With each passing day, it feels like our world gets a little stranger. News outlets continually outdo one another for head-scratching headlines; politicians routinely rip up the fabric of law and justice, natural catastrophes ravage the globe. There is very little recourse for humans to handle this, and most of us don’t have the emotional tools necessary to deal with everything that’s going on. This will lead us to a mental health crisis in time. Historians may one day look back on this moment as a harbinger for the mental health issues of generations.

The world of filmmaking – of storytelling in general – does one thing best: it holds a mirror up to our existence. It shows us as we are, tells us, “you see? This is the life you’re living”. From the darkest moments in human history to our greatest triumphs, cinema has captured it all. And what about mental health? What about one of the greatest adversaries of our generation? Cinema has captured that too, with varied results. Here, we’ll look at some of the good, the bad, and the best depictions of mental health in cinema and decide what works and what doesn’t.

Please note this list is nowhere near comprehensive and is meant to spark a conversation about mental health in films rather than provide a highly-detailed analysis of the history of mental health in cinema.

The Good

David O Russell has arguably had a pretty hit-or-miss career. There’s The Fighter, but unfortunately, there’s also I Heart Huckabees. There’s American Hustle, but unfortunately, there’s also Accidental Love. Perhaps his most successful movie to date, though, is Silver Linings Playbook. Starring Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper as two people battling with mental illness (he with bipolar disorder, she with an unspecified, unnamed affliction) who help each other recover, facing an often indifferent world together. It’s an unusually honest take on bipolar disorder, bolstered by a very game performance from Cooper, which doesn’t shirk away from the uglier side of the disease. At one point, Cooper’s character Pat becomes so distraught over an Ernest Hemingway book he throws it out of his window. His parents are perplexed as to why this has had such an effect on him, but chalk it up to illness. It’s the sort of thing you wouldn’t see addressed in a typical Hollywood movie: here is something so mundane as a book which has the potential to trigger a manic episode, and parents who don’t blithely dismiss it, or play it for laughs, but rather accept that it is the result of a disorder which needs to be addressed.

Lawrence’s character Tiffany might suffer a little from not having as much focus as Pat. Still, she nonetheless has her issues, and Lawrence typically imbues Tiffany with a realism that means she is all too relatable, even without a specific diagnosis. Tiffany bounds around the room with manic energy not uncommon in those with a borderline personality disorder. In essence, she feels too much. Too much goes in, slips past the net, which would be much bigger in a neuro-typical person. Although she has very little in the way of development – essentially acting as a foil for Pat’s development arc – she is emblematic of real people with real mental illnesses.

Silver Linings Playbook does get some well-earned criticism for its oversimplified, sometimes trite coda: that an enduring friendship and deep bond can overcome the damages and difficulties of mental illness. It’s not quite as straightforward as that, and there’s a fear that those struggling with mental illness might well forgo medication or professional help in favor of a Hollywood ending. It’s unrealistic and dangerous, but a minor issue in a film that gets a lot right.

While Silver Linings Playbook is partially a comedy, and some of its difficult mental illness moments played for laughs, Black Swan, a dark, psychological thriller by Darren Aronofsky, is the opposite. It tells the story of Nina Sayers, a professional ballerina who begins a descent into a fractured psyche through the anxiety of performance and perfection. They say the line between art and madness is often blurred, and that’s the focus here: Nina, to accurately portray the image of the seductive Black Swan, must shed her sheltered, Pollyanna-esque demeanor and embrace a world she isn’t familiar or comfortable with. This leads to some genuinely shocking moments where Nina deep dives into what appears to be a psychotic break, envisioning herself inhabiting the role of the Black Swan so completely she undergoes a metamorphosis and sprouts wings and feathers.

