#10 - One Flew Over The Cucoo's Nest

The first movie since It Happened One Night to win all five major Academy Awards (picture, director, actor, actress, screenplay), Cuckoo's Nest still has the ability to entertain and inspire. Implacable rabble-rouser Randle Patrick McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) is committed to an asylum and inspires his fellow patients to rebel against the authoritarian rule of head nurse Mildred Ratched (Louise Fletcher).


Relation to PSY-201: Jack Nicholson is declared insane. (Chapter 12, Psychological Disorders)

#9 - Girl, Interupted

Diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, Susanna Kaysen (Winona Ryder) gets sent to a mental institution for a short stay. Instead, Susanna spends the next year avoiding her fears, descending into the skewed world of people who belong on the inside -- including the seductive, dangerous Lisa (Oscar winner Angelina Jolie). If Susanna wants independence, she must face her fears. An evocative drama based on a true story.


Relation to PSY-201: Winona Ryder has depression and personality disorder. (Chapter 12, Psychological Disorders)Angelina Jolie is a sociopath. And Brittany Murphy suffers from anorexia.(Chapter 8, Motivation and Emotion)

#8 - Analyze This/ Analyze That

Analyze This-
Countless wiseguy films are spoofed in this Golden Globe-nominated comedy from director Harold Ramis that centers on the neuroses and angst of a powerful Mafia racketeer who suffers from panic attacks. When Paul Vitti (Robert De Niro) needs help dealing with his role in the "family," unlucky shrink Dr. Ben Sobel (Billy Crystal) is given just days to resolve Vitti's emotional crisis and turn him into a happy, well-adjusted gangster.

Analyze That-
Mafioso Paul Vitti (Robert De Niro) is released into the custody of his overworked psychiatrist Ben Sobel (Billy Crystal), much to the dismay of the doctor's wife (Lisa Kudrow). Despite Ben's attempts to help Paul get a legitimate job, sort out his life and stick to the straight and narrow, Paul's old mob buddies are after him. In a bind, Ben must try some unconventional techniques to sort things out in director Harold Ramis's comedic sequel.


Relation to PSY-201: Billy Crystal is a psychiatrist that tries to help De Niro with his panic attacks. (Chapter 10, Health, Stress, and Coping)

#7 - Office Space

In a film that takes plenty of jabs at the nihilism of corporate life, Ron Livingston plays office drone Peter Gibbons, who conspires with his cubicle cohorts to embezzle money from their soulless employers. With help and hindrance from those around him -- including the eminently quotable workplace nerd Milton Waddams (Stephen Root) -- and the affection of waitress Joanna (Jennifer Aniston), Gibbons may just find his sanity … and his revenge.


Relation to PSY-201: Ron Livingston visits a hypnotherapist, who dies just after hypnotizing him. (Chapter 4, Consciousness)

#6 - Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind

This offbeat romantic comedy (which won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay) stars Jim Carrey as Joel, who opts for a procedure in which memories of his girlfriend, Clementine (Kate Winslet), are erased after he learns she's already had the surgery done. But as his doctor begins to wipe out traces of Clementine, Joel decides he doesn't want to lose what's left of their relationship, so he squirrels away the memories somewhere else in his brain.

Relation to PSY-201: The characters pay to have their memories erased. Talks about long and short term memory.(Chapter 6, Memory)

#5 - Secret Window

Mort Rainey (Johnny Depp), a writer just emerging from a painful divorce with his ex-wife, Amy (Maria Bello), is stalked at his remote lake house by a psychotic stranger and would-be scribe (John Turturro). Seems that Mort might have swiped his best story idea from the stalker … and that's a no-no! Based on the novella by horrormeister Stephen King, the movie is written and directed by David Koepp.


Relation to PSY-201: Johnny Depp’s character suffers from schizophrenia. (Chapter 12, Psychological Disorders)

#4 - Rain Man

Fast-talking yuppie Charlie Babbitt (Tom Cruise) learns the lesson of a lifetime when he meets a brother he never knew he had. Raymond Babbitt (Oscar-winner Dustin Hoffman) is an autistic savant who has spent most of his life in an institution. But when their father leaves his fortune to Raymond, Charlie takes his unusual older brother on a cross-country odyssey neither will forget. Other Oscars include Best Picture.


Relation to Psy-201: Dustin Hoffman’s character is autistic.(movie mentioned by name in Chapter 1, Autism disscussed in Chapters 2 and 12)

#3 - A Beautiful Mind

John Forbes Nash Jr. (Russell Crowe) was a brilliant economist -- when his mind was clear. But life changed forever with the revelation that he was a schizophrenic. Nash's brilliance persisted amidst the anguish his mental illness caused for him and his wife (Jennifer Connolly), and 40 years after his diagnosis, he won the Nobel Prize for economics. Connolly's acting and Ron Howard's direction won Oscars, and the film was named Best Picture.


Relation to Psy-201: As stated here Russell crow’s character is schizophrenic. (Chapter 12, Psychological Disorders)

#2 - Fight Club

When corporate drone Edward Norton can't sleep, his insomnia leads him to take desperate measures and introduces him to roguish rebel Brad Pitt. Together they stage impromptu (and brutal) parking lot boxing matches. But when other men join in the "fun," Pitt transforms the club from a group of men rebelling against conformity into a nihilistic cult of pranksters with greater malice in store.



Relation to Psy-201: The main character played by Edward Norton has Dissociative Identity Disorder (Chapter 12, Psychological Disorders), one of his alter personalities is the character played by Brad Pitt.

#1 - Donnie Darko

Donnie Darko gets along badly with his family, with his teachers and with his classmates; but he does manage to find a sympathetic friend in Gretchen, who agrees to date him; and he has a compassionate psychiatrist, who discovers hypnosis is the means to unlock hidden secrets. His other companion may not be a true ally. Donnie has a friend named Frank, who is either a large purple bunny, or man in a large purple bunny costume. Either way, Donnie is the only one who can see him. When an engine falls off a plane and destroys his room, Donnie is not there. Both the event, and Donnie's escape, seem to have been caused by supernatural events. Donnie's mental illness, if such it is, may never allow him to find out for sure.



Relation to PSY-201: Donnie Darko is a paranoid schizophrenic. (Chapter 12, Psychological Disorders) He also sleepwalks and is hypnotized. (Chapter 4, Consciousness)