Psychology and Cinema: 215 Movies for those who love psychology

List of two hundred and fifteen films with psychological themes! The films are for students, professionals and anyone who wants to know more about the area.

See also – 48 Psychology Documentaries: online, free and unmissable

Psychology and TV Series – Complete List

10 hours to Paradise

Bodybuilder Dennis, 38, would like to find true love. He has never had a girlfriend and lives alone with his mother in a suburb of Copenhagen. When his uncle marries a girl from Thailand, Dennis decides to try his luck on a trip to Pattaya, as love is supposedly easier to find in Thailand. He knows his mother would never accept another woman in his life, so he lies and tells her that he is going to Germany. Dennis has never traveled abroad before and bustling Pattaya is a huge culture shock for him.

21 grams

How many lives do we live? How many times do we die? It is said that we all lose 21 grams at the exact moment of our death. All. How much fits in 21 grams? How much do you go with them?

4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days

In 1987, in the last days of communism, Otilia (Anamaria Marinca) and Gabita (Laura Vasiliu) share a room in a student dormitory. They are classmates at the university in a small Romanian town. Gabita is pregnant and abortion is illegal in the country. Otilia rents a room in a cheap hotel. There they receive a certain Mr. Bebe (Vlad Ivanov), called in to settle the matter. But, upon learning that Gabita is more advanced in her pregnancy than she had informed, Mr. Bebe raises the bar for the job. He exacts a price the two are not prepared to pay.

The hunt

Lucas (Mads Mikkelsen) works at a daycare center. Sympathetic and friendly to everyone, he tries to rebuild his life after a messy divorce, in which he lost custody of his son. Everything goes well until, one day, one of his students tells the daycare director that Lucas showed her his private parts. The accusation soon causes him to be removed from work and, even without any kind of proof, he is persecuted by the residents of the city where he lives.
(Cineclick)

The experience

A team of scientists enlists 20 prisoners for a psychological experiment in exchange for a cash prize. Prisoners are divided into two groups: eight of them play the role of guards and the other 12, inmates. Guinea pigs are isolated in an area of ​​the penitentiary where certain rules must be obeyed and maintained by the guards. At first, camaraderie reigns in the environment. But violence soon erupts when a former reporter disguised as an inmate leads a riot. The guards react with increasing brutality. The conflict worsens with the death of one of the prisoners and the capture of the scientists who created the project.

The Story of Adele H.

Adèle Hugo (Isabelle Adjani), daughter of the writer Victor Hugo, is abandoned by Lieutenant Pinson (Bruce Robinson), with whom she was madly in love. In 1861, he left the country to serve at the base in Halifax, Canada, and he no longer remembered Adèle. She torments him to the point of announcing their marriage in a local newspaper, causing the breakup of his union with the daughter of a judge. Sick, without resources, she undertakes a relentless pursuit that results in her own madness. The film is based on a true story, more precisely on Adèle’s diaries.

The Invention of Psychoanalysis

Excellent documentary produced by one of the greatest historians of psychoanalysis: Elizabeth Roudinesco. With contributions from Peter Gay, author of the most famous biography of Sigmundo Freud. The documentary tells the story of the invention of psychoanalysis with many images, videos and interesting information.

The Woman on the Side

In Grenoble, the manager of a tennis club recounts the tragic events that happened when a married man has new neighbors and is surprised to see that the new tenant’s wife was already involved with him, eight years ago. Both behave as if they were just getting to know each other at that moment, but before long their affair is restarted. During a party he loses control of the situation and the fact that they were lovers in the past comes to light, making the whole situation more tense.

The skin I livePedro Almodovar

Since the woman suffered burns in a car accident, Dr. Robert Ledgard, a famous plastic surgeon, is interested in creating a new skin that could have saved it. After twelve years, he manages to create in his laboratory a skin that is sensitive to caresses but which is a shield against external and internal aggressions, to which our largest organ is exposed. To achieve this, he used the possibilities of cell therapy.

In addition to years of study and experience, Robert needed a human guinea pig, an accomplice and no scruples. Scruples were never a problem, they’re not part of his character. Marília, the woman who took care of him since he was born, is his most faithful accomplice. And as for the human guinea pig…

The Piano TeacherMichael Haneke

Erika Kohut (Isabelle Huppert) is a piano teacher at a conservatory in Vienna (the capital of classical music), a specialist in Schumman and Schubert. She is extremely strict and cruel to her students, cold, dry, never smiling. She lives with her mother (Annie Girardot) in a two-bedroom apartment. The two nurture a relationship of mutual control, love and hate, with fights and aggression, including physical ones. In her spare time, Erika frequents—always sober and lonely—sex shops and peep shows. Gradually, his perverse and misfit personality is revealed to us. His Dantesque acts and his misanthropy. She’s voyeuristic, sado-masochistic, and self-mutilating (the scene where she cuts her own genitals with a blade in the bathroom is hyper-distressing). On the occasion of a private concert of hers for the cultivated upper bourgeoisie, she meets Walter (Benoît Magimel), a rich young man, an engineering student and endowed with a notorious talent for the piano, which he practices and studies informally. Walter is fascinated by Erika and applies for a place in her master class at the conservatory. And he proceeds to harass her insistently. The two start a game of domination and submission that leads them to absurd and stunning acts.

