Requiem for a Dream (2000), They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969), The Experiment (2001), Repulsion (1965), Seance on a Wet Afternoon (1964), The People vs. Jean Harris (1981), Hangover Square (1945), House of Games (1987) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Psychological Breakdown movies.
Storyline: Sara Goldfarb (Ellen Burstyn) is a retired widow, living in a small apartment. She spends most of her time watching TV, especially a particular self-help show. She has delusions of rising above her current dull existence by being a guest on that show. Her son, Harry (Jared Leto) is a junkie but along with his friend Tyrone (Marlon Wayans) has visions of making it big by becoming a drug dealer. Harry's girlfriend Marion (Jennifer Connelly) could be fashion designer or artist but is swept along in Harry's drug-centric world. Meanwhile Sara has developed an addiction of her own. She desperately wants to lose weight and so goes on a crash course involving popping pills, pills which turn out to be very addictive and harmful to her mental state.
Plot Keywords: drugs, addiction, hallucination, despair, downfall, psychological trauma, social marginalization ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Gloria is a young woman of the Depression. She has aged beyond her years and feels her life is hopeless, having been cheated and betrayed many times in her past. While recovering from a suicide attempt, she gets the idea from a movie magazine to head for Hollywood to make it as an actress. Robert is a desperate Hollywood citizen trying to become a director, never doubting he'll make it. Robert and Gloria meet and decide to enter a dance marathon, one of the crazes of the 1930's. The grueling dancing takes its toll on Gloria's already weakened spirit, and she tells Robert that she'd be better off dead, that her life is hopeless - all the while acting cruelly and bitterly, alienating those around her, trying to convince him to shoot her and put her out of her misery. After all, they shoot horses, don't they?—alfiehitchie
Plot Keywords: drama, historical, psychological, dark, despair, competition, great depression ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: The movie is based on the infamous "Stanford Prison Experiment" conducted in 1971. A makeshift prison is set up in a research lab, complete with cells, bars and surveillance cameras. For two weeks 20 male participants are hired to play prisoners and guards. The 'prisoners' are locked up and have to follow seemingly mild rules, and the 'guards' are told simply to retain order without using physical violence. Everybody is free to quit at any time, thereby forfeiting payment. In the beginning the mood between both groups is insecure and rather emphatic. But soon quarrels arise and the wardens employ ever more drastic sanctions to confirm their authority.—<armin@sfb288.math.tu-berlin.de>
Plot Keywords: psychological thriller, human experiment, moral dilemma, violence, group dynamics, psychological manipulation, rebellion ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: In London, Belgian immigrant Carol Ledoux shares an apartment with her older sister Helen, and works as a manicurist at a beauty salon. Helen uses the word "sensitive" to describe Carol's overall demeanor, which is almost like she walks around in a daze, rarely speaking up about anything. When she does speak up, it generally is about something against one of those few issues on which she obsesses, such as Helen's boyfriend Michael's invasion of her space at the apartment. That specific issue may be more about men in general than just Michael's actions, as witnessed by Carol being agitated by hearing Helen and Michael's lovemaking, and she not being able to rebuff the advances effectively of a male suitor, Colin, who is infatuated with her. One of those other obsessive issues is noticing cracks and always wanting to fix them. While Helen and Michael leave on a vacation to Pisa, Italy, Carol chooses largely to lock herself in the apartment, ditching work. There, she is almost hypnotized...
Plot Keywords: psychological thriller, horror, suspense, mental breakdown, isolation, hallucination, film noir ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Working-class British housewife Myra Savage (Kim Stanley) reinvents herself as a medium, holding seances in the sitting room of her home with the hidden assistance of her under-employed, asthmatic husband, Billy (Richard Attenborough). In an attempt to enhance her credibility as a psychic, Myra hatches an elaborate, ill-conceived plot to kidnap a wealthy couple's young daughter (Judith Donner) so that she can then help the police "find" the missing girl.
Plot Keywords: psychological thriller, crime, mystery, supernatural, medium, kidnapping, british film ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: French secret agent Joss Baumont is sent to one of the African countries to kill their president Njala. However, at the last moment the political situation changes and the French secret service turns him in to the African authorities, and he is sentenced to a long-term imprisonment. After the daring escape he returns to France and deliberately informs his former chiefs of his presence promising them to kill Njala who has just arrived to the country with the official visit.—Yuri German <blsidt1@imf.org>
Plot Keywords: based on a true story, courtroom drama, biography, crime, murder case, female protagonist, psychological analysis ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: George Harvey Bone is a composer in early 20th century London, who is under stress because he is writing a piano concerto. Due to this stress, he gets black outs when ever he hears dissonances. When he finds himself after the black out in a different quarter of the town, he returns home, to read in the paper that somebody in that quarter was murdered. Asking help from a doctor at Scotland Yard he is assured that he has nothing to do with it, but he is advised to cut back in his work and get some relaxation like other, ordinary people. At a cheap musical he meets Netta, a singer, who inspires him for a new motive for his concerto. But Netta discovers that this motive could also be used as a song for her. The song gets sold, and she hangs around George to get more songs out of him. George believes that Netta is in love with him, and gets in an argument with his girlfriend Barbara, the daughter of Lord Henry, who wants the concerto for one of his soirées. George has another black out, and after recovering he hears that Barbara was almost strangled to death. He starts working again on the concerto. On London's special holiday he learns that Netta, who offered him quite a lot for a new song, is going to marry theatrical producer Carstair, and he causes some violins to fall in his room, and this sound drives him to another black out...—Stephan Eichenberg <eichenbe@fak-cbg.tu-muenchen.de>
Plot Keywords: film noir, psychological thriller, crime, murder, london, 1940s, composer ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: A famous psychologist, Margaret Ford, decides to try to help one of her patients get out of a gambling debt. She visits the bar where Mike, to whom the debt is owed, runs poker games. He convinces her to help him in a game: her assignment is to look for "tells", or give-away body language. What seems easy to her becomes much more complex.
