The 21 best movies about schizophrenia

Schizophrenia It's one of the hardest mental illnesses to deal with, but that doesn't mean you can't connect with the people who have it.

Although the break with reality seems difficult to explain, film language has many ways of expressing the way these people see things.

• Recommended article: "The 6 types of schizophrenia and characteristics"

Movies about schizophrenia to understand the disease

This selection of films on schizophrenia is one more way to understand what this condition consists of and the social and emotional implications that it usually entails.

1. Take Shelter (2011)

A psychological drama in which you can see how the break between a man and reality evolves in which he lives. Little by little, the protagonist of the film gives in to the urges to believe in a series of apocalyptic hallucinations that lead him to build a shelter underground.

2. Donnie Darko (2001)

Indie film starring actor Jake Gyllenhaal. In her, a young man named Donnie has visions in which he sees a person dressed as a giant rabbit

sinister looking. This entity tells him that the world is going to end in 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes and 12 seconds. The premiere of this work went almost unnoticed, but with the arrival of its DVD version it became a cult film.

3. Lilith (1964)

A psychiatrist who works in a health center reserved for the upper classes meets Lilith, a young woman with schizophrenia., And he fell in love with her. Through this relationship and her desire to forge a romantic relationship with the patient, the doctor gradually gives up living in the world of what he understood to be "the sane". This movie is based on a novel by J.R. Salamanca.

4. A Beautiful Mind (2001)

A film about schizophrenia based on a real case. It talks about the life of John Forbes Nash, a mathematician with paranoid schizophrenia who went on to win a Nobel Prize in 1994. Throughout its 131-minute duration, A Beautiful Mind shows the evolution of Nash's disease and also the way in which he makes it compatible with her passions.

5. Spider (2002)

Directed by David Cronenberg, this film tells about a man who, after spending a while in a psychiatric hospital, stops taking his medication and relive experiences related to a traumatic childhood marked by the death of her mother and her relationship with her father.

6. Canvas (2006)

A story that puts a South Florida family in the center of focus and the way they live with her mother's illness. One of the most moving schizophrenia movies.

7. Angel Baby (1995)

Relatively little known Australian film about two people with schizophrenia who meet in group therapy. After falling in love and moving in together, they deal with a series of difficulties related to their mental health and the onset of a pregnancy.

8. I never promised you a rose garden (1977)

This film about schizophrenia takes place in a psychiatric hospital where a woman is admitted for mistaking reality and fiction repeatedly. In this scenario, the protagonist comes into contact with a psychiatrist who offers her the possibility of maintaining a point of connection with the real world.

9. The Fisher King (1991)

Directed by Terry Gilliam and starring Robin Williams and Jeff Bridges, This work narrates the case of a radio announcer who comes into contact with a beggar with signs of schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Together they undertake the search for the Holy Grail.

10. Black Swan (2010)

One of the most famous films of director Darren Aronofsky, talks about the case of a dancer (played by Natalie Portman) who undertakes the search for artistic perfection, although along the way signs are revealed that he is breaking more and more with the perception of reality.

11. The Soloist (2009)

In line with other films about schizophrenia based on real cases, the soloist tells the story of Nathaniel Ayers, a talented cellist who developed mental illness during his training at the conservatory and ended up living as a beggar. However, the situation changes when a journalist meets him and is impressed by his skills.

12. Benny & Joon, the love of the innocent (1993)

Joon is a young woman who, after the death of her parents, begins to experience hallucinations and delusions., a typical set of symptoms of schizophrenia. Her brother dedicates all her efforts to take care of her, although the arrival of Sam, a young man played by Johnny Depp, will make the problems intensify, on the one hand, and a love relationship arise, on the other. other.

13. Angels Without Heaven (1993)

In this play shows the friendship between a young man with schizophrenia and a veteran of the Vietnam War They meet at a homeless shelter. The friendship that is born between them reveals the way in which they can connect that, despite having different pasts, they can see themselves reflected in each other.

14. Some Voices (2000)

This romantic drama talks about Ray, he is a young man who, after being in a psychiatric center, goes to live with his brother Pete. Both help each other but when Ray falls in love with a woman the relationship begins to falter.

15. K-Pax (2001)

One of the best-known films about schizophrenia, K-Pax talks about the life of a man who calls himself Prot and about whom practically nothing is known beyond the fact that he says he comes from a distant planet and that he plans to go back at some point in the future. Prot is admitted to a psychiatric center for his delusional beliefs, and there revolutionizes the lives of other patients.

16. I am a cyborg (2006)

One of the best known South Korean movies in the West. It deals with the life of two young men confined in a psychiatric center who establish a curious connection. Young-goon believes that she is a cyborg and that she can only be powered by batteries, so she refuses to eat. Il-soon, a young man who always hides behind a mask, will have to understand the logic behind the young woman's thinking in order to help her.

17. Veronika Decides to Die (2009)

This fiction narrates the life of a young woman who, after deciding that she wants to die and attempting suicideshe, she is informed that she has a short time to live because of the overdose of drugs that she used. While she remains hospitalized, she meets a patient with schizophrenia who makes her see things differently.

18. Death of an Angel (2001)

Samuel L. Jackson plays a man with schizophrenia who tries to find the murderer of a young man. deciphering all the clues she can find. This work leaves aside the more intimate aspect that characterizes other films about schizophrenia to emphasize the importance of the mystery plot.

19. Nise (2015)

A Brazilian film about the most recent paradigms of psychiatry, based on humane treatment of patients with the most serious mental disorders. Dr. Nise da Silveira tries to make the inmates with schizophrenia at her medical center be seen as people, something that helps her earn the enmities of her colleagues.

20. Adèle's Intimate Diary (1975)

This film deals with the life of Adèle Hugo, the daughter of Victor Hugo, and her physical and mental problems related to her obsessive way of experiencing unrequited love.

21. Woh Lamhe (2006)

A romantic drama in which schizophrenia plays an important role. This Indian film released in 2006 collects a different way of looking at mental illness.