Schizophrenia is adevastating and extreme form of psychosisand can be a powerfully severe mental health condition. Millions of Americans and tens of millions of people around the world suffer from this condition which affects not only schizophrenics but also their family and friends, something several difficult but necessary films show us. Symptoms can include hallucinations, delusions, paranoia, a lack of sense of self and more, and it’s vitally important to create space in the culture in which schizophrenia andmental health can be discussed honestlyand without judgment, something which certain films have helped advance.
Updated September 21st, 2022: If you’re interested in finding some great, emotionally-driven films that shine a light on mental illness, you’ll be happy to know that we’ve updated this article with additional content regarding movies that honestly portray schizophrenia.
Schizophrenia has become the subject of some of the most innovative and disturbing films which seek to cinematically recreate the intense ways in which the mind can manipulate itself and subvert reality. Whilecertain complex documentarieslikeCrumbhave been spectacular at detailing the struggles associated with the condition, let’s take a look at some of the most moving, empathetic and realistic fiction films about schizophrenia.
10Angel Baby
The Australian dramaAngel Babychronicles the passionate yet tumultuous love affair between Harry (John Lynch) and Kate (Jacqueline McKenzie), two schizophrenics who meet during therapy and fall into a whirlwind romance in which they believe their love is so strong it can overcome their illness, leading to the young pair going completely off their medication. Director Michael Rymer’s compelling picture honestly explores the way the lovers view the world as they become transfixed by what they believe to be omens and signs blessing their transcending union. The drama depicts the profound struggles and effects Harry and Kate’s disorder has on their respective families, as Harry’s brother Morris becomes increasingly protective of his loved ones yet feels helpless regarding his unstable sibling.
Viewers watchingAngel Babycan’t help but root for Harry and Kate and their love story despite their ongoing delusions and battle with schizophrenia, and the couple’s profound hope for a “normal” life amid the turmoil going on in their minds is truly heartbreaking. Rymer’s film won 7 Australian Film Institute Awards and was lauded by critics for its revealing representation of the illness and the performances of Lynch and McKenzie were deemed as some of the actors' finest of their careers.
9Take Shelter
The truly great Michael Shannonis suffering from nightmares of an impending storm, as well as delusions, hallucinations and headaches in Jeff Nichols' masterpiece,Take Shelter. He becomes obsessed with building a storm shelter in his backyard, even though this costs him his job and all of his finances, and nearly his family. He believes his dreams are prophetic and behaves accordingly, and soon he is spiraling out of control into full-blown mental illness. He is in his mid-30s, the age in which his mother was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and confined to a hospital; he’s terrified that he has inherited her condition and begins researching schizophrenia and seeing a counselor.
Knowing that he has schizophrenia does not keep the demons away, and it is a sad sight to see Shannon lose control and face losing everything, living in fear of an apocalyptic storm that he believes will kill everyone. The acting is superb all-around, but Jessica Chastain (Zero Dark Thirty) in particular gives a great performance as Shannon’s suffering wife. This is a peculiarly haunting film which creates a brilliant atmosphere of dread.
8Shutter Island
Martin Scorsese has directed numerous films with characters who have mental health conditions, such as inTaxi DriverandRaging Bull.Shutter Island, starring his regularcollaborator Leonardo DiCaprio, is Scorsese’s look at paranoid schizophrenia. DiCaprio plays an unstable federal marshal sent to a small island in Massachusetts that houses a secure prison for the criminally insane. He is coping with PTSD from his World War II experiences, which included liberating the concentration camp in Dachau and then helping massacre all the Nazi guards. He is also heavily grieving for his wife, who died in a fire, which complicates his investigation. Conspiracy theories, mind control experiments, and Nazi defectors are among the issues facing the character, but in the end, nothing is as it seems as he undergoes a psychotic break.
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7Donnie Darko
We learn right at the beginning thatDonnie Darko(Jake Gyllenhaal) is suffering from a mental health condition. He takes medication, sees a therapist, and walks around town in the middle of the night, listening to a gigantic bunny (like a demonic version ofHarvey) tell him that the world is ending. Meanwhile, from out of nowhere, a plane engine crashes into Donnie’s house; if he hadn’t been sleeping on a golf course, he would have been killed. As the date for the end of the world draws closer, he grows more and more unhinged while things get stranger and stranger.
The movie finds a lot of excellent tension is asking the audience whether Donnie is schizophrenic or a prophet, something which can be a common experience for schizophrenics. As in the filmThe Number 23, the discovery of an obscure book leads to the intensification of his condition, but here, the book is about time travel, and it brings in a brilliant plot device. Featuring Drew Barrymore and Patrick Swayze (in an amazing role as a motivational speaker harboring a dark secret),Donnie Darkois funny and satirical at times but isa great look at being young, with all the stress and pressures of high school and puberty, while the film also reveals the struggles of schizophrenia.
