How do you portray the complex inner workings of the human mind on-screen? It’s a challenge that has long tantalized filmmakers, as seen in this wide-ranging look at some of cinema’s most fascinating explorations of neuroses, psychoses, and the art and science of psychiatry. From pop-Freudian deconstructions of criminal psychology to immersions into the inner workings of psychiatric institutions to explorations of the therapist-patient relationship both serious and satiric, these films reflect the increasingly nuanced representation of psychiatry in art as well as our evolving understanding of our own minds and selves.
Directed by Guy Green • 1961 • United Kingdom
Starring Maria Schell, Stuart Whitman, Rod Steiger
This daring drama garnered significant controversy for its frank and complex handling of a taboo subject. After his release from prison on charges of intent to commit child molestation, Jim Fuller (a...
Directed by Frank Perry • 1962 • United States
Starring Keir Dullea, Janet Margolin, Howard Da Silva
One of the first films to treat the issue of mental illness with sensitivity and compassion, this groundbreaking independent drama traces, with profound humanity, the relationship that develops b...
Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky • 1972 • Soviet Union
Starring Natalya Bondarchuk, Donatas Banionis, Yuri Yarvet
Ground control has been receiving mysterious transmissions from the three remaining residents of the Solaris space station. When cosmonaut and psychologist Kris Kelvin is dispatched to i...
Directed by Joan Tewkesbury • 1979 • United States
Starring Talia Shire, Richard Jordan, Keith Carradine
The sole theatrical feature directed by Joan Tewkesbury—whose screenplays for NASHVILLE and THIEVES LIKE US yielded two of Robert Altman’s finest films—is an endlessly intriguing, shaggy-dog ...
Directed by William Peter Blatty • 1980 • United States
Starring Stacy Keach, Scott Wilson, Jason Miller
Written, produced, and directed by THE EXORCIST author William Peter Blatty, this utterly singular comedy-horror whatsit is a work of both wondrous strangeness and cosmic brilliance. Assigned...
Directed by Nicolas Roeg • 1980 • United Kingdom
Starring Art Garfunkel, Theresa Russell, Harvey Keitel
Amid the decaying elegance of cold-war Vienna, psychoanalyst Dr. Alex Linden (Art Garfunkel) becomes mired in an erotically charged affair with the elusive Milena Flaherty (Theresa Russell)...
