5 Best Movies to Learn About Psychology
There is nothing more fascinating than the human mind. We all want to know what is going on in the head of our opponent so; we can find a way to manipulate them. Even if you do not aim to manipulate anyone, you still want to know how the human mind works. As enticing as this curiosity might be, not everyone can enroll in a psychology degree, so; people end up watching movies and TV series for understanding the human mind. Most of these movies have psychological thriller aspects for the sake of engagement to ensure that the viewer gets to enjoy it as entertainment.
So far, psychological thrillers are one of the most loved entertainment genres, that is the reason you will see a lot of movies, docu-series, and TV series based on this theme. To gate-keep these gems, these movies and series are released by independent production houses with limited distribution rights or they are sold to online content streaming sites with exclusive rights.
This limits their availability making it difficult for viewers to watch them all in one go. For easy streaming with no snag, we recommend a good cable TV service like Optimum. With the on-demand title streaming feature and built-in content streaming sites, you can have access to the best psychological movie collection without paying extra. For details about the bundle, click here.
5 Best Movies to Learn About Psychology
Psychology is so far one of the most sought-after and yet most controversial subjects. To make their productions more profitable, production companies tend to exaggerate concepts in order to monetize them.
However, here are some of the best movies for psychology students who just want to know about the concepts without any fringe of lies and fiction added.
- Stanford Prison Experiment
Release: 2015
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Available on: Prime Video, Netflix Apple TV
Runtime: 2hr 2min
Theme: The movie is based on the Stanford prison experiment or commonly known as the Zimbardo prison experiment
Synopsis: A psychology professor hires his students to make them participate in one of the most controversial experiments in the field of psychology, raising questions about the vile human nature.
As a psychology student, this is one of the most quoted and renowned experiments so far. The prison experiment explores the impact of society, peer pressure, and role assignment on the status quo. The story revolves around the participants in the experiment who were assigned pseudo roles but later they took over their roles so, seriously that it pushed them into the status quo leading to serious results.
- Experimenter
Release: 2015
Genre: Drama, History
Available on: Prime Video, Vudu, and Apple TV
Runtime: 1hr 38min
Theme: The movie is based on the milligram experiment or commonly known as the conformity in a group experiment
Synopsis: A man ready to take every step to explore the conformity principle ends up designing one of the most dangerous experiments that raise questions on safety and authenticity.
The experimenter is based on the Milligram Experiment which explores the idea of obedience in people when they are assigned roles. Even without evident peer pressure, when people are asked to do something polity, most people will be willing to do vile things to others just for the sake of proving themselves and avoiding serious consequences in their personal life.
- A Dangerous Method
Release: 2011
Genre: Drama, Romance
Available on: Amazon Instant Video, Google Play, and Vudu
Runtime: 1hr 39min
Theme: The movie is based on the tangled and controversial relationship between two of the most influential and brilliant minds in the field of psychology.
Synopsis: Two of the most influential men in the psychology field experience a cross-over to build a beautiful friendship only to experience a fallout when their friendship is plagued by ego.
As a psychology student, Segment Freud is one of the most known names in the field of psychology. The man is known for his exceptional vision and remarkable work. The second most known name in psychology and especially in the field of psychoanalytic is Carl Jung. However, most people do not know that both men once shared a very beautiful friendship regardless of their age difference.
The movie explores the controversial friendship between the two biggest names in psychology. The movie further explores how the fallout of their friendship gave rise to another branch of analytical psychology.
- Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile
Release: 2019
Genre: Crime, Criminal justice, forensics
Available on: Netflix
Runtime: 1hr 50min
Theme: The movie is based on the real-life serial criminal Ted Bundy who was also known as the handsome killer
Synopsis: A man driven by his passion for killing devises a devious plan to lure in women, gets into a relationship with them, kills them, and replaces them with a new victim.
The movie is a forensic and criminal justice masterpiece. Although it seems like a simple story if you step into details you will explore multiple psychological themes like the Halo affect or Horn effect. The story plays with a basic serial killer theme while offering a true crime story as an example. This case study is taught to almost every psychology student in criminal and forensic psychology subjects.
- Primal Fear
Release: 1996
Genre: Thriller, Crime, Criminal Justice
Available on: Netflix
Runtime: 2hr 10min
Theme: The movie explores one of the most controversial disorders known in psychology. It portrays split personality also known as multiple personality disorder
Synopsis: A young altar boy ends up in jail because of a murder accusation; the situation takes an interesting turn when the altar boy's case is accepted by one of the most famous lawyers.
Primal fear is one of the most exceptional yet simple and plausible stories about split personality disorder. While other movies complicate the story; this is an easy-to-follow story with no exaggeration. The movie explores the theme of diagnosis and wrong identification of disorders because of the lack of authentic diagnostic tests. Moreover, most psychological disorders do not have a comprehensive test that can offer an authentic result.
Bottom Line
Most movies based on psychology mainly explore disorders but while exploring these themes, writers take leverage and add some fiction as well. Either most of the psychological symptoms are exaggerated or they are represented based on the understanding of the writer. However, the above-mentioned movies are based on real-life events with no exaggeration.
Print this Article