6A Beautiful Mind
A Beautiful Mindis one of the first and best films to give a sympathetic, modern view of schizophrenia. Audiences used to films likePsychowill find it a relief to see a main character who is neither violent nor a threat to anyone but himself. As inShutter Island, the lead character constructs a false reality that is in harsh conflict with things as they ‘actually’ are. The real-life mathematician John Nash (Russell Crowe) is working on national security secrets as an expert decoder who is able to see hidden messages in magazines. Or is he?
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Jennifer Connelly, his wife, confronts him with evidence to the contrary as he begins to see that most of his relationships are pure fantasy. His mind snaps under the stress and pressure, but through therapy, medication and the love of his life, he is able to stabilize his condition. Although, in an honest and realistic touch, the phantoms he sees and hears never go away, the film remains an often beautiful look atlearning to love oneselfwith the help of others and through the long process of healing.
5The Number 23
Jim Carrey stars inThe Number 23, a modern film noir about themystical qualities of the number 23, which seems to pop up everywhere if you are looking for it. Carrey’s character works at animal control and fears a malignant dog named NED (Nasty Evil Dog). When his wife (Virginia Madsen) gives him an obscure red book calledThe Number 23, Carrey finds many similarities between himself and its protagonist.
The more he reads, the more he becomes obsessed, and he finds himself losing touch with reality and his own sense of self. The dark film follows him as he is able to track down the anonymous author of the book and learn the truth about both the number 23 and his own mental health. The film features Bud Cort (from the greatHarold and Maude) in a surprising minor role, and he isn’t the only one surprising the audience – funnyman Carrey does an excellent job here.
4Repulsion
Roman Polanski’sRepulsionis a beautiful nightmare of a film about one woman’s descent into madness. It is a striking and surreal film masterfully created by the infamous director. The legendary Catherine Deneuve gives the performance of her career as a haunted and mysterious woman.Repulsionis the only film on this list to feature a female protagonist, as it is rare to see an honest portrait of female schizophrenia. It’s also a disturbing depiction of the justifiable fears women often face; the landlord makes lewd advances, and she has nightmares of rape, all of which eventually drive her to take action against the opposite sex in this brilliant, surreal and transgressive film.
A rabbit’s decapitated head follows her, and the walls in her apartment explode in her English flat. She lives with her sister and the sister’s boyfriend and when they go away for a week, she succumbs to the isolation and loses her already fragile mind as the world seems to fall apart around her, resulting in one of the most unsettling endings in classic cinema.
Bulletfeatures a drug war between feuding groupsled by rapper Tupac Shakuras a big-time drug dealer, and Mickey Rourke as a heroin user straight out of prison. The main plot of the film involves a violent drug war, but the reason this film is high up on this list is becauseBulletchronicles the family life of Mickey Rourke’s titular character, whose brother, played by Ted Levine (Buffalo Bill inSilence of the Lambs,Shutter Island), is a paranoid schizophrenic and technological wizard. The film gives an amazing portrait of the devastating effects of paranoid schizophrenia, both on the suffering individual and also his family.
Levine is obsessed and paranoid, monitoring the conversations of others in this dark and violent film with a highly realistic look at extreme paranoia and psychosis. This film features no descent into the mental health condition; it is starkly authentic in the way Levine depicts schizophrenia at the beginning of the film all the way through to its surprising ending.
Director David Cronenbergis best known for his body horror films, but he also directed the brilliant, depressing and downbeat psychological horror filmSpider. The film has a shocking ending that calls into question everything we have seen, a familiar trope in schizophrenia films likeShutter Island.Spideris beautifully photographed and designed, the odd sets corresponding with the damaged psyche of Ralph Fiennes' character, who was involved in some sort of tragedy involving his mother that he has blocked from his mind.
The film begins with his release from a mental hospital and into a halfway house where he tries to figure out past events that have pushed him over the edge. Miranda Richardson and Gabriel Byrne give impressive performances, and Fiennes is incredible in this stylish yetemotionally shattering film.
1clean, shaven
Peter Greene (Zedd fromPulp Fiction) stars inclean, shaven, one of the most devastating, tragic and realistic films about schizophrenia ever made. A detective stalks Greene’s character Peter Winter, thinking he’s guilty of murdering a young child. Peter has just been released from an institution and is trying to live his life, communicate with his mother and contact his young daughter, but he is so plagued by schizophrenic symptoms such as delusions and hallucinations that he seems trapped within the prison of his mind.
Every moment of Peter’s life is a nightmare in a film that dares you to watch it, utilizing AM radio, electricity, and editing in phenomenal ways to create a soundscape and visual palette which mimics the difficulties of schizophrenia. Filmed on a low budget, this is one of the most tragic and depressing looks at any mental health condition ever put to film.Thanks to The Criterion Collection, more people have finally become aware of this cinematic masterpiece.
If you or anyone you know is suffering from schizophrenia and would like help, the National Institute of Mental Health has resources availablehere.
