20 Movies About Depression To Understand This Disorder
Depression is surely the best-known psychological disorder in popular culture, so it is not at all strange that there are countless books, plays and movies in which the protagonist or one of the characters is going through this problem.
We’ll see now 20 movies about depression well-known, in which either the protagonist is deeply depressed or this disorder is approached from a comic but rigorous approach.
Here you will find several films that deal with the topic of depression, without spoiling the ending.
1. The Skeleton Twins (2014), by Craig Johnson
This movie addresses the topic of depression from a somewhat light and comic perspective, but no less dramatic nor deep. Explores the life tragedy of two twin brothers, through sassy humor and the tenderness that unites them.
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 at home.
However, Maggie stops her suicide attempt when she receives a call from the hospital telling her that her brother has attempted suicide. Then she decides to abort her plan and prevent her brother, who had the same goal as her, from committing it.
They decide to move in together and, as they live together, they begin to remember difficult moments in their lives, those that have led them to the situation they have had to live in.
2. Cake: a reason to live (2014), by Daniel Barnz
Claire Bennet (Jennifer Aniston) is going through a bad time in her life. Not only does she suffer from depression, but she also has chronic pain, the result of an accident in which her beloved son died.
To make matters worse, while in the support group, one of the girls who came to him ended up taking her own life. This motivates her to attempt suicide herself.
However, the memory of the girl from the support group helps him realize his reality preventing him from committing the act and being more aware of the channel of his own existence.
The film also addresses, perhaps very subtly, the problem of addiction to drugs such as antidepressants and painkillers. They relieve pain punctually, but they do not offer the complex advantages that psychotherapy provides.
3. Sylvia (2003), by Christine Jeffs
The film talks about 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 trapped in anxiety, sadness clouding her judgment every day. Her husband, Ted Hughes, ends up making everything bad explode in 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 requires attention and understanding
Helen Leonard (Ashley Hudd) is a music teacher and great pianist who seems to be successful in her life. However, depression has taken the reins of her life, and she lives in deep discomfort.
She wants to know why she is like this, but she can’t find it, which distresses her even more. To combat the feeling, he tries to hold on to his family and his students but he does not succeed and each failed attempt causes him to separate himself further from the world.
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 reveals to us that many depressed people, eager to find something that unites them to the world, end up causing rejection from their closest circle, something that sinks them even further.
5. An Angel at My Table (1990), by Jane Campion
It tells 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 he managed to enter university to study pedagogy, but while there he tried to commit suicide. This led to her being hospitalized for years in a psychiatric hospital, where she was diagnosed with schizophrenia and electroconvulsive therapy was applied.
Thanks to writing her first book, which won an award, Janet Frame was saved from being lobotomized. He managed to leave the psychiatric hospital and continued writing having a brilliant career, although depression would not leave her.
6. The Beaver (2011), by Jodie Foster
The protagonist, played by Mel Gibson, is a family man who is on the verge of bankruptcy. Because of that He suffers from deep depression, which affects his family relationships and puts him on the brink of divorce
He tries to take his own life several times, but enters a state similar to dissociative identity disorder. Although somewhat funny, he picks up a beaver puppet and starts talking through it.
The beaver acts as a defense mechanism to relieve you from depression. With the doll he finds strength to be able to face life and, if due to some carelessness, he does not have the beaver in his hand, depression returns to his side.
It tells the life of a typical average family, with two children but, unfortunately, one of them dies in an accident. The other son experiences a great sense of guilt, which leads him to depression and a suicide attempt.
The young survivor (Timothy Hutton) suffers the indifference of his mother (Mary Tyler), who He reproaches him for having outlived his brother, whom he loved more along with his father’s (Donald Sutherland) fake joy.
This film is an adaptation of the book with the same name, written by journalist Elizabeth Lee Wurtzel, played by Christina Ricci. In it she captured her journey through major depression.
The film gives a fairly good explanation of what this disorder entails, the problems faced by those who suffer from it and also by those who are by their side.
