Highest-Rated Movies about 'Mental Breakdown'

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Full Metal Jacket (1987), Vertigo (1958), Ran (1985), A Woman Under the Influence (1974), A Face in the Crowd (1957), Network (1976), Gone with the Wind (1939) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Mental Breakdown movies.

#16. Splendor in the Grass (1961)

Storyline: It's 1928 in oil rich southeast Kansas. High school seniors Bud Stamper and Deanie Loomis are in love with each other. Bud, the popular football captain, and Deanie, the sensitive soul, are "good" kids who have only gone as far as kissing. Unspoken to each other, they expect to get married to each other one day. But both face pressures within the relationship, Bud who has the urges to go farther despite knowing in his heart that if they do that Deanie will end up with a reputation like his own sister, Ginny Stamper, known as the loose, immoral party girl, and Deanie who will do anything to hold onto Bud regardless of the consequences. They also face pressures from their parents who have their own expectation for their offspring. Bud's overbearing father, Ace Stamper, the local oil baron, does not believe Bud can do wrong and expects him to go to Yale after graduation, which does not fit within Bud's own expectations for himself. And the money and image conscious Mrs. Loomis just wants...

Plot Keywords: melodrama, breakup, brother sister relationship, church, connecticut, doctor, face slap ...

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#17. Night Is My Future (1947)

Storyline: The ambitious Stanton "Stan" Carlisle works in a sideshow as carny and assistant of the mentalist Zeena Krumbein, who is married with the alcoholic Pete. The couple had developed a secret code to pretend to read minds and was successful in the show business before Pete starts drinking. Stan stays with them expecting to learn their code and leave the carnival to be a successful mentalist. Stan also flirts with the gorgeous Molly that lives in the carnival with the strong Bruno. Zeena and The Savage, an alcoholic man that eats live chickens that the audiences believe that is a savage, are the greatest attractions of the sideshow. When Stan gives booze to Pete and he dies, Stan finds that Pete had drunk methyl alcohol and not his booze, but he feels guilty for the death of him. Zeena teaches the code to him and Molly helps Stan to learn them. After an incident, Stan is forced to marry Molly and he decides to move to Chicago with her to become a sensation in a night club. One day, he meets the psychologist Lilith Ritter and he finds that she tapes the sessions with her clients from the high-society. The trickster Stan envisions a scheme to raise a high amount of money swindling rich people. But his ambition brings him back to the life in the sideshow.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Plot Keywords: blackmail, con artist, mind reading, tarot card, psychologist, carnival, alcoholic ...

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#18. Silver Linings Playbook (2012)

Storyline: Against medical advice and without the knowledge of her husband Pat Solatano Sr., caring Dolores Solatano discharges her adult son, Pat Solatano Jr., from a Maryland mental health institution after his minimum eight month court ordered stint. The condition of the release includes Pat Jr. moving back in with his parents in their Philadelphia home. Although Pat Jr.'s institutionalization was due to him beating up the lover of his wife Nikki, he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Nikki has since left him and has received a restraining order against him. Although he is on medication (which he doesn't take because of the way it makes him feel) and has mandatory therapy sessions, Pat Jr. feels like he can manage on the outside solely by healthy living and looking for the "silver linings" in his life. His goals are to get his old job back as a substitute teacher, but more importantly reunite with Nikki. He finds there are certain instances where he doesn't cope well, however no less so ...

Plot Keywords: bipolar disorder, adulterous wife, unhappy marriage, promiscuous woman, mother son relationship, mental illness, bet ...

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#19. Changeling (2008)

Storyline: Los Angeles, 1928. Single mother Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie) returns from work to find her nine-year-old son Walter (Gattlin Griffith) gone. She calls the L.A.P.D. to initiate a search. Five months later, a boy is found in Illinois who fits the description, and he says he's her son. To fanfare and photos, the L.A.P.D. reunite mother and son, but she insists he's not her boy. The cops dismiss her as either a liar or hysterical. When she joins a minister in his public criticism of the Police, they in turn use government power to silence and intimidate her. Meanwhile, a cop goes to a dilapidated ranch to find a Canadian lad who's without legal status; the youth tells a grisly tale. There's redress for murder; is there redress for abuse of power?

Plot Keywords: missing child, no opening credits, mother son relationship, mental hospital, conspiracy, telephone operator, los angeles california ...

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#20. The Machinist (2004)

Storyline: Trevor Reznik is a machinist in a factory. An extreme case of insomnia has led to him not sleeping in a year, and his body withering away to almost nothing. He has an obsessive compulsion to write himself reminder notes and keep track of his dwindling weight, both scribbled on yellow stickies in his apartment. The only person he lets into his life in an emotional sense is Stevie, a prostitute, although he has an infatuation with Maria, a single mother waitress working in an airport diner. His co-workers don't associate with and mistrust him because of not knowing what is going on in his life that has led to his emaciated physical appearance. A workplace incident further alienates him with his coworkers, and in conjunction with some unfamiliar pieces of paper he finds in his apartment, Trevor believes that someone or some people - probably one or some of his coworkers - are out to get him, using a phantom employee named Ivan as their front. As Trevor goes on a search for evidence as to...

Plot Keywords: mental breakdown, insomnia, hallucination, neo noir, paranoia, alienation, urban gothic ...

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#21. The Experiment (2001)

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: rape, domination, scientific research, female frontal nudity, psychological torture, human experimentation, video surveillance ...

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#22. The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)

Storyline: Three grown prodigies, all with a unique genius of some kind, and their mother are staying at the family household. Their father, Royal had left them long ago, and comes back to make things right with his family.

