Medicine:List of mental disorders in film

Short description: List of mental disorders as portrayed in films

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This is a list of films which have portrayed mental disorders.

Inclusion in this list is based upon the disorder as it is portrayed in the canon of the film, and does not necessarily reflect the diagnosis or symptoms in the real world.

Agoraphobia

• What About Bob? – 1991 – character of Bob Wiley played by Bill Murray
• The Aviator – 2004 – character of Howard Hughes played by Leonardo DiCaprio

Antisocial personality disorder

(Antisocial Personality Disorder should also include psychopathy and sociopathy.)

• Nightcrawler – 2014 – character of Louis Bloom played by Jake Gyllenhaal
• The Invisible Man – 2020 – character of Adrian Griffin played by Oliver Jackson-Cohen

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

(Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is also known as ADHD.)

• Juno – 2007 – character of Juno MacGuff, played by Elliot Page

Autism

(Autism is also known as Autism Spectrum Disorder and in the past has had a subtype called Aspergers Syndrome. The spectrum can overlap with Savant syndrome and Prosopagnosia.)

• Rain Man − 1988 – character of savant Raymond Babbitt played by Dustin Hoffman
• Cube – 1997 – character of savant Kazan played by Andrew Miller

Borderline Personality Disorder

(Borderline Personality Disorder is also known as Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder)

• Mommie Dearest – 1981 – character of Joan Crawford played by Faye Dunaway
• Fatal Attraction – 1987 – character of Alex Forrest played by Glenn Close
• Single White Female – 1992 – character of Hedra Carlson/Ellen Besch played by Jennifer Jason Leigh
• The Crush (1993 film) – 1993 – character of Adrian Forrester played by Alicia Silverstone
• Mad Love (1995 film) – 1995 – character of Casey Roberts played by Drew Barrymore
• Girl, Interrupted – 1999 – character of Susanna Kaysen played by Winona Ryder
• Thirteen (2003 film) – 2003 – character of Evie played by Nikki Reed
• Silver Linings Playbook – 2012 – character of Tiffany Maxwell played by Jennifer Lawrence
• Welcome to Me – 2014 – character of Alice Klieg played by Kristen Wiig

Conversion Disorder

(Conversion Disorder used to be referred to as Hysteria)

• Tommy (1975 film) – 1975 – character of Tommy played by Roger Daltrey

Folie à deux

"Recent psychiatric classifications refer to the syndrome as shared psychotic disorder (DSM-IV) (297.3) and induced delusional disorder (F24) in the ICD-10."

• Dead Ringers – 1998 – characters of Beverly and Elliot Mantle played by Jeremy Irons
• Bug (2006) – characters of Agnes White played by Ashley Judd and Peter Evans played by Michael Shannon

Kleptomania

• Häxan

Posttraumatic stress disorder

• The Perks of Being a Wallflower – 2012 – character of Charlie Kelmeckis played by Logan Lerman
• Iron Man 3 – 2013 – character of Tony Stark played by Robert Downey Jr.

Schizoaffective disorder

• Terminator 2: Judgment Day – 1991 – character of Sarah Connor played by Linda Hamilton

Schizoid personality disorder

• The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers – 2002 – character of Gollum
• The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King – 2003 – character of Gollum
• Lars and the Real Girl – 2007 – Lars Lindstrom
• The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey – 2012 – character of Gollum

Schizophrenia

(Not to be confused with Dissociative Identity Disorder)

• A Beautiful Mind – 2001 – character of John Nash played by Russell Crowe
• Donnie Darko – 2001 – character of Donnie Darko played by Jake Gyllenhaal
• The Voices – 2014 – character of Jerry Hickfang played by Ryan Reynolds
• Words on Bathroom Walls – 2020 – Character of Adam Petrazelli played by Charlie Plummer

Stuttering

"Also known as Stammering or Childhood-Onset Fluency Disorder."

• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - 1975 - character of Billy Bibbit played by Brad Dourif
• The King's Speech – 2010 – character of King George VI played by Colin Firth
• IT – 2017 – character of Bill Denbrough played by Jaeden Martell

Substance use disorders

"Drugs listed from most addictive, harmful or destructive to least (from most to least dangerous, based on a 2007 scientific research study."

• Colossal – 2016 – character of Gloria played by Anne Hathaway

See also

• Mental illness in fiction

References

• Danny Wedding, Mary Ann Boyd and Ryan M. Niemiec, Movies and Mental Illness: Using Films to Understand Psychopathology, 2nd ed., Cambridge, MA, Hogrefe & Hufer Publishing, 2005, ISBN:0-88937-292-6. Movies and Mental Illness – Hogrefe Publishing
• David J. Robinson, Reel Psychiatry: Movie Portrayals of Psychiatric Conditions, Rapid Psychler Press, 2003, ISBN:1-894328-07-8.
• Glen O. Gabbard and Krin Gabbard, Psychiatry and the Cinema, American Psychiatric Publishing, Inc., 2nd ed., 1999, ISBN:0-88048-964-2.
• Otto F. Wahl, Media Madness: Public Images of Mental Illness, Piscataway, NJ, Rutgers University Press, 1997, ISBN:0-8135-2213-7.