7 Psychological Dramas That The Cinema Has Given Us

Psychological dramas in movies challenge the viewer and make them rethink important issues. Depending on your argument, they can trigger a series of existential questions in the days after, and even the mood can be altered. In this sense, a good drama is capable of shaking us and leaving an intense emotional mark.

Good on-screen psychological dramas work like real Socratic jewels to question various issues of extreme importance in our world. In this article, we suggest you see some psychological dramas of different themes.

The best psychological dramas to see and question our society

In this section we suggest two psychological dramas that show what a society can do with its citizens.

Joker by Todd Phillips

It was the sensation of 2019 and it brought with it an advent of the strange world that we would live months later. A world where inequality, the lack of public health resources and the neglect of mental health put its citizens at the limit of what is bearable.

The character of Arthur Fleck connected with us so much that we came to feel strangeness. We recognized in its madness much of what we feel every day in this capitalist society, which preys on the weakest and in which you are “nobody” if you don’t have “something”.

It is for all this that Tod Philipps’s Joker is a first-rate psychological drama. In his exposition, he traverses our consciousness of the world from the general to the particular.

On the anniversary of its premiere, the issues he raised are very topical and the world looks a little more like that city of Gotham, full of chaos and sadness.

The Truman Show by Peter Weir

The Netflix documentary “The Social Media Dilemma” has left us unsettled. More than anything, because it places us in the center of the bullseye. It makes us understand that we are nothing more than a product behind a technology that psychology has used to control us and make us, in part, more unhappy.

That’s why it ‘s important to remember the impact The Truman Show had on its premiere. Now it seems anything but a science fiction story.

A film that makes us rethink the limits of privacy and if people have become, through the use of various platforms, a show of ourselves to the delight of others, who do not really know who we really are.

Psychological Dramas in Film: The Moral Dilemmas

There are certain psychological dramas in the cinema that deal with moral dilemmas that affect us all. His arguments sadden us as well as fill us with indignation.

The Secret of Vera Drake by Mike Leigh

An impressive performance by Imelda Staunton earned her the Oscar for Best Actress, followed by other awards such as Best Director and Best Original Screenplay.

Vera Drake is a middle-aged woman dedicated to her family and her ailing mother. She is adored by her environment, as she is considered a noble woman and given to others. Vera works cleaning houses, and even being a person of lower economic class, she is a vital woman and wastes happiness. Your family is united and your marriage blessed by a pure and solid love.

What her family (nor the viewer) does not expect is that Vera dedicates herself to performing clandestine abortions without receiving any financial reward for it. Vera feels that it is her duty to help women correct those small “delays” in their period, since she herself does not admit that she is doing abortions.

In the film you can see how women of all conditions and socioeconomic levels come to Vera and trust her good work and gentleness when it comes to treating them. However, one incident will bring everything to light. We will see how the hypocrisy of society will condemn Vera when, in reality, they should be thanking her for what she does and how she does it.

Deep Sea by Alejandro Amenábar

It is one of the classics of Spanish cinema and is based on a true story that moved all Spaniards. Javier Barden plays Ramón Sampedro, a man who after hitting himself with a rock in the sea remains a quadriplegic for 30 years.

Unable to bear this situation anymore, he asks his neighbor Rosa (Lola Dueñas) for help to obtain euthanasia and a lawyer who supports his cause (Belén Rueda). The film inevitably makes us question endless moral questions of our own.

The autonomy and the right to their destiny of each person must be respected, but there is no doubt that euthanasia implies an ethical dilemma depending on how and under what conditions it is done.

Psychological dramas in the cinema: mistreatment and abuse

Without a doubt, the psychological dramas that can have the most emotional impact on us are those related to abuse and mistreatment of people. They are films that show us the most terrifying face of the human being and in which we would never want to reflect ourselves.

Barry Levinson’s Sleepers

Sleepers is part of that group of films from the 90s that, without being able to be considered a masterpiece, is one of the films that always enter the pool of something impressive to see. Although it has a very tough theme, its incredible cast of actors and avoidance of easy morbid make it, so to speak, an “easy” movie to watch.

John, Lorenzo, Michael and Tommy are four friends from a New York slum. Their sole support and spiritual guide is the parish priest Robert Carrillo (Robert de Niro). Robert acts as a social worker and almost a father to the boys, who have troublesome situations at home.

One afternoon, the boys steal a heavy ice cream cart. Luck does not seem to be with them, because after not being able to contain the weight of the car, they end up dropping it down the stairs of the subway. At that moment, a man is crushed by the car before the astonished gaze of the four children. That instant, your destiny will change.

The four boys will enter a juvenile center where they will have experiences that no child should ever experience. Years later, a murder and a judicial plot will unite the four friends.

Dancing in the dark by Lars Von trier

It is very difficult for a Lars Von Trier film to leave you indifferent. Drama lover, he tries to outdo himself in the way he shoots them and in his plot.

Taking into account that the singer Björk had never acted before, the public could have doubts about the tape, since the weight of it rested almost 90% in the power of its interpretation.

Fortunately, the singer showed that she was not only especially gifted for the song, but also to perform superbly. Dancing in the dark is a story about innocence, evil and greed in equal measure that does not disappoint in its outcome.

Psychological dramas with existential content

Psychological dramas can deal with many themes at the same time, but sometimes it is the loss of the sense of existence that surrounds the film.

Roman Polanski’s The Pianist

Wladyslaw Szpilman (Adrien Brody) is a pianist for a Polish Jewish radio station who sees Warsaw gradually change as World War II begins. Szpilman is forced to enter the Warsaw ghetto, but is later separated from his family during Operation Reinhard.

From this moment until the concentration camp prisoners are released, Szpilman hides in various places among the ruins of Warsaw. During this time, we will see how the most absolute desolation rests on a man, devoid of everything that characterized him as a human being.

The pianist is a reflection on how humanity is capable of committing the worst crimes to defend itself. At the same time, it tells how a hopeless man who does not find meaning in anything in his existence can revive through a few simple piano notes.

These types of arguments allow us to learn different perspectives on a topic and discover the richness of nuances in a story. Because cinema is not only art or entertainment, but also an emotional learning workshop.