9. The Hours (2002), by Stephen Daldry
This movie talks about the lives of three women who, although they are not significantly related or know each other, in fact, do not even live at the same time have in common that they are connected through a novel by Virginia Woolf.
The case of one of the women, played by Julianne Moore, is especially interesting, who is the typical woman from the sixties with a husband and son who, supposedly, lives happily, until she commits a suicide attempt and reveals her discomfort.
Nicole Kidman plays Virginia Woolf, a writer who suffered from bipolar disorder. Furthermore, her relationship with her husband shows that on many occasions, her family members, far from helping, hinder the therapeutic process due to their little knowledge of what is happening.
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, when they are in old age, the loss of short-term goals and schedules disorients them.
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 doesn’t pay much attention to him.
Although he does not talk about depression in a sad and bitter way, in fact, he uses a lot of sarcasm and sympathetic comments, it does allow us to understand what this means in old age, especially when alone.
Frank (Leonardo DiCaprio) and April Wheeler (Kate Winslet) meet in a dissatisfied marriage that does not agree with the conformist way of thinking of society
The story takes place 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 take the easy and safe path, without being too dreamy.
Despite having everything that a family of the time would want, such as a nice house, a safe and well-established routine, the fact that she cannot fulfill her dreams causes her to become 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 for the last twenty years.
The film begins on the day the protagonist decides to end his life. Throughout the film he makes us understand what depressed people feel.
13. Interiors (1978), by Woody Allen
It is a film that, in addition to explaining what depression is and the distorted world that the depressed person ends up perceiving talks about the conflicts that can develop in our relationships with other loved ones.
The name of the movie is not random. The meaning of internal spaces is contrasted very strongly with external ones.
The film talks about the lives of three sisters, played by Diane Keaton, Geraldine Page, Kristin Griffith, who live with their mother, who is in a difficult moment after divorcing.
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 to divorce her, putting her on the brink of suicide.
To make matters worse, his father ends up showing up at the house with a new woman, whom he intends to marry.
14. Melancholy (2011), by Lars von Trier
It is a science fiction film, which takes place in a context of uncertainty and anxiety in an apocalyptic world
The first half of the film follows the unstable and depressed Justine (Kirsten Dunst) on her wedding day. The second part talks about her sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg).
In this film, Lars von Trier shows a representation of what he himself went through when he suffered from depression. People constantly feel apathetic and sad, which makes them calm in disastrous situations, not because they have high emotional stability, but because they appear impassive in the face of chaos.
15. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), by Frank Capra
This is, surely, the most classic film that deeply addresses what depression is.
George Bailey (James Stewart) is a man who has sacrificed his dreams and ambitions to help those most in need. However, despite having a big heart, his altruism has not brought him happiness On the contrary, 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 George’s life through flashbacks 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 about the lives of five sisters in the 1970s.
The family lives in apparent harmony until one of them, the younger 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. His three children, who have brilliant careers, They come home for a while 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 consider him the main person 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 who occasionally lends it to his bosses for their romantic getaways.
The protagonist hopes that these favors he does for his bosses will help him climb the ranks in the company but things get very twisted when he ends up falling in love with the elevator operator, who turns out to be one of the bosses’ lovers.
19. Little Miss Sunshine (2006), by Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton
Olive dreams of winning the beauty pageant. To fulfill her dream, her entire family travels to take the youngest of the family to the pageant, which takes place in California.
During the journey, We discovered that it is not a functional family at all: mom, neurotic; dad, a failure; The uncle attempts suicide after being abandoned by his boyfriend and his brother is a follower of Nietzsche and has decided to take an oath of silence.
20. Side Effects (2013), by Steven Soderbergh
The film talks about the world of psychopharmacology Emily (Rooney Mara) is a young woman who has become addicted to an anxiolytic drug prescribed by her psychiatrist (Jude Law), since her husband is going to be released from prison shortly, which causes her a deep discomfort.
