Best Psychiatry Movies & TV Shows

Inside the dramatic search for a cure to ME/CFS (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome). 17 million people around the world suffer from what ME/CFS has been known as a mystery illness, delegated to the psychological realm, until now. A scientist in the only neuro immune institute in the world may have come up with the answer. An important human drama, plays out on the quest for the truth.

A petty criminal fakes insanity to serve his sentence in a mental ward rather than prison. He soon finds himself as a leader to the other patients—and an enemy to the cruel, domineering nurse who runs the ward.

Both a gift and a curse, Graham has the extraordinary ability to think like his prey—he sees what they see, feels what they feel. But while Graham is pursuing an especially troubling, cannibalistic murderer, Special Agent Jack Crawford teams him with a highly respected psychiatrist – a man with a taste for the criminal minded – Dr. Hannibal Lecter.

Following the suicide of her sister, an investigative journalist discovers that it may be linked to a number of recent murders that are set up to look like suicides.

World War II soldier-turned-U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels investigates the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the criminally insane, but his efforts are compromised by troubling visions and a mysterious doctor.

John Nash is a brilliant but asocial mathematician fighting schizophrenia. After he accepts secret work in cryptography, his life takes a turn for the nightmarish.

When car dealer Charlie Babbitt learns that his estranged father has died, he returns home to Cincinnati, where he discovers that he has a savant older brother named Raymond and that his father's $3 million fortune is being left to the mental institution in which Raymond lives. Motivated by his father's money, Charlie checks Raymond out of the facility in order to return with him to Los Angeles. The brothers' cross-country trip ends up changing both their lives.

After narrowly escaping a bizarre accident, a troubled teenager is plagued by visions of a large bunny rabbit that manipulates him to commit a series of crimes.

Dr. Malcolm Sayer, a shy research physician, uses an experimental drug to "awaken" the catatonic victims of a rare disease. Leonard is the first patient to receive the controversial treatment. His awakening, filled with awe and enthusiasm, proves a rebirth for Sayer too, as the exuberant patient reveals life's simple but unutterably sweet pleasures to the introverted doctor.

After many years spent at the “Cheers” bar, Frasier moves back home to Seattle to work as a radio psychiatrist after his policeman father gets shot in the hip on duty.

Set in the changing world of the late 1960s, Susanna Kaysen's prescribed "short rest" from a psychiatrist she had met only once becomes a strange, unknown journey into Alice's Wonderland, where she struggles with the thin line between normal and crazy. Susanna soon realizes how hard it is to get out once she has been committed, and she ultimately has to choose between the world of people who belong inside or the difficult world of reality outside.

The Great War and the Shaping of the 20th Century is a 1996 documentary series that aired on PBS. It chronicles World War I over eight episodes. It was narrated by Dame Judi Dench in the UK and Salome Jens in the United States. The series won two Primetime Emmy Awards: one for Jeremy Irons for Outstanding Voice-Over Performance, the other for Outstanding Informational Series. In 1997, it was given a Peabody Award.

When Dr. Anthony Edwardes arrives at a Vermont mental hospital to replace the outgoing hospital director, Dr. Constance Peterson, a psychoanalyst, discovers Edwardes is actually an impostor. The man confesses that the real Dr. Edwardes is dead and fears he may have killed him, but cannot recall anything. Dr. Peterson, however is convinced his impostor is innocent of the man's murder, and joins him on a quest to unravel his amnesia through psychoanalysis.

Beth, Calvin, and their son Conrad are living in the aftermath of the death of the other son. Conrad is overcome by grief and misplaced guilt to the extent of a suicide attempt. He is in therapy. Beth had always preferred his brother and is having difficulty being supportive to Conrad. Calvin is trapped between the two trying to hold the family together.

New York, 1980. Three complete strangers accidentally discover that they're identical triplets, separated at birth. The 19-year-olds' joyous reunion catapults them to international fame, but also unlocks an extraordinary and disturbing secret that goes beyond their own lives – and could transform our understanding of human nature forever.

