Depression is probably the best known psychological disorder in popular culture, so it’s not surprising that there are plenty of books, plays and films in which the main character or one of the characters is experiencing this problem.

Next we will see 20 well known films about depression , in which either the protagonist is deeply depressed or this disorder is approached from a comical but rigorous approach.

20 films on depression

Here you will find several films that deal with the subject of depression, without gutting the ending.

1. The Skeleton Twins (2014), by Craig Johnson

This film tackles the subject of depression from a somewhat light and comical perspective, but no less dramatic or profound. It explores the vital tragedy of two twin brothers, through the “sassy” humor and the tenderness that unites them.

Milo (Bill Hader) writes a suicide note and slits his wrists while his sister Maggie (Kristen Wiig) tries to kill herself by swallowing pills in her bathroom at home.

However, Maggie stops her suicide attempt when she receives a call from the hospital telling her that her brother has attempted suicide. She then decides to abort her plan and prevent her brother, who had the same goal as her, from committing it.

They decide to go and live together and, in living together, they begin to remember difficult moments in their lives, those that have led them to the situation they have had to live through.

2. Cake: a reason to live (2014), by Daniel Barnz

Claire Bennet (Jennifer Aniston) is having a hard time in her life. Not only is she suffering from depression, but she is also in chronic pain, the result of an accident in which her beloved son died.

On top of that, while in the support group, one of the girls who went to it ended up taking her own life. This motivates her to try and kill herself too.

However, the memory of the girl in the support group helps her to realise her reality , preventing her from committing the act and becoming more aware of the course of her own existence.

The film also addresses, perhaps in a very subtle way, the problem of addiction to drugs such as antidepressants and painkillers. They relieve pain in a timely manner, but do not offer the complex advantages that psychotherapy does.

3. Sylvia (2003), by Christine Jeffs

The film talks about the last five years of the poet Sylvia Plath (Gwyneth Paltrow). The writer suffers from depression, and her constant struggle to keep her life afloat ends up dragging her into the darkest of abysses.

It shows the life of a woman caught up in anxiety, the sadness every day clouding her judgment. Her husband, Ted Hughes, ends up making everything bad explode in the form of the worst possible ending.

4. Helen (2009), by Sandra Nettelbeck

It is, perhaps, one of the best films that exposes what depression is: a mood disorder, a serious problem to which attention and understanding must be paid .

Helen Leonard (Ashley Hudd) is a music teacher and a great pianist who seems to be successful in her life. However, depression has taken over her life, and she is living in a deep malaise.

She wants to know why she is like this, but she can’t find it, which makes her anguish even greater. To combat the feeling, he tries to hold on to his family and his students , but he doesn’t succeed and each failed attempt makes him more separated from the world.

The role played by Ashley Hudd manages to generate some antipathy towards the character, far from the sympathy she tries to gain by clinging to families and students. This is very interesting, since it shows us what many depressed people, anxious to find something that unites them to the world, end up causing the rejection of their closest circle, something that sinks them even more.

5. An Angel at My Table (1990), by Jane Campion

Narrates the life of writer Janet Frame (Kerry Fox), who was born into a poor family . Her childhood was marked by various tragedies and very soon Janet began to feel different from others.

He would later manage to enter university to study teaching, but while there he tried to commit suicide. This led to her being held for years in a psychiatric hospital, where she was diagnosed with schizophrenia and given electroconvulsive therapy.

Because she wrote her first book, which won an award, Janet Frame was saved from being lobotomized. She managed to get out of the psychiatric ward and continued to write , having a brilliant career, although depression would not leave her.

6. The Beaver (2011), by Jodie Foster

The main character, played by Mel Gibson, is a family man who is on the verge of bankruptcy. Because of this he suffers from a deep depression, which affects his family relationships and puts him on the verge of divorce .

He tries to take his own life several times, but enters a state similar to dissociative identity disorder. Although to some degree funny, he picks up a beaver puppet and starts talking through it.

The beaver acts as a defense mechanism to relieve you of depression. With the dummy he finds the strength to cope with life, and if, through some carelessness, he does not have the beaver in his hand, the depression returns to him.

7. Ordinary People (1980), by Robert Redford

It tells the story of a typical average family, with two children but, unfortunately, one of them dies in an accident. The other child experiences a great sense of guilt, which leads to depression and a suicide attempt.

The young survivor (Timothy Hutton) suffers from the indifference of his mother (Mary Tyler), who reproaches him for having survived his brother, whom she loved more , along with the false joy of his father (Donald Sutherland).

8. Prozac Nation (2001) by Erik Skjoldbærg

This film is an adaptation of the book with the same name , written by the journalist Elizabeth Lee Wurtzel, played by Christina Ricci. In it, she describes her time in the Great Depression.

The film gives a pretty good explanation of what this disorder is, the problems faced by those who suffer from it and also those who are at its side.

9. The Hours (2002), by Stephen Daldry

This film talks about the lives of three women who, although they are not significantly related nor do they know each other, in fact, they do not even live at the same time , they have in common that they are connected through a novel by Virginia Woolf.

Especially interesting is the case of one of the women, played by Julianne Moore, who is a typical lady of the sixties with a husband and son who, supposedly, lives happily, until she commits a suicide attempt and uncovers her discomfort.

