Films about Psychology
Notable films exploring psychology, psychoanalysis, mental illness and human behaviour.
101 films
- The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
A hypnotist uses a somnambulist to commit murders in this expressionist masterpiece. The film is considered one of the first to explore psychopathology and hypnosis in cinema, with a twist ending that questions the narrator's perception of reality.
- Secrets of a Soul
A professor develops a knife phobia and seeks psychoanalytic help. Made with the consultation of Freud's collaborators (Hanns Sachs and Karl Abraham), it is one of the earliest films to attempt a faithful depiction of the psychoanalytic process and dream interpretation.
- Spellbound
Psychoanalytic thriller in which a psychiatrist tries to unravel the amnesia of a man who may be an impostor or a murderer. Notable for its iconic dream sequence designed by Salvador Dalí, illustrating Freud's concepts of dream interpretation.
- The Seventh Veil
A suicidal pianist is treated with narcoanalysis to uncover past traumas. Winner of the Academy Award for Best Screenplay, the film presents hypnosis and regression therapy as tools for uncovering repressed memories.
- Beauty and the Beast
Cocteau's adaptation of the fairy tale is rich in psychoanalytic symbolism: transformation, projection, repressed desire, sublimation and the integration of the Jungian shadow. A reference point of cinematic surrealism with deep roots in the unconscious.
- It's a Wonderful Life
A man on the brink of suicide is visited by an angel who shows him what the world would be like without him. The film illustrates suicidal crisis, cognitive distortion (all-or-nothing thinking), cognitive reframing and the importance of social support in suicide prevention.
- The Snake Pit
A woman wakes up in a psychiatric hospital with no memory of how she got there. The film was pioneering in depicting the real conditions of psychiatric hospitals in the 1940s and contributed to legislative reforms in mental health care in the United States.
- The Three Faces of Eve
Based on a real clinical case, a woman with three distinct personalities is treated by a psychiatrist attempting to integrate them. The film helped popularise the concept of multiple personality disorder in popular culture.
- Wild Strawberries
An elderly professor takes a journey during which dreams and memories force him to confront his unlived emotional life. The film is an exploration of life review in old age, defence mechanisms and the confrontation with death from an existential perspective.
- Psycho
Thriller about Norman Bates, a motel owner with dissociative identity disorder. The film popularised psychoanalytic concepts in popular culture and introduced the general public to the idea of split personality, albeit with dramatic licence.
- David and Lisa
Two teenagers with mental disorders — he with a touch phobia, she with schizophrenia — develop a relationship in a psychiatric institution. The film stands out for its empathetic, non-sensationalist portrayal of adolescent mental illness.
- Freud: The Secret Passion
Biopic about Sigmund Freud's early years, his exploration of hypnosis, resistance, the Oedipus complex and the development of psychoanalysis as a therapeutic method. The screenplay was partially written by Jean-Paul Sartre.
- Marnie
A compulsive kleptomaniac with an aversion to the colour red and male touch is "diagnosed" by her husband through a kind of domestic psychoanalysis. The film explores childhood trauma, repression and phobias from a Freudian perspective.
- Repulsion
A young Belgian woman in London descends into psychosis when her sister leaves her alone in the apartment. The film is a masterful study of psychotic decompensation, isolation, hallucinations and androphobia.
- Persona
An actress who has mysteriously gone mute and her nurse develop an intense psychological relationship where their identities seem to merge. The film explores psychoanalytic concepts of projection, identification and the fluidity of personal identity.
- A Clockwork Orange
A young delinquent is subjected to an experimental aversion conditioning programme to "cure" his aggression. The film raises questions about behaviourism, free will, the ethics of conditioning and the limits of psychology as an instrument of social control.
- Scenes from a Marriage
An intimate portrait of the dissolution of a seemingly perfect marriage over ten years. The film is a clinical study of dysfunctional communication, emotional dependence, projection, affective ambivalence and the difficulty of psychological separation.
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
A convict feigns mental illness to avoid prison and ends up in an authoritarian psychiatric institution. Winner of five Academy Awards, the film spurred debate about patient rights and abusive psychiatric practices, contributing to the deinstitutionalisation movement.
- Sybil
Based on a real clinical case, it tells the story of a woman with multiple personality disorder (now dissociative identity disorder) and her extended psychotherapy. The film generated enormous public interest in dissociation and influenced diagnostics for decades.