There’s a line of reasoning that Nina has schizophrenia, but what she manifests is closer to a psychotic break. The line between reality and fantasy is completely blurred for her. Enveloped in a highly competitive world, with a pushy director and a sexually gregarious rival who would arguably suit the role better, Nina loses her sense of self completely. With that sense of self comes the world she grew up in, the arbitrary rules which have come to help define her. An aspect of the highly competitive world Nina operates within is to perform through the pain. We see the physical aspect of this in her feet, bruised and beaten through multiple performances, but the mental side of it is also there: Nina must continue her performance despite her failing mental health. It’s an eye-opening depiction of how ultra-competitiveness can instill psychosis and incur breaks from reality and isn’t afraid to show it.

Black Swan is, unsurprisingly, given its director, an overly stylized vision of mental illness. It can be argued that its depiction of Nina’s breakdown is shown with a little too much flair; indeed, it’s wise to take the more showy aspects with a large grain of salt. Mental illness doesn’t present itself quite in as straightforward a way as Nina’s hallucinations may suggest, and perhaps a little more education on what the symptoms of psychotic breakdowns are would be advised. Still, Black Swan’s attempt to address the mental strain of highly professional performance should be commended, even if it doesn’t get everything right.

The Bad

Often in movies, mentally ill people are considered to be highly dangerous, chaotic characters who act as walking incendiary devices for plotting. Throw one of these guys into a narrative, and anything can happen. The audience watches with bated breath as they wait – with gleeful anticipation in some cases – for the character to unravel and the blood to start spilling. Nowhere, recently, is this made more apparent than in Todd Philip’s Joker. Throughout the history of comic book movies, the Joker has been seen as a magnet for artistic license and acting credentials. Jack Nicholson’s portrayal was heralded at the time as a star really letting go of the constraints of the rules of acting; Heath Ledger won an Oscar for his Joker amid theories that he went so deep into the character that it eventually killed him. Jared Leto sent his colleagues on the set of Suicide Squad live rats, bullets, used condoms, anal beads, and various other trinkets as a sign that he was taking this role Very Seriously indeed. It has felt less like a role and more an excuse to go wild as an actor.

Given all that, it’s no surprise Joaquin Phoenix was attracted to the role. Phoenix has built a reputation in Hollywood for uncompromising portrayals of mentally ill characters. A war veteran with PTSD in The Master; a traumatized, suicidal hitman in Lynne Ramsay’s You Were Never Really Here; a cripplingly anxious, depressed loner in Her – the roles stack up. He has become the go-to man for a set type of character, and he plays it well.

In the role of Arthur Fleck in Joker, he typically delivers another mesmerizing performance as an introverted loner with a medical condition who is ostracised from society and who’s mental health plummets as a result. While Joker does a good job of depicting the urgent need to make resources available to people struggling with mental health, it also enforces the damaging stereotype that mental illness equals a deranged killer. The label of ‘psychopath’ for Fleck is incredibly reductive – he is not indicative of typical psychotic behavior. Psychopathy itself – though the term is not an official disorder, but rather shorthand for antisocial personality disorder – is on a spectrum, which rums the gamut from quietly introverted and often self-harming to abrasive, high energy acts. In many cases, the one most likely to be hurt is the person suffering.

Psychopathy is also synonymous in many ways with sociopathy. They share an understanding of societal rules but a disregard for them. Psychopaths and sociopaths number among some of the highest functioning, successful people in the world. A reading of Jon Ronson’s The Psychopath Test could provide an illuminating insight into this. While you could argue that, by this definition, Arthur Fleck could be considered a psychopath, it’s really limiting the conversation about psychopathology to do so. Alongside this, Joker’s narrative is a beacon for disenfranchised young men specifically; “what do you get when you cross a mentally ill loner with a society that abandons him and treats him like trash” Fleck asks Robert DeNiro’s talk show host Murray Franklin seconds before he puts a bullet through his head on live TV, “you get what you f***ing deserve.” In a world where incel culture is rising, and disaffected young men carry automatic weapons into schools regularly to act out their frustrations, there’s an argument that Joker’s handling of mental illness only serves to glorify and canonize the young men who have acted out this very thing in real life.