Plot Keywords: psychological thriller, crime, mystery, film noir, con, gambling, mind games ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Francie and Joe live the usual playful, fantasy filled childhoods of normal boys. However, with a violent, alcoholic father and a manic depressive, suicidal mother the pressure on Francie to grow up are immense. When Francie's world turns to madness, he tries to counter it with further insanity, with dire consequences.—yusufpiskin
Plot Keywords: black comedy, psychological thriller, coming of age, irish film, violence, mental illness, childhood trauma ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Set in modern day Buenos Aires, the film centers around a relationship between two emotionally crippled roommates. Adrian LeDuc is a lonely sociopath who is forced to rent his insane mother's room due to poor ticket sales at his revival movie theater. Jack Carney, the new roommate, appears normal enough at first but it soon becomes apparent that he is hiding something. As their friendship develops, Adrian suppresses his suspicions that Jack may be the government mercenary turned serial killer who has been terrorizing the city. The other eccentric residents of the building begin to worry as Adrian shows increasing signs that his mother's insanity may be hereditary. The shocking climax of this twisted tale of deceit, perversion and murder reveals the darker side of the human psyche.—Kevin Jundt
Plot Keywords: psychological thriller, mystery, drama, homosexuality, loneliness, obsession, friendship ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Lucy Harbin has been in an asylum for twenty years after axing her husband and his mistress during a crime of passion, witnessed by her young daughter, Carol. While trying to renew ties with Carol, who is now a young woman about to be married, heads begin to roll again. Is Lucy repeating her past?—Ray Hamel <hamel@primate.wisc.edu>
Plot Keywords: psychological thriller, horror, murder mystery, mental illness, family secrets, betrayal, revenge ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Nearly a year after a botched job, a hitman takes a new assignment with the promise of a big payoff for three killings. What starts off as an easy task soon unravels, sending the killer into the heart of darkness.
Plot Keywords: horror, thriller, crime, psychological thriller, violence, mystery, dark ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: For a handsome $1,000-a-day reward, the unemployed pacifist, Travis, decides to take part in a controversial two-week behavioural experiment that will attempt to simulate life within the prison walls. Now, inside a controlled environment, two hand-picked groups of twenty inmates and six guards must follow a simple set of basic rules, while high-tech cameras monitor the entire makeshift jail. However, devoid of their civil rights and their identities, the volunteers will soon find themselves dragged into a dangerous and volatile situation, as the sadistic warders begin to take extreme pleasure in enforcing their authority. Under those circumstances, Travis, or the rebellious Prisoner #77, will have to explore his limits. How long can he last?
Plot Keywords: dark side of humanity, abuse of power, social experiment, experiment gone wrong, role playing, psychological thriller, extreme environment ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: The Weiss family is the archetypical Hollywood dynasty: father Stafford is an analyst and coach, who has made a fortune with his self-help manuals; mother Cristina mostly looks after the career of their son Benjie, 13, a child star. One of Stafford's clients, Havana, is an actress who dreams of shooting a remake of the movie that made her mother, Clarice, a star in the 60s. Clarice is dead now and visions of her come to haunt Havana at night... Adding to the toxic mix, Benjie has just come off a rehab program he joined when he was 9 and his sister, Agatha, has recently been released from a sanatorium where she was treated for criminal pyromania and befriended a limo driver Jerome who is also an aspiring actor.
Plot Keywords: psychological thriller, hollywood, family tragedy, surreal, black comedy, celebrity culture, mental illness ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Having escaped her abusive ex-husband Goss, recently released from state prison, Agnes, a lonely waitress with a tragic past moves into a sleazy, rundown motel. Her lesbian co-worker R.C. introduces her to Peter, a peculiar, paranoiac drifter and they begin a tentative romance. However, things aren't always as they appear and Agnes is about to experience a claustrophobic nightmare reality as the bugs begin to arrive...
Plot Keywords: psychological thriller, horror, drama, paranoia, isolation, mental illness, hallucinations ...
Movie Details Click Here !