Nicole Kidman gives life to Virginia Woolf, a writer who suffered from bipolar disorder. In addition, her relationship with her husband shows that on many occasions, family members, far from helping, hinder the therapeutic process due to their limited knowledge of what is going on.

10. About Schmidt (2002), Alexander Payne

Jack Nicholson interprets the life of an old man who has just retired . The film shows us what happens to many people who, after years of working, find themselves in old age and are disoriented by the loss of short-term objectives and schedules.

He could live his retirement happily with his wife, but she suddenly dies, leaving him alone. He tries to get help from his daughter, but she doesn’t pay much attention to him.

While he doesn’t talk about depression in a sad, bitter way, in fact, he uses a lot of sarcasm and sympathetic comments, but he does make sense of what this means in old age, especially when he’s alone.

11. Revolutionary Road (2008), by Justin Haythe

Frank (Leonardo DiCaprio) and April Wheeler (Kate Winslet) find themselves in an unsatisfied marriage that does not conform to the conformist way of thinking of society .

The story takes place in the 1950s and tells how the lives of both spouses are different. She, with a lot of energy, is full of dreams, while he prefers to go the easy and safe way, without being too much of a dreamer.

Despite having everything that a family of the time would want, such as a nice house, a safe and well-established routine, the fact that she cannot fulfill her dreams leaves her trapped in a deep depression.

12. A Single Man (2009), by Tom Ford

The film is set in the 1960s, in Southern California. A homosexual university professor (Colin Firth) has to face a sudden misfortune: the death of his partner , with whom he has been sharing his life for the last twenty years.

The film begins on the day the protagonist decides to end his life. Throughout the film he gives us an insight into how depressed people feel.

13. Interiors (1978), by Woody Allen

It is a film that, besides explaining what depression is and the distorted world that the depressed person ends up perceiving , talks about the conflicts that can develop in our relationship with other loved ones.

The name of the film is not random. It contrasts very strongly the meaning of the internal spaces with the external ones.

The film tells the story of three sisters, played by Diane Keaton, Geraldine Page, Kristin Griffith, who live with their mother, who is going through a difficult time after her divorce.

One of the sisters, Eve (Geraldine Page), is an emotionally unstable interior decorator who is suffering from severe depression. She receives a note that her husband wants a divorce, putting her on the brink of suicide.

To make matters worse, his father ends up showing up at the house with a new woman, whom he intends to marry.

14. Melancholy (2011), by Lars von Trier

It is a science fiction film, which takes place in a context of uncertainty and anxiety in an apocalyptic world .

The first half of the film talks about the unstable and depressed Justine (Kirsten Dunst), on her wedding day. The second half talks about her sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg).

In this film, Lars von Trier shows a representation of what happened to him when he suffered from depression. People are constantly feeling apathetic and sad, which makes them calm in disastrous situations, not because they have a high emotional stability, but because they are unmoved by chaos.

15. How Beautiful It Is to Live (1946), by Frank Capra

This is probably the most classic film that deals in depth with depression.

George Bailey (James Stewart) is a man who has sacrificed his dreams and ambitions to help those in need. However, despite having a big heart, his altruism has not brought him happiness , on the contrary, depression and loneliness.

The film begins with how George is trying to jump off a bridge. But his prayers reach heaven and an angel, Clarence Odbody, is assigned to save him. The angel flashbacks George’s life to find out the root of his depression.

16. The Suicidal Virgins (1999), by Sofia Coppola

This is Sofia Coppola’s first film , based on the novel by Jeffrey Eugenides, which talks about the life of five sisters in the seventies.

The family lives in apparent harmony until one of them, the younger sister Cecilia, takes her own life.

17. The Tenenbaums. A Family of Geniuses (2001), by Wes Anderson

Royal Tenenbaum (Gene Hackman) and his wife Etheline (Anjelica Huston) have separated. Their three children, who have brilliant careers, return home for a while because their father has announced that he is terminally ill .

The memories of the three brothers are bitter, since they remember that many misfortunes and misfortunes are related to their father, who is considered the main responsible for their misfortunes.

18. The Apartment (1960), by Billy Wilder

The film is about the life of an ambitious insurance salesman who lives in a not very unusual apartment, but occasionally lends his bosses to make their love escapes.

The protagonist hopes that these favours he does for his bosses will help him to climb the steps of the company , but things get very twisted when he ends up falling in love with the elevator operator, who happens to be one of the bosses’ lovers.

19. Little Miss Sunshine (2006), by Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton

Olive dreams of winning the beauty contest. To fulfill her dream, her entire family travels to take the little girl to the contest, which is held in California.

During the journey, we discover that it is not a family at all functional : mom, neurotic; dad, a failure; the uncle tries to commit suicide after being abandoned by his boyfriend and the brother is a follower of Nietzsche and has decided to make a vow of silence.

20. Side Effects (2013), by Steven Soderbergh

The film talks about the world of psychopharmacology . Emily (Rooney Mara) is a young woman who has become addicted to an anxiolytic drug prescribed by her psychiatrist (Jude Law), since her husband is soon to be released from prison, which causes her profound discomfort.