The Best

There has quite simply never been a film like Inside Out. The discussion of mental health and how to take care of it is a complex, nuanced, and difficult one. Yet the Pixar film not only manages this but does so in an incredibly accessible way – encouraging young and old alike to take a look at their own mental health and how they process emotions. It’s hard to overstate just how subtly and effectively Inside Out manages this, without proselytizing to children, patronizing them, or boring them to the point they shut off without ever learning such a valuable lesson.

Inside Riley’s head are four emotions: Joy, Sadness, Anger, and Fear. They each jostle for control of Riley’s head, via a control panel and a screen through which we see Riley’s world. Things take a turn for the worst when Riley is forced to move state and school, placing her in an isolating situation at a crucial point in her development. Perhaps the most important message to come out of Inside Out is that happiness is not itself a sustainable condition, nor does it need to rely on the boundless enthusiasm of Joy to create it. Happiness, we learn throughout the movie, comes from the experience of contentment, which is coupled with an acceptance of those other emotions. Emodiversity – the ability to experience a range of emotions – is one of the keys to a healthy mind.

Inside Out teaches us that it’s okay to be sad, or angry, or fearful. Indeed there is much in the world now to be mad at, to be sad or afraid of. And that’s okay. We can all experience those emotions and accept them for what they are because we need them. Just as Joy could not have navigated Riley’s tempestuous life without Sadness’s ability to explain her problems to her dad, we as humans need sadness and anger and fear to understand ourselves in this world. So Inside Out achieves this incredible balance of showing us why all of those emotions are important, and at the same time provides an immensely pleasing visual stimulus, hilarious set pieces, and genuinely heartbreaking moments (the death of Bing Bong itself could act as a barometer for emotional cognizance) to make one of the most profoundly pleasing family films you’re ever likely to see.

Gone With The Wind. An episode of The Golden Girls. Any standup comedy in the 70s and 80s. With the radical social climate of today, people are looking at our history towards historical figures, symbols, and pop culture to see what is inappropriate by today’s standards and whether or not they should be scrubbed. Now, I’m not going to argue about cancel culture itself (I’m fundamentally opposed to it), but instead, focus on an early instance of self-censorship upon past cartoons. While live-action movies are filled with scenarios and dialogue that would not be repeated today, United Artists jumped the gun in 1968 and cut out cartoons made by Warner Brothers. Eleven animated shorts were withdrawn from being broadcast for the sole reason of using ethnic stereotypes that were already deemed offensive by modern standards at the time.

These 11 shorts were released from 1931 to 1944. Many cartoons had the occasional joke or a scene of blackface, which has only been slightly modified from its initial release. Some would argue this is being politically correct; some would argue why not take out the whole cartoon. With these 11, the same as George Carlin’s “7 Dirty Words You Can’t Say on Television,” racial themes are central to the plot that United Artists, which bought the copyright of them, saw that no minor cuts could ever make them acceptable for children’s viewing. Even in 1986, when Ted Turner bought the rights from United Artists, he also stated he would keep the eleven films away from distribution.

The Censored Eleven are the following:

• Hittin’ the Trail for Hallelujah Land (1931)
• Sunday Go To Meetin’ Time (1936)
• Clean Pastures (1937)
• Uncle Tom’s Bungalow (1937)
• Jungle Jitters (1938)
• The Isle of Pingo Pongo (1938)
• All This and Rabbit Stew (1941)
• Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs (1943)
• Tin Pan Alley Cats (1943)
• Angel Puss (1944)
• Goldilocks And The Jivin’ Bears (1944)

All of the black characters are based on stereotypes influenced by minstrel shows. Their accents, the dark skin, and the white gloves all came from it, and while the minstrel show was out by the 1930s, cartoons kept it going. Hittin’ the Trail, the only one on the list that is black-and-white, features three obvious caricatures playing a folk song on a showboat on a river and features a dog named Uncle Tom. Meetin’ Time is primarily set around a church to jazz music, and the gags include the dandy, mammy, and pickaninny, and the language mimics how Blacks were seen as how they talked. Uncle Tom’s Bungalow is a parody short of the famed novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe and making jokes around the issue of slavery was an instant red flag.

Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd were in a feature each on the list. Bugs Bunny has been in several shorts to which is very inappropriate by today’s standards. Rabbit Stew features the loveable, smart-talking rabbit is up here and on YouTube. Another short, a satire on Snow White called Coal Black, and de Sebben Dwarfs (a title which is immediately known what will happen) is arguably the most controversial and the most explicit in its racist profiling but has been defended by film historians and even African-American critics. Floyd Norman, one of the first full-time Black animators to work in a major studio, said at the time of its release that Black audiences loved it, and films of such nature shouldn’t be scrubbed out completely. Others that are considered offensive today were Other shorts not listed as part of the Censored Eleven were guilty of producing Native American stereotypes, as well as anti-Japanese cartoons during the Second World War. Down below is Tokio Jokio (that’s how it’s spelled) from Warner Brothers as an example.

At this time where many movies and TV shows are being reevaluated for past portrayals considered wrongful by today’s standards, we must understand the context of the time rather than erase them. If you watch some of these cartoons in one of the released sets, you will see a golden card in front saying what they see could be offensive to them, but won’t edit out the racist sections because doing so would effectively say racism in that time never happened. In 2005, when Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 3 was released on DVD, Whoopi Goldberg, a fan of cartoons, was on-screen with the foreword on the shorts and its content. I like what Warner Brothers did and have played it as acknowledging what they produced, but not locking it away in a vault forever. The move in 1968 was an act of self-censorship, but they can be seen today with the understanding of the context, all things in the past deserve.

Follow me on Twitter: @brian_cine (Cine-A-Man)

When people think of iconic on-screen romantic pairings, their minds tend to go to Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn or Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart. These thoughts are driven by the fact that these couples made multiple critically and commercially successful films together and were romantically involved in real life. Watching people, who are romantically involved in real-life, fall in love on screen does excite audiences as you have the thrill of wondering whether reality and fiction blurred on set. I completely understand the appeal of this sort of couple. Still, I also think that we should direct more attention to an underrated romantic pairing that achieved massive success back in the 1930s and 1940s without causing a real-life romance to occur. So, when it came to James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan, their off-screen friendship did help to stimulate their fantastic chemistry on screen. But the tension that existed as a result of Stewart’s unrequited love for her did make for a fascinating study in sexual tension and male insecurity.

The two had considerably different personalities and on-screen personas as Stewart was known as a friendly everyman who verged on being dorky at times while Sullavan was a hard-nosed firecracker who didn’t suffer fools. Stewart was unusually authentic for a Hollywood star as he didn’t adopt a stage name and retained that famed wobbly voice of his even when these choices seemed to go against the principles of the studio system. His sweetness and the fact that he wasn’t traditionally handsome initially made it difficult for him to find leading man roles in the era of the stoic Gary Cooper and the roguishly charming Clark Gable. It was Sullavan who helped to turn his career around as the two met in 1932 as part of the University Player’s Production in Cape Cod, New York City, and immediately became friends. At the time, Sullavan was married to actor Henry Fonda, who would become another lifelong friend of Stewart’s. Still, their relationship was breaking down, and she saw potential in her newfound friend. He considered quitting acting altogether when he could only find bit parts in plays that were often financially unsuccessful, but in 1935, everything changed for him when he signed a seven-year contract with MGM. At first, he didn’t flourish at the studio as he was forced into supporting parts yet again, but Sullavan’s tutelage during this period improved his acting ability, and as her star began to rise, she found herself gaining the ability to promote her friend.

By 1936 she was far more successful than Stewart as she had attracted attention from Hollywood in the early 1930s but had the confidence to reject offers from Paramount and Columbia as well as insisting that she be able to continue to work on the stage. She finally accepted an offer in 1933 from Universal Pictures and received top billing in Only Yesterday (1933) even though this was her film debut. The film was the studio’s only major success that year, and Sullavan quickly began carving out a niche as independent, plucky women who conceal their vulnerability with unexpected brusqueness. She followed up her first major success with popular films like The Good Fairy (1935) and So Red the Rose (1935), which proved that she was an asset to her studio. With this success behind her, she had more authority, and when it came time to cast her leading man in Next Time We Love (1936), she had a hand in getting Stewart cast. He had to be loaned out from MGM to appear in the film, but because his stock was low, Universal did not have much trouble borrowing him from their rival studio.

