20 movies about psychology and mental disorders

Psychology also has its place in the seventh art. Of course, virtually any movie can offer apsychological reading of its characters or the way of thinking of the person who directed it. In fact, not only does the big screen offer us plots with high psychological content, but TV series are also getting it:

• "Psychological series: 20 series that every psychologist should see"

And, obviously, documentaries can also give you extensive knowledge on the subject:

• "15 absolutely essential documentaries on Psychology"

However, the listing of movies about psychology that you will find below is especially recommended for anyone interested in studying and understanding this discipline and the contents it works on:

Movies about psychology of yesterday and today

Let's start with the compilation of psychological cinema that you can enjoy while learning concepts and stories related to the world of the mind.

1. The Prince of Tides (1991)

Romantic melodrama directed by Barbra Streisand based on the eponymous book written by Pat Conroy. Although it is a story based on love and forgiveness, it also talks about childhood traumas and the mark they can leave in adult life in the form of

PTSD. Highly recommended.

2. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007)

This is a movie that focuses on the psychological consequences of suffering from a physical handicap. The protagonist, former editor-in-chief of the magazine Elle, he is locked in his own body due to the call locked-in syndrome, unable to voluntarily move anything except an eye. From that moment on, this eye will be the only communication window that will keep you in contact with the rest of the people and that will allow him to write an autobiographical book, the same one on which this film was based and with which he shares Name.

The film, in addition to containing an important emotional charge, is a reflection on the relationships between the mind (or, rather, consciousness) and the body itself.

• You may be interested: "The 31 best Psychology books you can't miss"

3. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)

In this film starring the famous Jack Nicholson, essential problems of the tradition on which many mental institutions are based are exposed: the overdiagnosis, the underappreciation of the inmate as an agent responsible for his own life, the pigeonhole of people using diagnostic labels, and invasive methods to change behavior patterns. It is based on the homonymous novel by Ken Kesey and at the time it garnered many awards due to its perfect technical finish and the message humanist that transmits.

4. Memento (2000)

It combines a perfect exemplification of what is anterograde amnesia (a disorder in which new memories are not formed) with a way of narrating that makes us better understand this type of disorder. The film is composed of two types of scenes, some in black and white and others in color, which follow one another back and forth in time to leave us at all times with the confused feeling that we are missing something to understand what is going. The movie also makes us wonder where is your own identity when memory is not there to connect all the experiences we live.

5. Take Shelter (2011)

An ordinary father of a family begins to give in to fear of a possible apocalypse without being subject to any rational explanation. From that moment, he enters a spiral of hasty decisions without us knowing if he has reasons to do so or if it is delusions. This film can be included in a list of films on psychology because of the sensations that it makes us experience, although what it tries to explaining ourselves is more a metaphor about the American way of life, deeply based on private property, than an illustration about the mechanisms mental paranoia.

6. Funny Games (1997)

A family of vacationers is kidnapped from their own home by a couple of men who are dressed as golfers. Based on this premise, the Austrian director Michael Haneke spends more than an hour showing us what happens when the psychopathy it is combined with high doses of bad faith and encouragement to eliminate others.

The realistic cut of the film is combined with a component ofmetafiction in which the viewer is directly challenged by what he is seeing, which does not help to make the film lighter. There are also occasions in which reference is made to the fact that everything that happens is part of a film in which the will of the couple prevails of golfers, which reinforces the feeling that they have everything under control and that behind their apparent impulsiveness there is a framework of rationality perverse. Film not recommended for sensitive stomachs.

7. I am a cyborg (2006)

Much more lyrical than the previous one, I am a cyborg is a film set in South Korea in which a young woman is admitted to a psychiatric hospital because of herhallucinations. It is a love film in which the suitor, who is also interned, is climbing the steps of the parallel reality that the protagonist has created, understanding her hidden logic, to help her. A curious and profound film at the same time.

8. The experiment (2001)

A list of films on psychology cannot exclude the social aspect of our behavior. The Experiment is a movie based on the Stanford jail experiment, which was carried out in 1971 under the baton of the psychologist Philip Zimbardo.

