20 films about depression to understand this disorder

Several recommended films to better understand the world of depression from the movies.

Depression is probably the best known psychological disorder in popular culture, so it is not surprising that there are countless books, plays and movies in which the protagonist or one of the characters is going through this problem.

Here we will see 20 well-known movies about depression very well-known, in which either the protagonist is deeply depressed or this disorder is approached from a comic but rigorous approach.

20 movies about depression

Here you will find several movies that deal with the subject of depression, without spoiling the ending.

1. The Skeleton Twins (2014), by Craig Johnson

This film approaches the subject of depression from a somewhat light and comical perspective, but no less dramatic or profound. and profound. It explores the life tragedy of two twin brothers, through the sassy humor and tenderness that binds them together.

Milo (Bill Hader) writes a suicide note and slits his wrists while his sister Maggie (Kristen Wiig) attempts suicide by swallowing pills in the bathroom of their home.

However, Maggie stops her suicide attempt when she gets the call from the hospital telling her that her brother has attempted suicide. She then decides to abort her plan and prevent her brother, who had the same goal as her, from committing suicide.

They decide to move in together and, while living together, they begin to remember difficult moments in their lives, the ones that have led them to the situation they are in.

2. Cake: A Reason to Live (2014), by Daniel Barnz

Claire Bennet (Jennifer Aniston) is going through a rough patch in her life. Not only is she suffering from depression, but she is also in chronic pain, the result of an accident in which her beloved son died.

To make matters worse, while she was in the support group, one of the girls who attended the group ended up taking her own life. This motivates her to attempt suicide herself.

However, the memory of the girl in the support group the memory of the girl in the support group helps her to realize her reality, preventing her from committing the act.The film also deals with the girl's own life, preventing her from committing the act and making her more aware of the course of her own existence.

The film also addresses, perhaps very subtly, the problem of addiction to drugs such as antidepressants and painkillers. They alleviate Pain in a timely manner, but do not offer the complex advantages of psychotherapy.

3. Sylvia (2003), by Christine Jeffs

The film tells the story of the last five years of the poet Sylvia Plath (Gwyneth Paltrow). The writer suffers from depression, and her constant struggle to keep her life afloat ends up dragging her into the darkest of abysses.

It shows the life of a woman who is trapped in anxiety, sadness clouds her judgment every day. Her husband, Ted Hughes, ends up making everything bad explode in the form of the worst possible ending.

4. Helen (2009), by Sandra Nettelbeck

It is, perhaps, one of the best films that exposes what depression is: a mood disorder, a serious problem that should be given attention and understanding..

Helen Leonard (Ashley Hudd) is a music teacher and great pianist who gives the impression of being successful in her life. However, depression has taken over her life, and she lives in a deep malaise.

She wants to know why she is like this, but she can't find it, which distresses her even more. To combat the feeling, she tries to cling to her family and her students.The role played by Ashley Hudd manages to generate a certain antipathy towards the character, far from the sympathy he tries to obtain by clinging to families and students.

The role played by Ashley Hudd manages to generate a certain antipathy towards the character, far from the sympathy she tries to obtain by clinging to families and students. This is very interesting, since it gives us to know what many depressed people, eager to find something that unites them to the world, end up causing the rejection of their closest circle, something that sinks them even more.

5. An Angel at My Table (1990), by Jane Campion

It narrates the life of writer Janet Frame (Kerry Fox), who was born into a poor family.. Her childhood was marked by various tragedies and, very soon, Janet began to feel different from others.

Later she would manage to enter the university to study pedagogy, but while there she tried to commit suicide. This led to her being committed for years in a psychiatric institution, where she was diagnosed with schizophrenia and underwent electroconvulsive therapy.

Thanks to writing her first book, which won an award, Janet Frame was saved from being lobotomized. She managed to get out of the psychiatric ward and continued writing, having a brilliant career.She went on to have a brilliant career, although depression would not leave her.

6. The Beaver (2011), by Jodie Foster

The main character, played by Mel Gibson, is a family man who is on the verge of bankruptcy. As a result, he suffers from a deep depression, which He suffers from a deep depression, which affects his family relationships and brings him to the brink of divorce..

He attempts to take his own life several times, but enters a state similar to dissociative identity disorder. Although to some degree humorous, he picks up a beaver puppet and begins to speak through it.

The beaver acts as a defense mechanism to relieve him from depression. With the doll he finds strength to face life and, if by some oversight, he does not have the beaver in his hand, the depression returns to his side.

7. Ordinary People (1980), by Robert Redford

It narrates the life of a typical average family, with two sons, but, unfortunately, one of them dies in an accident. The other son experiences a great sense of guilt, which leads to depression and a suicide attempt.

The young survivor (Timothy Hutton) suffers the indifference of his mother (Mary Tyler), who reproaches him for having survived the accident. reproaches him for having outlived his brother, whom he loved more than his brother.along with the false cheerfulness of his father (Donald Sutherland).

8. Prozac Nation (2001), by Erik Skjoldbærg

This movie is an adaptation of the book with the same namewritten by journalist Elizabeth Lee Wurtzel, played by Christina Ricci. In it he captured his passage through major depression.

The film gives a pretty good explanation of what this disorder entails, the problems faced by those who suffer from it and also by those who are close to them.

9. The Hours (2002), by Stephen Daldry

This film is about the lives of three women who, although they are not significantly related and do not know each other, in fact, they do not even live in the same era, they have in common that they are connected.they have in common that they are connected through a novel by Virginia Woolf.

