Movies About Mental Illness: 7 Expert-Recommended Picks

If you’ve seen Silver Linings Playbook, you know exactly why it has to make this list. The entire movie attempts to redefine what it means to have a mental illness, constantly playing on that stigmatizing term: “crazy.” What makes the movie engaging are the educated and seemingly “normal” main characters, Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence) and Pat (Bradley Cooper), who suffer from an unnamed mental illness and bipolar disorder, respectively.

Though the movie faced some criticism for dramatizing mental illness, the Harvard Medical School psychiatrist Steven Schlozman, MD, told Vulture that he rather enjoyed the movie. “It’s Hollywood, so there are still going to be things that are there more for the story than for accuracy,” he said. “But they did a very nice job of depicting manic depressive illness or bipolar disorder in somebody who’s quite bright, and who has limited but present insight on it.”

Silver Linings Playbook, $3.99, Amazon.com