10 Best Movies About Psych Wards That You Should Watching Update 04/2024

Movies About Psych Wards

When Camille Claudel, a French sculptor, went on a rampage, destroying many of her own works and accusing her artist lover Auguste Rodinof of stealing her ideas, her family was forced to place her in an asylum in 1913. Despite her protests that she was sane, she stayed for the next thirty years. Bruno Dumont, the auteur of intense emotions, has made a new film called Camille Claudel 1915, which centers on her incarceration. Many important films have been set in psychiatric institutions by directors who were drawn to the troubled artist archetype, wanted to explore an alternative to societal order, or were motivated to expose the harsh realities of life inside for the afflicted in these institutions. This is a list of our favorite products.

1. ASYLUM (1972)

ASYLUM (1972)

Laing’s thinking was influenced by existential philosophy and he was cynical about a large portion of the medical field. Peter Robinson and his crew spent a seven-week stay at his controversial Archway Community experiment in London, where patients and therapists lived together under the premise that in a free atmosphere the ill may heal themselves.. Taking place at Clapham Picturehouse on 28 June as part of the Anxiety Arts Festival in London.

2. EVEN DWARFS STARTED SMALL (1970)

Midget and dwarfs on a distant island mount a debauched coup against those who have kept them locked up as “societal misfits” and denied them individuality. Werner Herzog, who directed this avant-garde masterpiece, has been reluctant to offer answers, claiming that it came to him “like a nightmare” when he saw it.

3. ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST (1975)

ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST (1975)

An famous portrayal of Randle McMurphy was provided by Jack Nicholson in the film New Hollywood. Dr. Ratched, the evil nurse who can keep him locked up indefinitely even if the other inmates plot to overthrow her, is a formidable adversary for Ratched. He is a pawn for Ratched. Electric shock therapy and psychiatry as a means of social control were questioned in the film, which was based on Ken Kesey’s novel and directed by Milos Forman.

4. PUZZLE OF A DOWNFALL CHILD (1970)

To portray a former model who was mistreated by the industry she desired attention from and tossed aside as her novelty faded, Faye Dunaway falls into compulsive neurosis. She relives the delusions of her past while living in a seaside home, recalling her mental breakdown and subsequent institutionalization. This is another of Jerry Schatzberg’s New Hollywood masterpieces, a stunning-looking, under-appreciated film.

5. SIENIAWKA (2013)

SIENIAWKA (2013)

The psychiatric clinic in the small Polish village of Sieniawka, near the German and Czech border, serves as the setting for much of Berlin-based director Marcin Malaszczak’s film, which alternates between factual and science fiction fable. Before returning to an apocalyptic world, the narrator reminisces about working at the facility while strolling the sun-dappled grounds and watching the patients speak and smoke while adhering to their strict routine.

6. GIRL, INTERRUPTED (1999)

Winona Ryder plays a young writer who is placed into a psychiatric institution after taking an overdose of aspirin in this drama adapted from a memoir by Susan Kaysen. Angelina Jolie, who at the time was known more for her role as a blood-vial heiress than a matriarch of human rights, earned an Oscar for her portrayal of the seemingly psychotic patient whom she befriends and with whom she gets into mischief on the hospital.

7. AN ANGEL AT MY TABLE (1990)

AN ANGEL AT MY TABLE (1990)

The outcast of rural life, Janet Frame was misdiagnosed as a schizophrenic and imprisoned to a psychiatric institute for years of shock treatment. She barely avoided a lobotomy. She was one of New Zealand’s best novelists only after her writing talent was found. Director Jane Campion used her autobiography as the foundation for this emotionally charged biopic about her life.

8. TITICUT FOLLIES (1967)

Legendary documentary filmmaker Filmmaker Frederick Wiseman began his career with a little-known film that chronicles the brutal and coercive everyday treatment by guards, social workers, and doctors at the Bridgewater State Hospital for the criminally ill in Massachusetts. Until 1991, the state imposed a ban on the contentious and psychologically distressing picture, which was titled after a talent show put on by the patients.

9. 12 MONKEYS (1995)

12 MONKEYS (1995)

Terry Gilliam’s sci-fi thriller, La Jetee, is set in a post-apocalyptic Philadelphia that has been destroyed by a lethal virus. Forcibly placed in a mental facility for observation, James Cole (Bruce Willis) finds an animal rights fanatic (Brad Pitt) who has founded a terrorist organization called Army of the Twelve Monkeys, which is suspected of masterminding the epidemic.

10. I’M A CYBORG, BUT THAT’S OK (2006)

South Korea’s Park Chan-wook fuses his passion for extreme violence and gruesomeness with a smattering of lighter humor in this brightly colored, genre-mashing hybrid. Following her attempt to plug herself into a wall socket, Young-goon (Im Soo-jung) has been admitted to the hospital as a result of her mental instability. She falls in love with Il-soon (Rain), an antisocial kleptomaniac who believes he can take the souls of others.