- Taxi Driver
An isolated, insomniac Vietnam veteran works as a night taxi driver in New York as his alienation grows toward violence. The film portrays extreme social isolation, PTSD, emotional disconnection and the progression toward violent acting-out.
- The Deer Hunter
Three friends from a small industrial town go to Vietnam and return profoundly changed. The film is one of the most poignant portrayals of PTSD, desensitisation to danger, dissociation and the impact of war trauma on the community.
- Ordinary People
A teenager who survived an accident that killed his brother struggles with guilt and depression, and seeks help from a compassionate psychiatrist. The Oscar-winning film accurately depicts psychotherapy, dysfunctional family dynamics and the grieving process.
- The Shining
A writer isolated in a mountain hotel with his family progressively loses his mind. Beyond the horror genre, the film explores cabin fever, alcoholism, domestic violence and psychological disintegration under extreme isolation.
- Birdy
A Vietnam veteran obsessed with birds retreats into a catatonic state in a military hospital. The film explores PTSD, catatonia, friendship as a therapeutic tool and fantasy as an escape mechanism from trauma.
- The Breakfast Club
Five teenagers from different social groups meet during school detention. The film is a reference point in depicting adolescent psychology: peer pressure, social identity, stereotypes, hidden vulnerability and the need for validation.
- Rain Man
A selfish man discovers he has an older brother with savant autism and embarks on a road trip with him. The film was instrumental in raising public awareness of the autism spectrum and won four Academy Awards.
- Awakenings
Based on Oliver Sacks's book, a neurologist discovers that L-DOPA awakens catatonic patients dormant since the 1920s. The film explores consciousness, neuroplasticity, medical ethics and the question of what it means to be psychologically "awake".
- Jacob's Ladder
A Vietnam veteran experiences terrifying hallucinations in New York. The film blends PTSD, dissociation, hallucinatory experiences and the dying process, drawing on Kübler-Ross's stages of grief and near-death experience concepts.
- Total Recall
A construction worker implants false memories of a vacation on Mars and discovers he may already have had a secret life. The film raises the reliability of memory, false memory implantation, identity construction from memory and the relationship between recollection and reality.
- The Fisher King
A radio host in crisis meets a homeless former professor living in a delusional Arthurian world. The film explores survivor's guilt, trauma, delusion as psychic protection and the mutual healing of two broken people.
- The Silence of the Lambs
An FBI trainee seeks the help of imprisoned psychiatrist and cannibal Hannibal Lecter to catch a serial killer. The film depicts psychopathy, criminal psychological profiling and the complex inverted power dynamic between therapist and patient.
- What About Bob?
A patient with multiple phobias follows his psychiatrist to his family vacation. The comedy satirises therapeutic dependency, countertransference, professional boundaries and the irony of the therapist ending up more disturbed than the patient.
- Clean, Shaven
A man with schizophrenia searches for his daughter in a world distorted by auditory and visual hallucinations. Considered one of the most accurate portrayals of schizophrenia in cinema, the film immerses the viewer in the subjective experience of psychosis.
- Primal Fear
A young man accused of murder appears to have dissociative identity disorder. The film raises the question of malingering mental illness in the forensic context, competency evaluation for trial and criminal responsibility.
- Shine
Biopic of pianist David Helfgott, who suffered a psychotic breakdown after performing Rachmaninoff's Third Concerto. The film shows abusive paternal pressure, psychotic breakdown, recovery with emotional support and music as a pathway to reconnection with the world.
- As Good as It Gets
A misanthropic writer with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) sees his life transformed by a waitress and an artist neighbour. The film presents OCD rituals, resistance to treatment and the possibility of change through human relationships.
- Good Will Hunting
A working-class mathematical genius, mandated to attend therapy, builds a transformative relationship with a psychologist (Robin Williams). The film faithfully portrays the therapeutic process, resistance to change and the importance of the therapeutic alliance.
- The Truman Show
A man discovers his entire life has been a television show. The film prefigured the Truman delusion (later described in psychiatry), and explores freedom, authenticity, environmental manipulation and the social construction of reality.
- What Dreams May Come
A dead man travels through the afterlife to rescue his wife from the "hell" she entered after suicide. The film addresses suicide, grief, depression, survivor's guilt and the question of whether love can transcend psychological death.