Stewart’s persona seems set in stone now as we all imagine him as a boyish, naive, impossibly kind man who is prone to quick flashes of anger during the early part of his career, but in the mid-1930s, he hadn’t quite put all of the pieces together. When you watch Small Town Girl (1936), you’re struck by the fact that he seems so much more intimidating than usual as he has a stiff gait that was presumably meant to make him seem more manly, and he doesn’t even get to show off that megawatt smile. It was his work with Sullavan that brought out the best in him as he could give up some of the unnatural affectations he had to pick up to play a variety of roles and could focus on developing the natural chemistry that existed between himself and his dear friend. He does seem to be far more comfortable and relaxed in Next Time We Love, and you do believe in his love for his co-star as he tenderly brushes tendrils of her hair away from her forehead or regards her fondly from afar. She also comes alive with him as the push-pull dynamic between the two of them plays into her strengths. She gets to smile as she revels in the power she holds over her comparatively meek love interest. But she also loves his fragility, honesty, and we sense that she would fall apart if he weren’t there to support her. It’s easy to see why people flocked to the cinema to watch the two of them fall in and out of love as there is something effortless about the way they spar with one another. To some degree, I can see why this early collaboration has been all but forgotten as their later efforts outshine it. Still, something is thrilling about watching a star come into his own, and you get to see the Stewart persona molded into near perfection here.

Unfortunately, the success of his first pairing with Sullavan was not enough to make Stewart a top star at MGM. He was miscast in the wacky B-movie Speed (1936), which failed to resonate with audiences as well as doing severe damage to his reputation. In watching the film, I realized that the studio was trying to turn him into something he was never going to be. They wanted a generic action star and didn’t appreciate the unique, gentle charm that Stewart brought to the screen. His career languished for a short period as he found himself stuck in films like 7th Heaven (1937) that weren’t suited for him, but he received praise for In Navy Blue and Gold (1937) and the following year he finally cemented himself as a leading man. It was You Can’t Take It with You (1938) that made him a bankable leading man in the eyes of studio executives as it was the fifth highest-grossing film of the year and won Best Picture. But his other 1938 roles were also significant in helping him become a box office juggernaut. While he slowly rose to the top, Sullavan was in the prime of her career, and in 1938, she had her biggest year yet as she would earn a Best Actress nomination for her performance as a tragic young prostitute who falls in love with a man and his friends in Three Comrades (1938). As both of them became famous as individual stars, it was only natural that they be cast alongside one another again.

I have to admit that The Shopworn Angel (1938) might be my least favorite of all of the films they made together as it attempts to neuter their fantastic chemistry. She plays a cynical Broadway star while he plays a starstruck young soldier who worships her even as she harshly dismisses him, but of course, they end up falling in love. Sadly I think the script hurts them here as they are left yelling at one another about minor issues. Yet, they don’t get the opportunity to explore the underlying sexual tension that exists between them. Sullavan’s character comes across as mean in this film as she has none of the redeeming features that make a lot of her other tough broads so easy to like. When she inevitably falls into Stewart’s arms, we all shrug as you end up feeling like he’s too good for her. Despite my qualms, I can’t deny the fact that the film was a financial success at the time and thank goodness for that. If it had failed, we might not have gotten the two excellent films they made together in 1940.