In it, several people are randomly assigned to two categories: guards of a fictitious prison and prisoners of the same. During this experiment, which ended abruptly after escaping the experimenters' control, it was possible to see how On the other hand, social elements as superficial as belonging to a group can totally change the morality of the people. If you study psychology, you should see this movie as soon as possible.

9. Best... impossible (1997)

The obsessive compulsive disorder he is portrayed here with humor. Melvin Udall (Jack Nicholson again) builds his day-to-day life from unshakable little routines and a unique ability to be obnoxious. Udall is letting the compulsions and repetitive patterns of behavior dictate your life until a day comes when something new crosses his path and changes his character for the better.

10. A Clockwork Orange (1971)

One of Stanley Kubrick's great classics, based on a novel of the same name. The protagonist is used to a life of violence and lack of control due to a probable antisocial personality disorder. When he is imprisoned, a group of technicians decides to try with him a method to suppress violent impulses through a good dose of behavioral psychology.

The film talks about the belief in small invisible springs that activate certain patterns of behavior regardless of the will of the person. Is futuristic dystopia is considered by many people as the queen of psychology movies by focusing so much on the psychological mechanisms as in a discussion about their existence and the role of psychiatry modern.

Other psychological films

Here are other movies related to psychology that may interest you.

11. The Truman Show (1998)

One of the best known films of those starring the actor Jim Carrey, who on this occasion abandons the comic register that characterizes him to embody a man who has lived his entire life on a gigantic television set without knowing it. By the way, this work gave its name to a kind of delirium recently discovered.

12. The Witch (2015)

A recently released film that has garnered great fame. It tells the life of a family of North American settlers who move to an isolated settlement in the forest to start a new life. The clash between the presence of a witch in the surroundings of her house and the strong religious faith of the family will gradually emergedelusional ideas.

13. American History X (1998)

The story of two brothers skinheads of National Socialist ideology that little by little are coming out of the spiral of hatred in which they live. People interested in social psychology will find in this film an interesting story about the formation of borders that separate the intragroup, those with whom we identify, from theoutgroup, those with whom we try to compete.

14. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

An American thriller that has become one of the most remembered cult psychological films. Based on the novel by the writer Thomas Harris, it shows a part of the life of Hannibal Lecter, a psychopath cannibal with a record as a serial killer.

15. I am Sam (2001)

The story of a man with a mental disability played by Sean Penn who fights by all means to maintain custody of his daughter. To do this, she has the help of a lawyer (Michelle Pfeiffer) who little by little will see in her client an example of her dignity and determination. This film talks about willpower and motivation that leads a person to break the limits that he believed limited him.

16. The arrival

An excellent psychological film that uses the resources of the science fiction genre to explore two topics closely related to psychology and psycholinguistics: the mourning over the death of a loved one and the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, according to which our thoughts and our way of living experiences depend on the type of language we are used to using.

The excuse to talk about these fascinating topics is the arrival of alien life forms on earth and the need to establish diplomatic relations with them without knowing how they communicate.

17. The black swan (2010)

One of the best known psychological films of director Darren Aronofsky. The black swan talks about how the need for seek unlimited perfection, competitiveness and the lack of moments of intimacy they can get hold of a person until breaking the mind of him.

18. Taxi driver

A classic of cinema. It tells about a man who, to combat his insomnia and his boredom, decides to start working as a taxi driver during the nights, Little by little he will try to find a relevant role to give meaning to his existence, even if this puts him and others.

19. Rain Man (988)

If what you are looking for is a psychology film that shows many of the characteristics associated with autism, Rain Man is a very good option. In it Dustin Hoffman plays a man who presents a Autism Spectrum Disorder (TORCH) and that he begins to relate to a brother whom he barely knows.

20. An Almost Funny Story (2010)

Craig, a teenager with severe depression He is assigned to a psychiatric center. There, as the area of ​​people of his age is full, he must live with the adults, a place where Befriend a man named Bob (Zack Galifianakis) and Noelle (Emma Roberts), another girl from similar age.

Do you want more movies?

We propose you more films, this time related to the field of Philosophy:

• "10 philosophical films about identity"