A woman suffers a nervous breakdown and an oppressive mother before being freed by the love of a man she meets on a cruise.

This film tells the story of a successful writer called Harry Block, played by Allen himself, who draws inspiration from people he knows in real-life, and from events that happened to him, sometimes causing these people to become alienated from him as a result.

Two troubled men face their terrible destinies and events of their past as they join together on a mission to find the Holy Grail and thus to save themselves.

Two drifters, one a gentle but slow giant, try to make money working the fields during the Depression so they can fulfill their dreams.

After being sent to an abusive psychiatric facility by her well-meaning parents, a rebellious teenager must fight for her release.

A young woman, Janice, is living with her restrictive and conservative parents, who lead a dull working-class life and consider their daughter to be “misbehaving” whenever she’s trying to find her own way in life.

Prot is a patient at a mental hospital who claims to be from a far away planet. His psychiatrist tries to help him, only to begin to doubt his own explanations.

A man who lost his family in the September 11 attack on New York City runs into his old college roommate. Rekindling the friendship is the one thing that appears able to help the man recover from his grief.

A doctor treats a woman suffering from multiple personality disorder.

Freddie, a volatile, heavy-drinking veteran who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, finds some semblance of a family when he stumbles onto the ship of Lancaster Dodd, the charismatic leader of a new "religion" he forms after World War II.

When a US Naval captain shows signs of mental instability that jeopardize his ship, the first officer relieves him of command and faces court martial for mutiny.

Two young men are seriously affected by the Vietnam war. One of them has always been obsessed with birds - but now believes he really is a bird, and has been sent to a mental hospital. Can his friend help him pull through?

Five young adults in a small American town face the revelations of secrets that threaten to ruin their hopes and dreams.

Based on the autobiographical work of New Zealand writer Janet Frame, this production depicts the author at various stage of her life. Afflicted with mental and emotional issues, Frame grows up in an impoverished family and experiences numerous tragedies while still in her youth, including the deaths of two of her siblings. Portrayed as an adult by Kerry Fox, Frame finds acclaim for her writing while still in a mental institution, and her success helps her move on with her life.

Happy is a 2011 feature documentary film directed, written, and co-produced by Roko Belic. It explores human happiness through interviews with people from all walks of life in 14 different countries, weaving in the newest findings of positive psychology. Director Roko Belic was originally inspired to create the film after producer/director Tom Shadyac (Liar, Liar, Patch Adams, Bruce Almighty) showed him an article in the New York Times entitled "A New Measure of Well Being From a Happy Little Kingdom". The article ranks the United States as the 23rd happiest country in the world. Shadyac then suggested that Belic make a documentary about happiness. Belic spent several years interviewing over 20 people, ranging from leading happiness researchers to a rickshaw driver in Kolkatta, a family living in a "co-housing community" in Denmark, a woman who was run over by a truck, a Cajun fisherman, and more.

The true story of Frances Farmer's meteoric rise to fame in Hollywood and the tragic turn her life took when she was blacklisted.

Young and shy Jeff discovers his attraction to men. After struggling with himself he comes out to his parents. Mum eventually listens to his son and tries to understand his feelings, but his Dad would rather die — which, in the end, he really does, leaving behind a mother, her son and his friend to work those things out Jeff and his Dad had never the courage to talk about.

Every hero has a weakness, and Sherlock Holmes' weakness was Moriarty. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson solve mysteries and search for Moriarty in 1970s New York City. The fact that Sherlock Holmes is a psychotic paranoid and Dr. Watson is a female psychiatrist fascinated by his case is almost beside the point.

Seven years after a shipwreck in which she was presumed dead, Ellen Arden arrives home to find that her husband Nick has just remarried. The overjoyed Nick struggles to break the news to his new bride. But he gets a shock when he hears the whole story: Ellen spent those seven years alone on a desert island with another man.

