothers, through "sassy" humor and the tenderness that unites them.

Milo (Bill Hader) writes a suicide note and slits his wrists while his sister Maggie (Kristen Wiig) tries to commit suicide by swallowing pills in the bathroom of her house.

However, Maggie stops her suicide attempt when she receives a call from the hospital telling her that her brother has attempted suicide. So she decides to abort her plan and prevent her brother, who had the same goal as her, from committing it.

They decide to move in together and, living together, they begin to remember difficult moments in their lives, those that have led them to the situation they have had to live.

2. Cake: A Reason to Live (2014), by Daniel Barnz

Claire Bennet (Jennifer Aniston) is going through a bad time in her life. She not only suffers from depression, but also, she has chronic pain, the result of an accident in which her beloved son died.

To top it off, while in the support group, one of the girls who came to him ended up taking her own life. This motivates her to attempt suicide herself as well.

However, the memory of the girl from her support group helps him realize his reality, preventing her from committing the act and being more aware of the course of her own existence.

The film also addresses, perhaps in a very subtle way, the problem of addiction to drugs such as antidepressants and painkillers. They relieve pain in a timely manner, but do not offer the complex benefits of psychotherapy.

3. Sylvia (2003), by Christine Jeffs

The film talks about the last five years of the poet Sylvia Plath (Gwyneth Paltrow). The writer suffers from depression, and her constant struggle to keep her life afloat ends up dragging her into the darkest of abysses.

She shows the life of a woman imprisoned in anxiety, sadness clouding her judgment every day. Her husband, Ted Hughes, ends up making everything bad explode in the form of the worst possible ending.

4. Helen (2009), by Sandra Nettelbeck

It is, perhaps, one of the best films that exposes what depression is: a mood disorder, a serious problem that requires attention and understanding.

Helen Leonard (Ashley Hudd) is a music teacher and great pianist who seems to be successful in her life. However, depression has taken the reins of her life, and she lives in deep discomfort.

She wants to know why she is like this, but she can't find it, which anguishes her even more. To combat the feeling, she tries to hold on to her family and her students, but she doesn't make it and each failed attempt separates her further from the world.

The role that Ashley Hudd plays manages to generate a certain antipathy towards the character, far from the sympathy that she tries to obtain by clinging to families and students. This is very interesting, since she makes us aware of what many depressed people, anxious to find something that unites them with the world, they end up being rejected by their closest circle, something that still sinks them further.

5. An Angel at My Table (1990), by Jane Campion

It chronicles the life of writer Janet Frame (Kerry Fox), who was born into a poor family.. Her childhood was marked by various tragedies and, very soon, she Janet began to feel different from others.

Later she would manage to enter the university to study pedagogy, but while there she tried to commit suicide. This caused her to be hospitalized for years in a psychiatric hospital, where she was diagnosed with schizophrenia and she was given electroconvulsive therapy.

Thanks to the fact that she wrote her first book, which won an award, Janet Frame was saved from being lobotomized. She managed to get out of the mental hospital and continued writing, having a brilliant career, although depression would not depart from her.

6. The Beaver (2011), by Jodie Foster

The protagonist, played by Mel Gibson, is a family man who is on the verge of bankruptcy. Because of that he suffers from a deep depression, which affects his family relationships and puts him on the brink of divorce.

He tries to take his own life several times, but goes into a state similar to dissociative identity disorder. Though somewhat funny, he picks up a beaver puppet and starts talking through it.

The beaver acts as a defense mechanism to relieve you of depression. With the doll he finds strength to be able to face life and, if due to some carelessness, he does not have the beaver in his hand, depression returns to his side.

7. Ordinary People (1980), by Robert Redford

It narrates the life of a typical average family, with two children but, unfortunately, one of them dies in an accident. The other son experiences a great feeling of guilt, which leads him to depression and a suicide attempt.

The young survivor (Timothy Hutton) suffers the indifference of his mother (Mary Tyler), who reproaches him for having survived his brother, whom she loved more, along with the false joy of his father (Donald Sutherland).

8. Prozac Nation (2001), by Erik Skjoldbærg

This movie is an adaptation of the book with the same name., written by journalist Elizabeth Lee Wurtzel, played by Christina Ricci. In it he captured her passage through major depression.

The film gives a fairly good explanation of what this disorder entails, the problems faced by those who suffer from it and also those who are next to it.

9. The Hours (2002), by Stephen Daldry

This movie talks about the lives of three women who, while not significantly related or known to each other, are in fact not even living at the same time, have in common that they are connected through a Virginia Woolf novel.

The case of one of the women is especially interesting, played by Julianne Moore, who is the typical lady of the sixties with a husband and son who, supposedly, lives happily, until she commits a suicide attempt and uncovers her discomfort from her

Nicole Kidman gives life to Virginia Woolf, a writer who suffered from bipolar disorder. In addition, her relationship with her husband shows that on many occasions, her relatives, far from helping, hinder the therapeutic process due to their little knowledge of what is happening.