I must note that Stewart’s passion for Sullavan only grew more intense as they began to spend more time working together. But as she drifted from William Wyler to Leland Hayward, he remained a bachelor in the eyes of the public. It has been alleged that he had an affair with Marlene Dietrich in 1939 and accidentally impregnated her, but he was never publicly presented as a lothario in the style of Errol Flynn and was valued for his clean-cut appearance. They remained friends through all of this as well as staying close to Fonda, who continued to build model trains with Stewart while starring alongside Sullavan in several films. It may have been Sullavan’s past relationship with Fonda that kept her from pursuing Stewart or their conflicting natures, but they didn’t end up going out in real life. This didn’t mean that they weren’t friends or didn’t spend time together, but their relationship didn’t involve illicit trysts or even romantic love letters. It was a bond built on trust and admiration for one another, and this mutual respect bled over into the roles they played.

In 1940 they appeared in two classic films that never fail to make me cry. Perhaps the most significant of these was The Shop Around the Corner (1940), which is often listed as one of the greatest and most influential romantic comedies ever made. Anybody who has seen You’ve Got Mail (1998) will have a vague idea of what it’s all about, but it essentially follows two colleagues who don’t get along in person who ends up falling in love with one another via letter correspondence under different names. This is one of those great high concept premises, and Stewart and Sullavan do their absolute best to sell it as they are at their most charismatic here. I’m sure their Hungarian accents weren’t incredibly accurate, but there is a certain charm to the way that they over enunciate individual syllables. They also get to even up their dynamic here as Stewart isn’t just the dorky nice guy in this film but a complicated young man with pride who often can’t handle being challenged. Through his letters, we see the usual Stewart as he is sweet and caring to a fault, but when he’s at work, he can be cruel and unkind. The two of them seem to be enjoying the hell out of themselves as they lob insults back and forth, and Sullavan is radiant when she gets particularly mad at Stewart in certain scenes. I also found myself touched by the fact that so much of the romance is built on a foundation of trust and respect that often comes from friendship, not romance. You believe Stewart and Sullavan as colleagues because they had worked alongside one another for so many years, so their banter at work feels honest and lived in. If you don’t cry at the end, I think you might be heartless, and most of that’s down to the lovability of the two leading actors and the desperation with which we want to see them united.

The other, less famous film they appeared in together that year was The Mortal Storm (1940), which was one of the earliest anti-Nazi movies produced in Hollywood. Their chemistry is just as intense here, but there is more emotional and sexual repression going on as most of their big moments together involve a gaze held for just a moment too long or a brush of fingertips. Sullavan is at her feistiest, but Stewart develops righteous anger as the film goes along, and when Sullavan’s character dies, you feel Stewart’s horror. He holds her like she’s the most precious thing in the world, but he also seems respectful of her, and she looks at him without a hint of the cynicism she directs at other things. As a pair, they can make the audience invest in the relationship between their characters as well as bringing even the most jaded moviegoer to tears, and it’s utterly magical.

It’s a shame that their careers went in separate directions after this banner year as Stewart won Best Actor at the Academy Awards for The Philadelphia Story (1940) and was a durable leading man for the next twenty years while Sullavan’s career slowed down. She stepped away from making films in 1943 to raise her children and chose to do stage work in the 1950s, but her mental health began to deteriorate. Her relationship with Hayward had been turbulent for a long time, but when he started a serious extramarital affair with Slim Hawks in 1947, she filed for divorce. This put a severe strain on her as she found herself trying to care for three children on her own, and she claimed that her ex-husband was trying to get them to turn against her. In a memoir entitled “Haywire,” her daughter Brooke wrote about her mother’s tragic mental breakdown in 1955, which was driven by the knowledge that her children were abandoning her. They wanted to stay with their father permanently, and Sullavan was afraid of being alone. She spent a large part of the last years of her life in mental institutions before dying in 1960 as the result of an accidental overdose. Sullavan never made another film with Stewart during her lifetime, although the two remained friends. As the years passed, he solidified his status as a screen icon while she became less and less relevant. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and a place in the American Theatre Hall of Fame, but Stewart is ranked third on AFI’s 100 Years…100 Stars list and has far more name recognition with people today than Sullavan.

One wonders whether we might have gotten another classic film if they had collaborated again. Still, the four films they made together serve as evidence of their remarkable chemistry, and I would encourage everybody to appreciate the beautiful love stories they brought to life on screen.