Pennsylvania, 1993. After getting caught with another girl, teenager Cameron Post is sent to a conversion therapy center run by the strict Dr. Lydia Marsh and her brother, Reverend Rick, whose treatment consists in repenting for feeling “same sex attraction.” Cameron befriends fellow sinners Jane and Adam, thus creating a new family to deal with the surrounding intolerance.

Semi-autobiographical story of Conrad Rooks, who travels to France to undergo a drug-withdrawal cure. Flashbacks to the beginings of psychedelia in San Fran. Though initially confusing, as Rooks blends drug-illusion with reality, and cuts color with black-and-white and monochrome tinted shots, "Chappaqua" is conventionally constructed with a beginning, middle, and end.

A psychiatrist treats a woman of three faces: neurotic Elizabeth, wanton Lizzie, and charming Beth.

A psychotherapist helps a law student cope with schizophrenia in one of five interconnected tales dealing with mental illness.

Dr. Matthew Clark is the head of a state institution for intellectually disabled children. Jean Hansen, a former music teacher anxious to give her life some meaning, joins the staff of the hospital. Jean, who tries to shelter the children with her love, suspiciously regards Dr. Clark's stern training methods. She becomes emotionally involved with 12-year-old Reuben Widdicombe, who has been abandoned by his divorced parents.

A Harvard Medical School graduate takes a position at a mental institution and soon becomes obsessed with a female mental patient, but he has no idea of a recent and horrifying staffing change.

Before going on vacation, self-involved psychiatrist Dr. Leo Marvin has the misfortune of taking on a new patient: Bob Wiley. An exemplar of neediness and a compendium of phobias, Bob follows Marvin to his family's country house. Dr. Marvin tries to get him to leave; the trouble is, everyone loves Bob. As his oblivious patient makes himself at home, Dr. Marvin loses his professional composure and, before long, may be ready for the loony bin himself.

Follows the fate of Lyle, a violent adolescent who, in lieu of prison, is placed in a juvenile mental institution where he encounters a group of equally troubled teens. This motley crew - abused, sexually confused, violent, and yet hanging on by their grit and anger - becomes Lyle's last lifeline as he fights to find meaning in a world that seems to defy understanding.

When a housewife finds out she is pregnant, she runs out of town looking for freedom to reevaluate her life decisions.

After witnessing a bizarre, traumatic incident involving a patient, Dr. Rose Cotter starts experiencing frightening occurrences that she can't explain. As an overwhelming terror begins taking over her life, Rose must confront her troubling past in order to survive and escape her horrifying new reality.

Aging King George III of England is exhibiting signs of madness, a problem little understood in 1788. As the monarch alternates between bouts of confusion and near-violent outbursts of temper, his hapless doctors attempt the ineffectual cures of the day. Meanwhile, Queen Charlotte and Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger attempt to prevent the king's political enemies, led by the Prince of Wales, from usurping the throne.

After an accident leaves her a paraplegic, a former soap opera star struggles to recover both emotionally and mentally, until she meets her newest nurse, who has struggles of her own.

When composer George Harvey Bone wakes with no memory of the previous night and a bloody knife in his pocket, he worries that he has committed a crime. On the advice of Dr. Middleton, Bone agrees to relax, going to a music performance by singer Netta Longdon. Riveted by Netta, Bone agrees to write songs for her rather than his own concerto. However, Bone soon grows jealous of Netta and worries about controlling himself during his spells.

A Los Angeles journalist befriends a homeless Juilliard-trained musician, while looking for a new article for the paper.

Dorothy, saved from a psychiatric experiment by a mysterious girl, finds herself back in the land of her dreams, and makes delightful new friends, and dangerous new enemies.

A mentally disturbed man takes residence in a halfway house. His mind gradually slips back into the realm created by his illness, where he replays a key part of his childhood.