- American Beauty
A suburban father in existential crisis rebels against his life. The film explores midlife crisis, emotional repression, social conformity, repressed sexuality and family dysfunction beneath an appearance of normality.
- Fight Club
An insomniac office worker creates a charismatic and violent alter ego. The film explores dissociation, dissociative identity disorder, masculine identity crisis, consumerism as a compensatory mechanism and the destructiveness of narcissism.
- Girl, Interrupted
Based on Susanna Kaysen's memoir, it chronicles her stay in a psychiatric hospital in the 1960s, where she is diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. The film explores the blurred boundaries between mental health and illness and the culture of psychiatric institutions.
- The Matrix
A hacker discovers that perceived reality is a simulation. Beyond science fiction, the film raises Plato's cave allegory, perception as mental construction, dissociation from reality and the "red pill" as a metaphor for psychological awakening.
- The Sixth Sense
A child psychologist treats a boy who claims to see dead people. Beyond the supernatural genre, the film accurately portrays the therapeutic relationship with a traumatised child and the importance of emotional validation in child psychotherapy.
- The Virgin Suicides
Five sisters isolated by their overprotective parents take their own lives in a suburban community. The film explores adolescent depression, social isolation, overprotective parenting as a risk factor and the enigma of suicide from the observers' perspective.
- Memento
A man with anterograde amnesia — unable to form new memories — tries to find his wife's killer using tattoos and notes. The film illustrates short-term memory, confabulation and the fragility of narrative identity.
- Requiem for a Dream
Four people see their lives destroyed by different forms of addiction. The film is one of cinema's rawest depictions of chemical dependency, tolerance, withdrawal and progressive psychological degradation.
- A Beautiful Mind
Biopic of mathematician John Nash, Nobel laureate, who struggles with paranoid schizophrenia. The film illustrates hallucinations, delusions and the impact of mental illness on academic and personal life, as well as the difficult process of recovery.
- Donnie Darko
A troubled teenager has visions of a giant rabbit predicting the end of the world. The film interweaves paranoid schizophrenia, adolescent psychotherapy, determinism and the blurred line between altered perception and alternative reality.
- K-PAX
A man claiming to be from another planet is admitted to a psychiatric hospital, where his psychiatrist tries to determine whether it is delusion or something inexplicable. The film raises questions about normality, diagnosis and the limits of psychiatric knowledge.
- Mulholland Drive
An aspiring actress and an amnesiac woman meet in Los Angeles in a plot that dissolves into dream and fantasy. The film is a cinematic illustration of Freudian dream theory: condensation, displacement, wish fulfilment and the boundary between fantasy and reality.
- Prozac Nation
Based on Elizabeth Wurtzel's memoir, a young journalist struggles with major depression during her university years. The film depicts the diagnosis of depression, the beginning of antidepressant treatment, treatment resistance and the stigma of mental illness.
- The Experiment
German version (Das Experiment) of the Stanford prison experiment. Volunteers assigned to guard and prisoner roles quickly lose control. The film illustrates deindividuation, abuse of power and conformity with social roles.
- One Hour Photo
A lonely photo lab technician develops an obsession with a customer's family. The film portrays extreme isolation, erotomanic delusional disorder, pathological loneliness and the creation of parasocial bonds as a substitute for real relationships.
- Talk to Her
Two men care for two women in comas, developing a friendship and divergent forms of obsessive love. The film explores loneliness, unrequited love, the ethical limits of care, objectification and the difference between empathy and possession.
- The Hours
Three women from different eras struggle with depression: Virginia Woolf, a 1950s housewife and a contemporary editor. The film explores major depression, suicidal ideation, emotional repression and the intergenerational impact of suffering.
- The Pianist
Polish pianist Władysław Szpilman survives the Warsaw Ghetto and the Holocaust. The film is a poignant portrait of trauma, resilience, survival dissociation and the long-term psychological impact of genocide.
- Identity
Ten strangers find themselves at an isolated motel during a storm and begin being killed one by one. The twist ending reveals they are all personalities of a patient with dissociative identity disorder, illustrating the process of therapeutic integration.
- Matchstick Men
A con artist with severe OCD and agoraphobia discovers he has a teenage daughter. The film portrays in detail obsessive-compulsive rituals, tics, social phobia, the need for control and how human relationships can motivate therapeutic change.
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
A couple undergoes a procedure to erase each other from their memories. The film explores emotional memory, attachment, grief and the question of whether it is possible (or desirable) to selectively remove painful memories.
