Highest-Rated Movies about 'Psychological Abuse'

Sunset Blvd. (1950), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), Blue Velvet (1986), The White Ribbon (2009), Three Nuts for Cinderella (1973), The Magdalene Sisters (2002), Ordinary People (1980), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Psychological Abuse movies.

#1. Sunset Blvd. (1950)

Storyline: In Hollywood of the 50's, the obscure screenplay writer Joe Gillis is not able to sell his work to the studios, is full of debts and is thinking in returning to his hometown to work in an office. While trying to escape from his creditors, he has a flat tire and parks his car in a decadent mansion in Sunset Boulevard. He meets the owner and former silent-movie star Norma Desmond, who lives alone with her butler and driver Max Von Mayerling. Norma is demented and believes she will return to the cinema industry, and is protected and isolated from the world by Max, who was her director and husband in the past and still loves her. Norma proposes Joe to move to the mansion and help her in writing a screenplay for her comeback to the cinema, and the small-time writer becomes her lover and gigolo. When Joe falls in love for the young aspirant writer Betty Schaefer, Norma becomes jealous and completely insane and her madness leads to a tragic end.

Plot Keywords: butler, madness, recluse, hollywood california, actress, delusion, comeback ...

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#2. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)

Storyline: George and Martha are a middle aged married couple, whose charged relationship is defined by vitriolic verbal battles, which underlies what seems like an emotional dependence upon each other. This verbal abuse is fueled by an excessive consumption of alcohol. George being an associate History professor in a New Carthage university where Martha's father is the President adds an extra dimension to their relationship. Late one Saturday evening after a faculty mixer, Martha invites Nick and Honey, an ambitious young Biology professor new to the university and his mousy wife, over for a nightcap. As the evening progresses, Nick and Honey, plied with more alcohol, get caught up in George and Martha's games of needing to hurt each other and everyone around them. The ultimate abuse comes in the form of talk of George and Martha's unseen sixteen year old son, whose birthday is the following day.

Plot Keywords: alcohol, drinking, dialogue driven, husband wife relationship, drunkenness, one night, humiliation ...

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#3. Blue Velvet (1986)

Storyline: College student Jeffrey Beaumont returns to his idyllic hometown of Lumberton to manage his father's hardware store while his father is hospitalized. Walking though a grassy meadow near the family home, Jeffrey finds a severed human ear. After an initial investigation, lead police Detective John Williams advises Jeffrey not to speak to anyone about the case as they investigate further. Detective Williams also tells Jeffrey that he cannot divulge any information about what the police know. Detective Williams' high school aged daughter, Sandy Williams, tells Jeffrey what she knows about the case from overhearing her father's private conversations on the matter: that it has to do with a nightclub singer named Dorothy Vallens, who lives in an older apartment building near the Beaumont home. His curiosity getting the better of him, Jeffrey, with Sandy's help, decides to find out more about the woman at the center of the case by breaking into Dorothy's apartment while he knows she's at work...

Plot Keywords: voyeurism, neo noir, cult film, female frontal nudity, rape, small town, forced to strip ...

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#4. The White Ribbon (2009)

Storyline: From July, 1913 to the outbreak of World War I, a series of incidents take place in a German village. A horse trips on a wire and throws the rider; a woman falls to her death through rotted planks; the local baron's son is hung upside down in a mill; parents slap and bully their children; a man is cruel to his long-suffering lover; another sexually abuses his daughter. People disappear. A callow teacher, who courts a nanny in the baron's household, narrates the story and tries to investigate the connections among these accidents and crimes. What is foreshadowed? Are the children holy innocents? God may be in His heaven, but all is not right with the world; the center cannot hold.

Plot Keywords: year 1914, sexual abuse, repression, fatal accident, patriarchy, patriarch, verbal abuse ...

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#5. Three Nuts for Cinderella (1973)

Storyline: The film stars Libuse Safránková as the title character, a young woman who is put upon by her stepmother and stepsisters. The film employs a twist, though, when a handsome prince comes knocking. Cinderella does not simply fall into the prince's arms. In this version, he must actively pursue the young woman who is a skilled sharpshooter prone to wearing hunting outfits. Cinderella also has three wishes at her disposal, gained from three magic nuts.—Ørnås

Plot Keywords: prince, magic, riddle, princess, bully, female bully, outcast ...

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#6. The Magdalene Sisters (2002)

Storyline: A thoroughly mind-provoking film about 3 young women who, under tragic circumstances, see themselves cast away to a Magdalene Asylum for young women in 1964. One of many like institutions, the asylums are run like prisons and young girls are forced to do workhouse laundry and hard labor. The asylum, one of many that existed in theocratic Catholic Ireland, is for supposedly 'fallen' women. Here, young girls are imprisoned indefinitely and endure agonizing punishments and a long, harsh working system which leaves them physically drained and mentally damaged. As the girls bond together, it soon becomes clear that the only way out of the Magdalene convent is to escape, but with twisted Sister Bridget running the wing, any chances seem limited...

Plot Keywords: irish, ireland, unwed pregnancy, unwed mother, based on true story, dublin ireland, rape ...

