Health-related movies cover a range of topics, including mental health, public health crises, and personal battles with chronic illness. Examples include dramas like A Beautiful Mind and The Fault in Our Stars, documentaries such as Sicko and Forks Over Knives, and movies focusing on infectious diseases like Contagion.
This website has been assembled to help medical students learn about public health from movies (commercially-released feature films). These movies were identified through a selection process that considered public health issues and also entertainment value (ie, nearly all have a score of ≥ 7/10 on the “Rotten Tomatoes” website). DVDs of all these movies are available for free for students and staff from the library at the University of O tago, Wellington.
The 35 top-ranked public health related movies (grouped by subject area)
Infectious diseases and pandemics:
And the Band Played On (1993)
Contagion (2011)
How to Survive a Plague (2012)
Milk (2008)
Miss Evers' Boys (1997)
Nutrition and food systems:
Fed Up (2014)
Food, Inc. (2008)
King Corn (2007)
Super Size Me (2004)
Climate change and energy:
Carbon Nation (2010)
Chasing Ice (2012)
Climate Change (2006)
Hot Air (2014)
An Inconvenient Truth (2006)
Who Killed the Electric Car? (2006)
Healthcare systems:
Living in emergency: Stories of Doctors Without Borders (2008)
Sicko (2007)
Tobacco control:
The Insider (1999)
Bright Leaves (2004)
Public policy / corporate power:
Amazing Grace (2006)
Bowling for Columbine (2002)
The Corporation (2004)
The Yes Men (2004)
Environmental health:
A Civil Action (1998)
The Cove (2009)
Erin Brockovich (2000)
Michael Clayton (2007)
Developing countries:
Born into Brothels (2004)
The Constant Gardener (2005)
Darwin's Nightmare (2004)
The Motorcycle Diaries (2004)
Workingman's Death (2005)
Other eg:
Homelessness: Dark Days (2000)
Nuclear disarmament: Countdown to Zero (2010)
Illicit drug policy: Traffic (2000)
Mental and emotional health
A Beautiful Mind: A biopic about Nobel laureate John Nash, who lived with paranoid schizophrenia.
Girl, Interrupted: A drama about a young woman in a 1960s psychiatric hospital.
Silver Linings Playbook: A film about a man with bipolar disorder who forms a relationship with a grieving woman.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower: Explores a teenager's struggles with mental health, including trauma from his past.
Wit: A television movie about a literature professor who is diagnosed with stage IV ovarian cancer.
Public and infectious diseases
Contagion: A thriller depicting the rapid spread of a deadly virus and the global response to it.
Outbreak: A fictional story about a team of experts who must contain a deadly virus.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks: A TV movie about the woman whose cells were taken without her knowledge and became a cornerstone of medical research.
How to Survive a Plague: A documentary about the early years of the AIDS epidemic and the activists who fought for attention and research.
Chronic and physical illnesses
The Fault in Our Stars: Follows two teenagers with cancer who fall in love.
Awakenings: A film about a neurologist who discovers a way to wake catatonic patients in the 1960s.
The Theory of Everything: A biographical film about Stephen Hawking's life with ALS.
Concussion: Based on the true story of a forensic pathologist who discovered a link between football and brain damage in players.
Health and wellness documentaries
Sicko: Michael Moore's documentary critiquing the American healthcare system.
Forks Over Knives: Explores the link between diet and disease, and the benefits of a plant-based diet.
Food, Inc.: A documentary about the industrial food industry.
Super Size Me: A man eats only McDonald's fast food for a month to see the effects on his body.
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