- Garden State
An actor who has been on antidepressants since childhood stops his medication and returns home for his mother's funeral. The film explores the emotional numbing caused by overmedication, reconnection with feelings and the debate over pharmacological dependence in mental health.
- The Aviator
Biopic of Howard Hughes showing his escalating struggle with OCD and phobias alongside his success as a filmmaker and aviation pioneer. The film illustrates the progression of obsessive-compulsive disorder and its impact on a brilliant mind.
- The Machinist
An industrial worker who has not slept for a year suffers extreme physical and mental deterioration, with paranoia and hallucinations. The film explores the devastating effects of sleep deprivation, unprocessed guilt and dissociation.
- Batman Begins
Bruce Wayne transforms childhood trauma (his parents' murder) into an obsessive mission. The film explores childhood PTSD, phobia (fear of bats), sublimation, channelling trauma into an alternate identity and the relationship between fear and power.
- Little Miss Sunshine
A dysfunctional family travels by road to take the youngest daughter to a child beauty pageant. The film depicts depression, a failed suicide attempt, family dysfunction, winner/loser mentality and social pressure on children's body image.
- The Departed
An undercover cop in the mob and a mobster in the police force live dual identities. The film explores cognitive dissonance, the chronic stress of covert living, paranoia, double life and the disintegration of authentic identity.
- Lars and the Real Girl
An extremely shy man begins a "relationship" with a life-sized doll, and the community decides to play along. The film sensitively portrays delusional disorder, social isolation and the role of community in psychological recovery.
- The Number 23
A man becomes obsessively convinced that the number 23 dominates his life. The film illustrates apophenia (the tendency to perceive meaningful connections in random data), magical thinking and the progression of obsessive thought into delusion.
- Changeling
Based on real events from 1928, a mother is committed to a psychiatric ward for insisting that the boy the police returned to her is not her son. The film denounces the abusive use of psychiatry to silence dissent and diagnosis as a tool of power.
- Revanche
After a tragedy, a criminal and a policeman live through grief and guilt in parallel. The film explores grief processing, survivor's guilt, revenge vs. forgiveness and the divergent paths of trauma toward destruction or repair.
- The Wave
A German teacher creates an autocratic movement in class to demonstrate how dictatorships arise, but the experiment spirals out of control. Based on Ron Jones's real experiment (1967), it illustrates social conformity, group pressure and the ease of radicalisation.
- Antichrist
A therapist tries to treat his wife in a forest cabin after their son's death, but the therapy derails into violence. The film raises the dangers of treating loved ones, countertransference, pathological grief and the limits of therapeutic rationality.
- The White Ribbon
Mysterious incidents in a German village before World War I reveal latent violence beneath moral rigidity. The film explores parental authoritarianism, emotional suppression, the formation of the authoritarian character and the psychosocial roots of fascism.
- The Soloist
Based on the true story of a prodigious musician with schizophrenia living on the streets and his friendship with a journalist. The film addresses schizophrenia, homelessness among people with severe mental illness and the limits of help without consent.
- Black Swan
A ballerina obsessed with perfection progressively loses touch with reality while preparing Swan Lake. The film explores pathological perfectionism, dissociation, hallucinations and psychological pressure in the world of art.
- Inception
Specialised thieves enter dreams to extract or implant ideas. The film builds a visual architecture of the unconscious based on Freudian theory of dream levels, repression, projection and the power of subconscious ideas over behaviour.
- Shutter Island
A marshal investigates the disappearance of a patient from a psychiatric hospital on a remote island in the 1950s. The film explores delusion, denial, trauma and the boundaries between reality and mental construction in an anti-psychiatry context.
- The King's Speech
The future King George VI works with an unorthodox speech therapist to overcome his stammer. The film depicts the therapeutic alliance, relaxation techniques, exploration of childhood trauma and the relationship between physical symptom and psychological conflict.
- A Dangerous Method
Drama based on the relationship between Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud and Sabina Spielrein, depicting the early days of psychoanalysis and the rupture between Jung and Freud over the nature of the unconscious.
- Melancholia
A woman with severe depression faces the end of the world with more serenity than her "healthy" sister. Von Trier, who suffers from depression, creates a visual metaphor for the illness: the depressed person already lives in a world that is ending.