Plot Keywords: family relationships, forbidden love, incest, brother sister incest, dysfunctional family, extramarital affair, father daughter relationship ...

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#23. Falling Down (1993)

Storyline: On the day of his daughter's (Joey Singer) birthday, William "D-Fens" Foster (Michael Douglas) is trying to get to his estranged ex-wife's (Barbara Hershey) house to see his daughter. He has a breakdown and leaves his car in a traffic jam in Los Angeles and decides to walk. Along the way he stops at a convenience store and tries to get some change for a phone call but the owner, Mister Lee (Michael Paul Chan), does not give him change. This destabilizes William who then breaks apart the shop with a baseball bat and goes to an isolated place to drink a coke. Two gangsters (Agustin Rodriguez & Eddie Frias) threaten him and he reacts by hitting them with the bat. D-FENS continues walking and stops at a phone booth. The gangsters hunt him down with their gang and shoot at him but crash their car. William goes nuts and takes their gym bag with weapons proceeding in his journey of rage against injustice. Meanwhile Sergeant Martin Prendergast (Robert Duvall), who is working on his last day ...

Plot Keywords: rage, alienation, urban decay, los angeles california, road rage, social commentary, destroying property ...

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#24. Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)

Storyline: A wealthy harridan, Violet Venable, attempts to bribe Dr. Cukrowicz, a young psycho-surgeon from a New Orleans mental hospital that is desperately in need of funds, into lobotomizing her niece, Catherine Holly. Violet wants the operation performed in order to prevent Catherine from defiling the memory of her son, the poet Sebastian. Catherine has been babbling obscenely about Sebastian's mysterious death that she witnessed while on holiday together in Spain the previous summer.

Plot Keywords: mental institution, lobotomy, dysfunctional family, cannibalism, based on play, mother son relationship, homosexuality ...

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#25. The Hours (2002)

Storyline: In 1951, Laura Brown, a pregnant housewife, is planning a party for her husband, but she can't stop reading the novel 'Mrs. Dalloway'. Clarissa Vaughn, a modern woman living in present times is throwing a party for her friend Richard, a famous author dying of AIDS. These two stories are simultaneously linked to the work and life of Virginia Woolf, who's writing the novel mentioned before.

Plot Keywords: depression, bipolar disorder, writer, nonlinear timeline, borderline personality disorder, mental breakdown, mental illness ...

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#26. The Devil's Advocate (1997)

Storyline: Kevin Lomax, a ruthless young Florida attorney that never lost a case, is recruited by the most powerful law firm in the world. In spite of his mother's disagreement, which compares New York City to Babylon, he accepts the offer and the money that comes along. But soon, his wife starts feeling homesick as she witnesses devilish apparitions. However, Kevin is sinking in his new cases and pays less and less attention to his wife. His boss and mentor, John Milton, seems to always know how to overcome every problem and that just freaks Kevin right off.

Plot Keywords: deal with the devil, female full frontal nudity, supernatural power, based on novel, female frontal nudity, female nudity, female pubic hair ...

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#27. Coal Miner's Daughter (1980)

Storyline: At only 13, Loretta Webb marries Doolittle Lynn and is soon responsible for a large family. She appears destined to a life of homemaking, but Doolittle recognizes his wife's musical talent, and buys her a guitar as an anniversary present one year. At 18, the busy mother of four children still finds time to write and sing songs at small fairs and local honky-tonks. This gift sets Loretta Lynn on the grueling, tumultuous path to superstardom and country-music greatness.

Plot Keywords: country music, based on autobiography, teenage pregnancy, dysfunctional marriage, price of fame, 1950s, apostrophe in title ...

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#28. Promising Young Woman (2020)

Storyline: Pushing thirty, and defined by a hideous crime involving her bosom friend, Nina, emotionally scarred medical school dropout, Cassie, knows firsthand that some wounds never heal. Leading an uneventful existence, still living with her parents, waiting tables at a cheap coffee shop to earn a living, Cassie has found the perfect way to deal with the painful past. Dressed to kill, at night, Cassie frequents the local bars and nightclubs, pretending to be dead-drunk, utterly helpless and vulnerable. And, every week, lethally beautiful Cassie is on the prowl for all sorts of nocturnal predators and other wolves in sheep's clothing, who are unaware that, sometimes, the hunter can become the prey. Then, Ryan, a kindly and caring old classmate who is the bee's knees, enters the picture, and just like that, Cassie wants out. However, everybody knows that breaking bad habits is easier said than done. Could Ryan be the one?—Nick Riganas

Plot Keywords: revenge, female protagonist, rape and revenge, rape, gender in title, hypocrisy, title directed by female ...

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#29. Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974)

Storyline: In Mexico, the wealthy father of a pregnant young woman offers $1million for the head of the man who impregnated her. A pair of bounty hunters meet a local piano man in their search. The piano player does a little investigating, and finds out that his girlfriend knows of Garcia's death and where his body is. Thinking he can make easy money, they set off on this goal, but instead, the trip brings untold misery.—Tad Dibbern <DIBBERN_D@a1.mscf.upenn.edu>

Plot Keywords: bounty hunter, character name in title, severed head, grave, one man army, neo western, anti hero ...

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#30. Tunes of Glory (1960)

Storyline: Major Jock Sinclair has been in this Highland regiment since he joined as a boy piper. During World War II, as Second-in-Command, he was made acting Commanding Officer. Now the regiment has returned to Scotland, and a new commanding officer is to be appointed. Jock's own cleverness is pitted against his new C.O., his daughter, his girlfriend, and the other officers in the Mess.—Aryk Nusbacher <nusbacher-a@rmc.ca>

Plot Keywords: british military, post world war two, theatre, tragic event, uniform, accomplice, ale ...

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