Particularly interesting is the case of one of the women, played by Julianne Moore, who is the typical lady of the sixties with a husband and son who, supposedly, lives happily, until she commits a suicide attempt and uncovers her malaise.

Nicole Kidman plays Virginia Woolf, a writer who suffered from bipolar disorder. In addition, her relationship with her husband shows that on many occasions, family members, far from helping, hinder the therapeutic process due to their lack of knowledge of what is happening.

10. About Schmidt (2002), Alexander Payne

Jack Nicholson plays the life of an old man who has just retired.. The film shows us what happens to many people who, after years of working, find themselves in old age and are disoriented by the loss of short-term goals and schedules.

He could live his retirement happily with his wife, but she dies suddenly, leaving him alone. He tries to seek help from his daughter, but she takes little notice.

While he does not talk about depression in a sad and bitter way, in fact, he uses a lot of sarcasm and sympathetic remarks, he does give insight into what it means in old age, especially being alone.

11. Revolutionary Road (2008), by Justin Haythe

Frank (Leonardo DiCaprio) and April Wheeler (Kate Winslet) find themselves in a dissatisfied marriage that does not conform to society's a dissatisfied marriage that does not conform to the conformist way of thinking in society..

The story is set in the 1950s and tells how the lives of both spouses are different. She, with a lot of energy, is full of dreams, while he prefers to go the easy and safe way, without being too much of a dreamer.

Despite having everything a family of the time would want, such as a nice house, a secure and well-established routine, the fact that she is unable to fulfill her dreams causes her to be trapped in a deep depression.

12. A Single Man (2009), by Tom Ford

The film is set in the 1960s in Southern California. A homosexual university professor (Colin Firth) has to face a sudden misfortune: the death of his partner, with whom he has been sharing his life.with whom he has been sharing his life for the last twenty years.

The film begins on the day the protagonist decides to end his life. Throughout the film he gives us an understanding of what depressed people feel.

13. Interiors (1978), by Woody Allen

This is a film that, in addition to explaining what depression is and the distorted world that ends up in it. the distorted world that the depressed person ends up perceiving, talks about the conflicts that can developIt talks about the conflicts that can develop in our relationship with other loved ones.

The name of the film is not random. It contrasts very strongly the meaning of the internal spaces with the external ones.

The film is about the lives of three sisters, played by Diane Keaton, Geraldine Page, Kristin Griffith, who live with their mother, who is going through a difficult time after getting divorced.

One of the sisters, Eve (Geraldine Page), is an emotionally unstable interior decorator who suffers from severe depression. She receives a note that her husband wants a divorce, putting her on the verge of suicide.

To make matters worse, her father shows up at the house with a new woman, whom he intends to marry.

14. Melancholia (2011), by Lars von Trier

It is a science fiction film, which takes place in a context of uncertainty and anxiety in the a context of uncertainty and anxiety in an apocalyptic world..

The first half of the film talks about the unstable and depressed Justine (Kirsten Dunst), on her wedding day. The second half talks about her sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg).

Lars von Trier shows in this film a representation of what he himself went through when he suffered from depression. People feel apathetic and sad constantly, which makes them calm in disastrous situations, not because they have a high emotional stability, but because they are impassive in the face of chaos.

15. It's a Wonderful Life (1946), by Frank Capra

This is surely the most classic film that deals with depression in a profound way.

George Bailey (James Stewart) is a man who has sacrificed his dreams and ambitions to help those in need. However, and despite having a big heart, his altruism has not brought him happinessrather, it has brought him depression and loneliness.

The film begins with George trying to jump off a bridge. But his prayers reach heaven and he is assigned an angel, Clarence Odbody, to save him. The angel sees through flashbacks George's life, to find out the root of his depression.

16. The Virgin Suicides (1999), by Sofia Coppola

This is Sofia Coppola's first film.based on the novel by Jeffrey Eugenides, which tells the story of the lives of five sisters in the 1970s.

The family lives in apparent harmony until one of them, the youngest sister Cecilia, takes her own life.

17. The Tenenbaums. A Family of Geniuses (2001), by Wes Anderson

Royal Tenenbaum (Gene Hackman) and his wife Etheline (Anjelica Huston) have separated. Their three children, all of whom have brilliant careers, return home to spend some time together because their father has announced that he is terminally ill..

The memories of the three brothers are bitter, since they remember that many misfortunes and misfortunes are related to their father, who they consider him the main responsible for their misfortunes.

18. The Apartment (1960), by Billy Wilder

The film tells of the life of an insurance salesman with many ambitions who lives in an apartment that is a little out of the ordinary, but which he occasionally lends to his bosses for their amorous escapades.

The protagonist hopes that these favors he does for his bosses will help him climb the corporate ladder.but things get really twisted when he ends up falling in love with the elevator operator, who happens to be one of the bosses' mistresses.

19. Little Miss Sunshine (2006), by Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton

Olive dreams of winning the beauty pageant. To fulfill her dream, her whole family travels to take the youngest of the family to the pageant, which is held in California.

Along the way, we discover that this is not a functional family at all.Mom, neurotic; Dad, a failure; the uncle is trying to commit suicide after being dumped by his boyfriend; and the brother is a follower of Nietzsche and has decided to take an oath of silence.

20. Side Effects (2013), by Steven Soderbergh.

The film is about the world of psychopharmacology.. Emily (Rooney Mara) is a young woman who has become addicted to an anti-anxiety drug prescribed by her psychiatrist (Jude Law), as her husband is soon to be released from prison, which causes her deep discomfort.