Top 10 Movies Like Girl, Interrupted, Including One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest and Silver Linings Playbook

The best films like Girl, interrupted explore the complex worlds of mental health services, both good and bad, and on a more significant level, try to understand the emotional journeys that people with mental health problems take. Girl, interrupted premiered on December 21, 1999, capping off an incredible year at the movies that included The Matrix, The mummy, American Beautyand some of the best horror films of the decade. Girl, interrupted It’s in a genre of its own. It’s a tense psychological drama that also serves as a sweet coming-of-age story.

The film follows Susanna Kaysen (Winona Ryder), a nervous and troubled young woman who overdoses on aspirin and alcohol and is forcibly committed to Claymoore, a psychiatric hospital. There, she meets a group of young people her age who also face various mental health problems. Together, the girls deal with the boredom, and sometimes the pain, of their stay and learn more about themselves in the process. One of the popular Hollywood films that understand mental illness, films like Girl, interrupted are always welcome when a director is willing to try.

10

I’m a cyborg, but that’s okay (2006)

An unlikely romantic comedy

In I’m a cyborg, but that’s okayFrom director Park Chan-wook, Young-goon (Im Soo-jung) is a young fighter who thinks she is a cyborg and, after trying to charge herself with a power cord, is sent to a psychiatric hospital. There she meets Il-Soon (Rain), who is undergoing treatment for schizophrenia and antisocial behavior. The unlikely couple fall in love, leading to a quirky, charming and touching love story.

I’m a cyborg, but that’s okay It may seem silly, but the film and its characters take delusions and mental health seriously. No one is ridiculed for needing help and individuals are treated with compassion. The couple at the center of the film are far from your standard romantic comedy couple, but Chan-wook gives them the sweeping love story they deserve.

9

Short Term 12 (2013)

A Group Home Supervisor Learns What Mental Health Can Look Like

Short Term 12 does not happen in a mental health hospital like Girl, interrupted but it features a set of young people who struggle to understand the mental health conditions they live with. The film centers on Grace (Brie Larson), a young social worker who works at a short-term shelter for troubled youth. Her own traumatic past helps her relate to the children who pass by, but she may have met her match when Jayden (Kaitlyn Dever) arrives.

The cast of Short Term 12 is reason enough to see this with future stars like Stephanie Beatriz, Lakeith Stanfield, Rami Malek, and Brie Larson in the early stages of their careers. As Girl, interrupted, Short Term 12 considers whether the clinical way doctors and society talk about mental health may be doing more harm than good, and that everyone, regardless of the severity of their mental illness, deserves support.

8

Shutter Island (2010)

A tense mystery about knowing yourself

Martin Scorsese’s underrated mystery thriller, Shutter Islandstars Leonardo DiCaprio as U.S. Marshal Edward “Teddy” Daniels, who travels to an isolated mental health facility, Ashecliffe Hospital, on Shutter Island. There he discovers that not everything is as it seems and he and his new partner, Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) uncover a conspiracy that could reveal more about Teddy than he could ever imagine.

Both Girl, interrupted and Shutter Island They present their psychiatric hospitals as slightly unknowable and perhaps a little scary places, with secret passages and nursing assistants who have no regard for their patients’ best interests. However, Both films slowly reveal that hospitals are truly doing their best, and when dealing with mental illness, some doctors actually want to helpbut it is up to patients to recognize that they want care and are willing to accept it.

7

It’s Kind of a Funny Story (2010)

A Serious Look at Mental Health Stigma in the United States

In It’s kind of a funny storyCraig (Keir Gilchrist) is a depressed high school student who checks himself into a mental hospital for a week after he begins seriously thinking about suicide. There he meets several other patients who help him better understand his outlook on life. Bobby (Zack Galifianakis) is a father who shares Craig’s suicidal thoughts, and Noelle (Emma Roberts) is around Craig’s age and has struggled with self-harm.

As the film progresses, Craig, like Susanna in Girl, interruptedfinds comfort in his new and quirky group of friends. The film is very direct in the way it discusses mental illness, which even the comedy treats in a bold and unprecedented way. This may sound false, but it is clear that It’s kind of a funny story has true empathy for the reality of mental illness and knows that laughter can be found even in difficult situations.

6

Heathers (1989)

Winona Ryder plays an equally lost and brooding character

Winona Ryder gives an equally impressive performance in her 1989 classic, Heathersas she does ten years later in Girl, interrupted. In both films, Ryder plays a brooding, sarcastic loner who becomes profound once the audience gets to know her. In HeathersVeronica Sawyer (Ryder) joins her school’s cool group until she becomes bored with its superficiality. She befriends a newcomer to the school, JD (Christian Slater), who wants to murder the popular students and stage their deaths as suicides.