10. About Schmidt (2002), Alexander Payne

Jack Nicholson interprets the life of an old man who has just retired. The film exposes us what happens to many people who, after years of working, when they find themselves in old age, the loss of short-term goals and schedules disorient them.

He could live his retirement happily with his wife, but she suddenly passes away, leaving him alone. He tries to seek help from his daughter, but she doesn't pay much attention to him.

While he doesn't talk about depression in a sour, sad way, in fact, he uses a lot of sarcasm and nice comments, it does allow us to understand what this means in old age, especially when only.

11. Revolutionary Road (2008), by Justin Haythe

Frank (Leonardo DiCaprio) and April Wheeler (Kate Winslet) are in an unsatisfied marriage that does not agree with the conformist way of thinking of society.

The story takes place in the fifties and tells how the lives of both spouses are different. She, with a lot of energy, is full of dreams, while he prefers to take the easy and safe path, without being too dreamy.

Despite having everything a family of the time would want, such as a nice house, a safe routine and well settled, the fact that she cannot fulfill her dreams causes her to be trapped in a deep depression.

12. A Single Man (2009), by Tom Ford

The film is set in the 1960s, in southern California. A homosexual university professor (Colin Firth) has to face a sudden misfortune: the death of his partner., with whom he has shared his life for the last twenty years.

The film begins on the day the protagonist decides to end his life. Throughout the film he gives us an understanding of what depressed people feel.

13. Interiors (1978), by Woody Allen

This is a film that, in addition to explaining what depression is and the distorted world that the depressed person ends up perceiving, talks about the conflicts that can develop in our relationship with other loved ones.

The name of the movie is not random. The meaning of the internal spaces is contrasted very strongly with the external ones.

The film tells of the life of three sisters, played by Diane Keaton, Geraldine Page, Kristin Griffith, who live with her mother, who is having a difficult time after getting divorced.

One of the sisters, Eve (Geraldine Page), is an emotionally unstable interior decorator who suffers from severe depression. He receives a note that her husband wants to divorce her, putting her on the brink of suicide.

To make matters worse, his father ends up showing up at the house with a new woman, whom he intends to marry.

14. Melancholy (2011), by Lars von Trier

It is a science fiction movie, which takes place in a context of uncertainty and anxiety in an apocalyptic world.

The first half of the film tells of the unstable and depressed Justine (Kirsten Dunst), on her wedding day. The second part talks about her sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg).

Lars von Trier shows in this film a representation of what he himself went through when he suffered from depression. People feel listless and sad constantly, which makes them calm in situations disastrous, not because they have a high emotional stability, but because they are impassive before the chaos.

15. How beautiful it is to live (1946), by Frank Capra

This is surely the most classic film in which depression is deeply addressed.

George Bailey (James Stewart) is a man who has sacrificed his dreams and ambitions to help those most in need. However, despite having a big heart, his altruism has not brought him happiness, rather the contrary, depression and loneliness.

The movie starts with how George is trying to jump off a bridge. But his prayers reach heaven and he is assigned an angel, Clarence Odbody, to save him. The angel sees George's life through flashbacks, to learn the root of his depression.

16. The Virgin Suicides (1999), by Sofia Coppola

This is Sofia Coppola's first film., based on the novel by Jeffrey Eugenides, which tells of the life of five sisters in the seventies.

The family lives in apparent harmony until one of them, the younger sister Cecilia, takes her own life.

17. The Tenenbaums. A Family of Geniuses (2001), by Wes Anderson

Royal Tenenbaum (Gene Hackman) and his wife Etheline (Anjelica Huston) have separated. His three children, who have brilliant careers, they come home to stay for a while because their father has announced that he is terminally ill.

The memories of the three brothers are bitter, since they remember that many misfortunes and misfortunes are related to his father, who consider him the main person responsible for his misfortunes.

18. The Apartment (1960), by Billy Wilder

The film tells of the life of an ambitious insurance salesman who lives in an apartment little out of the ordinary, but that he occasionally lends to his bosses for their escapades loving.

The protagonist hopes that these favors that he does to his bosses will help him climb the steps in the companyBut things go awry when he ends up falling in love with the elevator operator, who turns out to be one of the bosses' lovers.

19. Little Miss Sunshine (2006), by Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton

Olive dreams of winning the beauty pageant. To fulfill his dream, his entire family travels to take the youngest of the family to the pageant, which is held in California.

During the journey, we discovered that it is not a functional family at all: mom, neurotic; dad, a failure; the uncle tries to commit suicide after being abandoned by his boyfriend and his brother is a follower of Nietzsche and has decided to take an oath of silence.

20. Side Effects (2013), by Steven Soderbergh

The film talks about the world of psychopharmacology. Emily (Rooney Mara) is a young woman who has become addicted to an anxiolytic drug prescribed by her psychiatrist (Jude Law), given that her husband is going to be released from prison shortly, which causes him a deep discomfort from her