- Take Shelter
A family man begins having apocalyptic visions and does not know whether he is a prophet or a schizophrenic. The film realistically explores the diagnostic dilemma between prophetic experience and psychosis, the genetic inheritance of schizophrenia and the family impact of mental illness.
- We Need to Talk About Kevin
A mother tries to understand what led her teenage son to commit a school massacre. The film explores the mother-son bond, conduct disorder, the nature vs. nurture question and parental guilt in the face of antisocial behaviour.
- Amour
An elderly man cares for his wife after a stroke that leaves her increasingly incapacitated. The film is a poignant portrait of caregiver burnout, anticipatory grief, dignity in illness and ethical decisions at the end of life.
- Silver Linings Playbook
A man with bipolar disorder leaves a psychiatric institution and tries to rebuild his life, forming a relationship with a woman suffering from depression. The film presents bipolar disorder, psychiatric medication and recovery with an unusually hopeful tone.
- The Perks of Being a Wallflower
An introverted teenager with a traumatic past navigates high school while struggling with depression and repressed memories. The film addresses childhood PTSD, repression, therapeutic breakthrough and the importance of social support during adolescence.
- Ida
A young Polish novice nun discovers her Jewish roots and her family's fate during the Holocaust. The film explores identity crisis, transgenerational grief and the impact of collective trauma on individual identity.
- Nymphomaniac
A woman narrates her compulsive sexual life to a stranger who found her injured. The film addresses sexual addiction, compulsivity, sadomasochism, guilt, insecure attachment dynamics and the connections between sexuality and emotional trauma.
- Prisoners
A father desperately searches for his kidnapped daughters and resorts to violence. The film explores morality in extreme situations, psychological regression under stress, cognitive justification of violence and the effects of trauma on decision-making.
- Side Effects
A depressed woman commits a crime under the effects of a new antidepressant. The film critiques the pharmaceutical industry, the over-prescription of antidepressants and the relationship between psychiatry and big pharmaceutical corporations.
- Still Alice
A linguistics professor is diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease at age 50. The film sensitively depicts the progressive loss of memory and identity, and the devastating impact on the family.
- The Babadook
A widowed mother fights a monster from a children's book that may be the manifestation of her unresolved grief. The film uses the horror genre as a metaphor for depression, grief, maternal ambivalence and repressed emotions that return.
- Anomalisa
A customer service expert perceives everyone as having the same face and voice until he meets an "anomalous" woman. The animated film illustrates inverted Fregoli syndrome, anhedonia, chronic depression, derealisation and the inability to connect emotionally.
- Inside Out
Pixar animation that personifies the core emotions (Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust, Anger) of an eleven-year-old girl. The film was advised by psychologists Paul Ekman and Dacher Keltner, and is considered an educational tool on emotional regulation.
- The Lobster
In a dystopian society, single people are sent to a hotel where they must find a partner or be turned into an animal. The film satirises social pressure to couple up, fear of loneliness, conformity and the absurdity of social norms about relationships.
- The Stanford Prison Experiment
Dramatisation of Zimbardo's 1971 experiment, where students assigned to guard and prisoner roles exhibited extreme behaviours within days. The film illustrates the dangers of conformity, obedience to authority and deindividuation.
- Split
A man with 23 different personalities kidnaps three teenagers. Despite dramatic licence, the film generated debate about the representation of dissociative identity disorder in cinema and the potential stigmatisation of patients.
- The Wife
A woman who sacrificed her literary career for her Nobel-winning husband confronts decades of repressed resentment. The film portrays long-term emotional repression, learned submissiveness, spousal narcissism and the late eruption of authenticity.
- Joker
A failed comedian with a neurological disorder causing involuntary laughter descends into violence in a society that has dismantled mental health services. The film sparked debate about the stigma of mental illness and social responsibility.
- The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind
A boy from Malawi builds a windmill from recycled materials to save his village from famine. The film illustrates resilience, intrinsic motivation, creative problem-solving and the importance of education for cognitive development.
- The Lighthouse
Two lighthouse keepers isolated on a remote island descend into madness. The film explores the psychological impact of extreme isolation, sensory deprivation, delirium, toxic power dynamics and the effects of alcohol on the psyche under stress.
- The Father
An elderly man with dementia experiences fragmented reality from within. The film uses narrative disorientation to let the viewer experience the confusion, memory loss and anguish of dementia from the patient's subjective perspective.