The overall tone of both films is similar, being dark and investigative, and although Heathers is much more outrageous, Ryder’s characters in both are surprisingly similar. Both characters believe they have all the answers and that their problems are the most important thing. Both need to be humbled by those around them before they can change.

5

The Good Side Manual (2012)

Mental illness is a fact of life

Silver linings Playbooka film by director David O. Russell, stars Bradley Cooper as Pat Soltano Jr., a Pennsylvania man who has just been released from a mental health facility after undergoing treatment for bipolar disorder. While trying to get used to living with his parents, he meets Tiffany Maxwell (Jennifer Lawrence), a neighbor who also cares for his mental illness. Together, they begin a precarious relationship that grows in meaningful and fun ways.

Mental illness is presented directly in Silver linings Playbookand how Girl, interruptedthe camera doesn’t shy away from uncomfortable moments. The difficulties of trying to support someone with a mental illness, especially with limited resources, are set out in detail in Silver linings Playbook. Pat and Tiffany’s mental conditions are not vilified, they are just parts of their lives, for better and for worse.

4

The Virgin Suicides (1999)

Sophia Coppola’s psychological drama about a mysterious family of sisters

If Girl, interrupted shows an example of what mental health support can do for those living with mental health problems, The Virgin Suicides shows the worst case of what can happen when these support structures are not just ignored, but specifically kept away from those who need them. The film follows the Lisbon family, a devout Catholic family whose parents do not let their five daughters interact with the other children in the neighborhood.

A tragic death in the family leads to unresolved anger and grief that manifests itself in terrible ways. Suicide is an important topic The Virgin Suicidesas suggested by the title. The film, as Girl interruptedit’s also about femininity and how female adolescence is a difficult world to penetrate, especially when those trying to probe aren’t interested in exploring how girls feel.

3

The Miseducation of Cameron Post (2018)

The idealized 1990s is hiding something much sadder

In Cameron Post’s Bad Educationthe eponymous Cameron (Chloë Grace Moretz) is forced to undergo conversion therapy after her family discovers she is gay. Different Girl, interruptedCameron isn’t subjected to any kind of scary therapy like the shocks Angelina Jolie’s Lisa Rowe undergoes. It’s a much quieter and simpler film, and all the more realistic for that. Instead, Cameron faces shame from his advisors, shame that Cameron fiercely opposes.

Cameron makes friends at her camp who help her get through the frustrating ordeal, and the film quickly turns into a charming coming-of-age drama. Cameron Post’s Bad Education it’s not about the horrors of conversion therapy, although camp certainly isn’t celebrated; It’s more about the little struggles that arise when trying to be yourself in a regressive environment.

2

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)

Miloš Forman’s seminal story about a group of patients in a mental institution

One flew over the cuckoo’s nest may be the film that all other films set in a mental hospital look to when telling their own story, whether to understand how the subject should be handled, or to look for specific things to avoid lest they be accused of just Steal the Academy Award Winning Film. The film follows Randle McMurphy (Jack Nicholson), a new patient at a mental institution for incarcerated people.

As Girl, interrupted, patients in One flew over the cuckoo’s nest have to escape the confines of the hospital to find freedom and joyand they bring a bit of the outside world with them when they return. There are also similarities between Randle and Lisa. Both are leaders of their groups and protest the structures placed around them in their respective hospitals, and both have suffered high prices for their reluctance to be categorized and demonized for their mental illnesses.

1

Man Facing Southeast (1987)

An Argentine science fiction film about an alien who wants to understand humanity

The Argentine science fiction film, Man facing southeastDr. Denis (Lorenzo Quinteros) is an employee of a psychiatric hospital in Buenos Aires. One day, he arrives at work to find a new patient present. The man introduces himself as Rantés (Hugo Soto) and claims to be a projection of space, of a being interested in learning more about the human condition. Everyone is immediately attracted to the new visitor, but when he leaves the hospital, he constantly faces problems.

For all the fun the film has with its conceit, Man facing southeast is still deeply sad. In the same way as Girl, interrupted doesn’t always offer answers about mental health and the human condition, Rantés also has trouble understanding how humanity can be both exuberantly happy and depressingly sad. Both films make a strong case that just a little compassion can drastically improve a life, and in doing so, humanity shines a little brighter.