Movies to Study

A family is shattered over the daughter's forced abortion. As she rebels against her family and their traditional, authoritarian, typical-of-the-time norms, she is hospitalized and otherwise mistreated.

Sophie is the survivor of Nazi concentration camps, who has found a reason to live with Nathan, a sparkling if unsteady American Jew obsessed with the Holocaust.

A former radio DJ, suicidally despondent because of a terrible mistake he made, finds redemption in helping a deranged homeless man who was an unwitting victim of that mistake.

A withdrawn manicurist who disapproves of her sister's boyfriend sinks into depression and experiences horrific visions of violence.

When his mother, who has sheltered him his entire 40 years, dies, sensitive would-be poet Elling is sent to live in a state institution. There he meets Kjell Bjarne, a gentle giant and woman-obsessed virgin in his 40s. After two years, the men are released and provided with a state-funded apartment and stipend with the hope they will be able to live on their own. Initially, the simple act of going around the corner for groceries is a challenge. Through a friendship born of desperate dependence, the skittish Elling and the boisterous, would-be ladies' man Kjell Bjarne discover that not only can they survive on the outside--they can thrive. But as their courage grows, they find oddball ways to cope with society and strike up friendships in the unlikeliest places.

A directionless teenager, Susanna, is rushed to Claymoore, a mental institution, after a supposed suicide attempt. There, she befriends a group of troubled women who deeply influence her life.

The story of Frances Farmer's meteoric rise to fame in Hollywood and the tragic turn her life took when she was blacklisted.

Daniel - a recent university graduate with Down's Syndrome - falls in love on his first day at work in the Department of Social Services. Laura is an outsider who spends her nights in the city's crowded clubs and singles' bars, escaping her problems in the arms of total strangers. Yet despite their apparent incompatibility, the two strike up a moving, bittersweet friendship that touches them both and eventually sets them on the road to happiness.

After a selfish L.A. yuppie learns his estranged father left a fortune to an autistic-savant brother in Ohio that he didn't know existed, he absconds with his brother and sets out across the country, hoping to gain a larger inheritance.

Twelve men must decide the fate of one when one juror objects to the jury's decision.

A profile of Ian Curtis, the enigmatic singer of Joy Division whose personal, professional, and romantic troubles led him to die by suicide at the age of 23.

PROT is a patient at a mental hospital who claims to be from a faraway planet named K-PAX. His psychiatrist tries to help him, only to begin to doubt his own explanations.

After being arrested during a manic episode, a man who suffers from bipolar disorder is treated by a psychiatrist who begins to develop romantic feelings towards him.

A drug dealer introduces one of his customers, a 'speed freak', to the man who runs the meth lab. A crazy three-day adventure ensues.

Newly retired from the insurance industry, Omaha native Warren Schmidt embarks on an RV journey to his estranged daughter Jeannie's wedding in Denver Colorado, only to discover more about himself and life than he ever expected.

A timid young woman starts working for a demanding lawyer and finds a new way to deal with her self-harming urges.

The true story of two climbers and their perilous journey up the west face of Siula Grande in the Peruvian Andes in 1985.

After narrowly escaping a bizarre accident, a troubled teenager is plagued by visions of a man in a large rabbit suit who manipulates him to commit a series of crimes.

A mentally ill young woman finds her love in an eccentric man who models himself after Buster Keaton.

An F.B.I. Agent persuades a social worker, who is adept with a new experimental technology, to enter the mind of a comatose serial killer in order to learn where he has hidden his latest kidnap victim.

A teenage boy comes of age in the 1970's, sent by his neurotic, pretentious mother to live with a jolly, vulgar psychiatrist and his eccentric extended family.

A delusional young man strikes up an unconventional relationship with a doll he finds on the Internet.

Government agents come after an amnesiac woman, who gradually remembers her past.

A man who lost his family in the September 11 attack on New York City runs into his old college roommate. Rekindling the friendship is the one thing that appears able to help the man recover from his grief.

A young F.B.I. cadet must receive the help of an incarcerated and manipulative cannibal killer to help catch another serial killer, a madman who skins his victims.