15 of the Best Movies Ever Made About Mental Health.

Hollywood gets it right sometimes. These are 15 of the best movies about mental health, including ‘Silver Linings Playbook,’ ‘Gaslight’ and more.

Many families around the world are affected by mental illness, and it’s not right to look down on them for it. While not always the case, sometimes movies from Hollywood handle this topic well, treating it with the seriousness it deserves while still being entertaining.

Here are 15 of the finest movies about mental health ever created. They will motivate and make you ponder. So, get comfortable with a bowl of popcorn and enjoy.

Best Movies about Mental Health

1. Silver Linings Playbook (2012) 

David O. Russell made a really great movie set in Pennsylvania. It’s about two people who are dealing with their own problems, but they end up falling in love. He made this movie as a special gift for his son, who has bipolar disorder and OCD. The movie is a wonderful mix of funny moments, real struggles, and a touching love story. It handles these topics perfectly and keeps you engaged. It was the first movie in 31 years, since Warren Beatty’s Reds, to be nominated for Oscars in all four acting categories. This means the main actors, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, and Jacki Weaver, were all recognized. Jennifer Lawrence even won the award for Best Actress. This movie made history!

2. Ordinary People (1980)

Robert Redford’s movie is important for how it shows therapy on screen. It’s about a wealthy family in Chicago who are struggling after their son’s accidental death. The movie deals with difficult subjects like PTSD and the guilt felt by those who survive.

Mary Tyler Moore deserves a lot of praise for her bold acting in this movie. She takes on a role very different from her usual likable characters. In this film, she plays a woman who seems unable to love her child, or maybe anyone at all. This was Robert Redford’s first time directing a movie, and it ended up winning four Oscars, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actor for Timothy Hutton.

Here’s an interesting fact: 24 years after winning an Oscar for Ordinary People, the writer Alvin Sargent worked on Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2. His script for that movie, which focuses on characters and their stories, is considered the best in the superhero genre.

3. Melancholia (2011)

Depression, which feels like a dark cloud inside, isn’t always easy to show in movies. Some films have managed it well, like the scary movie “The Babadook.” But none have done it as powerfully and beautifully as Lars von Trier’s sci-fi drama. It’s about two sisters, one of whom is getting married, and there’s a dangerous planet called Melancholia heading towards Earth. This means our doom is certain. This movie is both stunning and frightening. It’s not just an example of amazing directing; Kirsten Dunst gives an incredibly powerful performance, one of the best in this century.

4. Inside Out (2015)

Much more suitable for kids than “Melancholia,” but just as skillful and beautiful, is Disney/Pixar’s vibrant movie about the feelings inside a teenage girl’s mind. It could be the studio’s most effective tearjerker yet.

And it’s completely okay to feel those emotions. The main message of “Inside Out” is that sadness and tough times are a natural part of experiencing a rich and meaningful life. It delivers this message with more subtlety and elegance than many serious movies for adults. When it came out, “Inside Out” (which won the top animated film award at the Oscars and was also nominated for its unique story) became a valuable resource for therapists of all ages.

5. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” directed by Miloš Forman, is a famous and intense movie. It’s about a mental institution and stars Jack Nicholson as a man who might be pretending to be crazy. Louise Fletcher plays a strict and cold-hearted nurse.

The film is eerie, very dark, and quite unsettling. It looks closely at how institutions work. More broadly, it explores ideas about freedom, control, and the human mind. Even after more than four decades, it’s still as powerful and impactful as when it was first made. It’s one of only three films in history to win the five most important Oscars.

The movie “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” is based on a book from 1962 by Ken Kesey. This story has been turned into plays a few times. In 1993, the film was chosen to be saved and remembered by the Library of Congress because it’s important for culture, history, and art. According to the American Film Institute, this movie is the 33rd best American film ever. They also think that Nurse Ratched is the fifth most memorable bad character in movie history.

6. [tie] Gaslight (1940) and Gaslight (1944)

Gaslighting is a very mean and hurtful thing to do. It’s when someone tricks another person into thinking they’re crazy. The word is almost always linked to the 1944 movie by George Cukor. In this film, Ingrid Bergman won an important award for her acting as a wife who is mistreated. The movie was very popular for MGM. It got nominated for seven Oscars, including Best Picture. Angela Lansbury, who was just 18 years old and new to acting, was also nominated for her role in the movie.

The famous 1944 movie is actually a redo of a 1940 British film, which was even more directly based on a play by Patrick Hamilton. The original British version isn’t as famous, mainly because when MGM bought the rights to remake it, they insisted that all copies of the first film be destroyed. Luckily, a few copies were saved, and the original was recently fixed up by the British Film Institute. It’s a good idea to watch both versions because they’re both great for different reasons. The Hollywood redo is more extravagant, but they’re both still very good to watch.

7. What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (1993)

In Lasse Hallström’s emotional movie, Johnny Depp plays a young man in a small Iowa town. He takes care of his very overweight mother (played by Darlene Cates) and his younger brother who has autism (played by Leonardo DiCaprio). This was Leonardo DiCaprio’s first time being nominated for an Oscar. Many people, including critics and viewers, thought he was the best part of this touching film.