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#7. Ordinary People (1980)

Storyline: 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.

Plot Keywords: psychiatrist, mother son relationship, based on novel, father son relationship, psychoanalysis, dysfunctional family, family crisis ...

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#8. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)

Storyline: Based on the story by Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Henry Jekyll believes that there are two distinct sides to men - a good and an evil side. He believes that by separating the two man can become liberated. He succeeds in his experiments with chemicals to accomplish this and transforms into Hyde to commit horrendous crimes. When he discontinues use of the drug it is already too late...

Plot Keywords: experiment, laboratory, split personality, alter ego, good versus evil, mad scientist, insanity ...

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#9. Tomboy (2011)

Storyline: A family moves into a new neighborhood, and a 10-year-old born Laure deliberately presents as a boy named Mickäel to the neighborhood children. It is heavily implied that Mickäel is a closeted transgender boy. This film follows his experiences with his newfound friends, his potential love interest, Lisa, his younger sister and his parents. It focuses in on the significance of gender identity in social interaction from an early age, the difficulties of being transgender and young, and how Mickäel navigates these in the background of childhood play and love.

Plot Keywords: false name, tomboy, driving, necklace, spaghetti, washing hair, paris france ...

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#10. The Proposition (2005)

Storyline: Rural Australia in the late nineteenth century: Captain Stanley (Ray Winstone) and his men capture two of the three Burns brothers, Charlie (Guy Pearce) and Mike (Richard Wilson). Their gang is held responsible for attacking the Hopkins farm, raping pregnant Mrs. Hopkins and murdering the whole family. Arthur Burns (Danny Huston), the eldest brother and the gang's mastermind, remains on the loose and has retreated to a mountain hideout. Captain Stanley's proposition to Charlie is to gain pardon and, more importantly, save his beloved younger brother Mike from the gallows by finding and killing Arthur within nine days.

Plot Keywords: gang, hideout, outlaw, whiskey, siege, lynch mob, flogging ...

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#11. The Penalty (1920)

Storyline: Blizzard, deranged from a childhood operation in which both his legs were perhaps needlessly amputated after an accident, becomes a vicious criminal, and eventually mob leader of the San Francisco underworld. Out for revenge against the surgeon who performed his operation, he undergoes brain surgery which has a chance of altering his anti-social behavior.—Doug Sederberg <vornoff@sonic.net>

Plot Keywords: gangster, secret passage, thief, traffic accident, fireplace, riot, telephone operator ...

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#12. The Secret Life of Bees (2008)

Storyline: Set in South Carolina in 1964, this is the tale of Lily Owens, a 14 year-old girl who is haunted by the memory of her late mother. To escape her lonely life and troubled relationship with her father T-Ray, Lily flees with Rosaleen, her caregiver and friend, to a South Carolina town that holds the secret to her mother's past. Taken in by the intelligent and independent Boatwright sisters, Lily finds solace in their mesmerizing world of beekeeping.

Plot Keywords: insect in title, f rated, racism, loss of mother, gun, grave, funeral ...

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#13. Corpse Bride (2005)

Storyline: Set back in the late 1800s in a Victorian village, a man and woman by the names of Victor Van Dort and Victoria Everglot are betrothed because the Everglots need the money or else they'll be living on the streets and the Van Dorts want to be high in society. But when things go wrong at the wedding rehearsal, Victor goes into the woods to practice his vows. Just as soon as he gets them right, he finds himself married to Emily, the corpse bride. While Victoria waits on the other side, there's a rich newcomer that may take Victor's place. So two brides, one groom, who will Victor pick?

Plot Keywords: gothic horror, horror for children, living dead, surrealism, gothic, abusive mother, corpse ...

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#14. In the Line of Fire (1993)

Storyline: Frank Horrigan (Clint Eastwood) is a Secret Service Agent who keeps thinking back to November 22, 1963, when, as a hand-picked Agent by President John F. Kennedy, he became one of the few Agents to have lost a President to an assassin when Kennedy died. Now, former C.I.A. assassin Mitch Leary (John Malkovich) is stalking the current President (Jim Curley), who is running for re-election. Mitch has spent long hours studying Horrigan, and he taunts Horrigan, telling him of his plans to kill the President. Leary plans to kill the President because Leary feels betrayed by the government. Leary was removed from the C.I.A., and the C.I.A. is now trying to have him killed. After talking to Leary, Horrigan makes sure he is assigned to Presidential protection duty, working with fellow Secret Service Agent Lilly Raines (Rene Russo). Horrigan has no intention of failing his President this time around, and he's more than willing to take a bullet. White House Chief of Staff Harry Sargent (Fred ...

Plot Keywords: interrupted sex, miniskirt, f word, gun, assassination of president, assassination plot, dog ...

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#15. The Invisible Man (2020)

Storyline: The film follows Cecilia, who receives the news of her abusive ex-boyfriend's suicide. She begins to re-build her life for the better. However, her sense of reality is put into question when she begins to suspect her deceased lover is not actually dead.—Max

Plot Keywords: domestic abuse, psychological abuse, psychotronic film, murder, reboot, mad scientist, invisibility ...

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