The break up Asghar Farhadi

Nader and Simin disagree on whether to leave Iran. Simin wants to leave the country to give her daughter, Termeh, better opportunities. Nader, however, wants to stay in Iran to take care of his father, who suffers from Alzheimer’s disease. They come to the conclusion that they should separate, even though they are still in love. Without a wife to take care of the house, Nader hires a maid to be responsible for the household chores and for taking care of his father’s routine. The maid, who is pregnant, accepts the job without notifying her husband. (Source: AdoraCinema)

The loneliness of prime numbersSaverio Costanzo

Alice and Mattia are like prime numbers: divisible only by one and themselves. Since they were children, they deal with traumas that make them unique individuals, isolated from society. Alice almost lost her leg in a skiing accident, and Mattia neglected her disabled twin sister, only to receive the news of her disappearance. When they meet in adolescence, they recognize each other’s pain and develop a strong bond. They grow up and, despite leading parallel lives, their destinies always intersect.

The Chocolate WebClaude Chabrol

Milka Muller is the director of Chocolates Muller. With her husband André, a famous pianist, she lives in Switzerland and leads an apparently peaceful life. Next to them also lives Guillaume, son of André. Jeanne Pollet is a young pianist who discovers that she may have been exchanged for Guillaume in the maternity ward. Driven by curiosity, the girl decides to meet André, triggering a series of problems for her and her family.

The House KeysGianni Amelio

Paolo (Andrea Rossi) is 15 years old and suffers from physical and psychological handicaps caused by childbirth, which culminated in the death of his mother. Raised by his uncles in Italy, Paolo has to travel annually to a Berlin hospital for rehabilitation therapy. His father, Gianni (Kim Rossi Stuart), shows up to accompany him for the first time during the trip, in an attempt to get closer to his son. Their lives are transformed when they meet Nicole (Charlotte Rampling), a woman who is dedicated to the care of her disabled daughter.

AccusedJacob Thuesen

It is a seemingly normal family consisting of father, mother and daughter. The girl, from a very young age, had a history of compulsion to lie and, because of this, when she accused her father of sexually molesting her, she was discredited. The film is mainly based on dialogues between family members and memories of the father’s trial. The photograph is printed in a beautiful predominant shade of blue. Danish cinema: the one that never disappoints.

AdamMax Mayer

Young electronic engineer Adam has just lost his father. Struggling to socialize, he lives in isolation in his overly organized apartment in New York. His routine takes a turn when the attractive Beth moves in upstairs. Initially reticent with her neighbor’s strange behavior, she gradually gets to know him better and understand the reasons behind his communication difficulties. Noticing Adam’s interest and the deep connection that has formed between them, Beth decides to give the relationship a chance. 2009 Sundance Festival Competition.

AfterschoolAntonio Campos

In an American school, young Robert lives like a normal teenager, despite some characteristics that make him stand out from the majority, such as the habit of watching videos of sexual violence on the internet. When two sisters die after an overdose, at the boy’s feet, he is summoned by the school board to make a film in honor of his friends. However, as the video is being made, the hypocritical and cruel side of people is revealed.

Perfect soulmatesPeter Jackson

New Zealand, 1954. Two friends develop a powerful and obsessive friendship, which makes them imagine a fictional world. The parents, concerned, try to separate the two, but both intend to do whatever is necessary to prevent this from happening, even if it involves planning a murder against the mother of one of them.

Amnesia Christopher Nolan

A burglar attacks a couple, ending up killing the woman and leaving the man close to death. However, he survives and from then on starts to suffer from an illness that prevents him from recording recent events in his memory, which makes him completely forget what happened a few moments before. From then on, he sets out on a personal journey to discover his wife’s killer in order to avenge her.

Love and Human RemainsDenis Arcand

This beautiful Canadian film shows a plot of love, murders and mismatches.
In a less than optimistic view of love relationships, Canadian filmmaker Denys Arcand goes deep into themes such as obsession on the edge of psychosis, loneliness and selfishness.
wandererCao Guimaraes

Three solitary hikers travel different paths on roads in the northeast of Minas Gerais. A film about the relationship between walking and thinking, in which the constant movement of…