“What’s Eating Gilbert Grape” is special because it openly and sincerely shows a person struggling with an eating disorder, which is not often seen in movies. This was Darlene Cates’ very first time acting, and she received a lot of positive comments from both critics and her well-known co-stars.

8. Lars and the Real Girl (2007)

This is a movie that makes you feel warm inside. Ryan Gosling gives a very gentle, touching, and even funny performance as Lars. He’s a kind but lonely person who carries a lot of pain from the past. He surprises everyone in his small town by starting a romantic relationship with a life-sized doll named Bianca. It might sound strange, but the movie “Lars and the Real Girl” is, in the words of Roger Ebert, “life-affirming.” The people in Lars’ community go along with it because they care about him, and in the end, they help Lars learn how to connect with real people.

Nancy Oliver received an Oscar nomination for her original script (her feature screenwriting debut). Gosling was nominated for a SAG Award and a Golden Globe.

The very best part of Lars and the Real Girl is when we discover Bianca has been elected to the school board. LOL.

9. Krisha (2016)

One of the scariest movies in recent years isn’t really a scary movie. It’s a low-budget film about a woman struggling with alcoholism during Thanksgiving with her family. Very few movies have shown addiction so powerfully and intimately since the film “The Lost Weekend” won a top award in 1945. What’s even more impressive is that the writer and director, Trey Edward Shults, made it for only about $30,000. To give you an idea, that’s much, much less than what it cost to make “Avengers: Infinity War.” He filmed it in his parents’ house and even used his own family as actors. After watching it, you might feel completely drained, like you’ve been hit by a really big truck.

Krisha received the Grand Jury Award and the Audience Award in the narrative feature competition at the 2015 South by Southwest Film Festival before a triumphant showing at Cannes.

10. A Beautiful Mind (2001)

A movie called “A Beautiful Mind,” directed by Ron Howard, won four big awards (Oscars). It’s about a smart man named John Nash who got a special prize but also had a mental illness called paranoid schizophrenia. This movie follows some typical movie rules more than the others on this list, but the acting by Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly is really good. They give you plenty of reasons to watch it. The movie changes some things about Nash’s real life, and some people might wonder if it deserved to win Best Picture at the Oscars compared to other movies like “Moulin Rouge!”, “In the Bedroom”, “The Fellowship of the Ring”, and “Gosford Park”. But overall, “A Beautiful Mind” does a good job honoring a person who was important in public life.

11. Fight Club (1999)

People had mixed feelings about M. Night Shyamalan’s movie “Split.” Many thought it was good for a fun scary movie, but some didn’t like how it showed a mental condition called dissociative identity disorder (DID). They said it didn’t show it correctly and made it seem like people with DID might be violent, which isn’t true. Another famous movie, “Fight Club,” does a bit better. In this movie, a sad man creates a made-up friend to help him cope. DID usually happens because of bad things that happened in childhood. If “Fight Club” talked more about the main character’s past, it would be even more interesting. Even so, the movie is really entertaining, and that’s why people still like it almost 25 years later.

12. Black Swan (2010) 

One of the few horror pictures ever to be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar, Darren Aronofsky’s supernatural ballet freakout garnered Natalie Portman an awards season sweep in the Best Actress category. Black Swan is a parable about the dangers of obsession and perfectionism. Perfection is not a human trait, and when Portman’s Nina becomes determined to be the perfect ballerina, her mental health begins to deteriorate. 

13. Leaving Las Vegas (1995) 

Alcoholic torture is the name of the game in Mike Figgis‘ devastating account of a suicidal drunk who moves to Sin City to die after losing his family and job. Nicolas Cage won an Oscar for Best Actor, and Elizabeth Shue received a Best Actress nod.

Roger Ebert named Leaving Las Vegas the best film of 1995, and the eighth best film of the 1990s. He wrote:

“[The characters] are the drunk and the whore with a heart of gold. Cage and Shue make these clichés into unforgettable people.”

14. Little Miss Sunshine (2006) 

Little Miss Sunshine is a reminder that everyone is going through something. When the Hoover family embarks on a cross-country roadtrip so that young Olive (Abigail Breslin) can compete in a beauty pageant, some family members seem to be more put together than others. As they hit bumps in the road, however, the drug addict grandfather (Alan Arkin), the suicidal uncle (Steve Carell) and the son mid-vow-of-silence (Paul Dano) may just be the ones to get the family through. Greg Kinnear and Toni Collette star as the parents trying desperately to keep it all together, but as we soon find out, their lives aren’t perfect either.

15. The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012) 

Sometimes, movies about growing up can be very predictable and not very memorable. But the finest ones, like Stephen Chbosky’s movie based on his own story set in Pittsburgh, are special. They are funny, kind, and have both hope and a touch of sadness. The young actors in the film, like Logan Lerman, Emma Watson, and Ezra Miller, all shine brightly. The story goes much deeper than typical high-school stories. Just like the book it’s based on, the movie explores the important experiences that shape who we become, whether they are happy or very sad.

CREDIT:PARADE