Background: Psychiatry has been represented in films since the beginning of the 7th art. Many of the films aim to render mental suffering more understandable and to advocate for more humane treatment. Films can be used as an interesting teaching tool in medical education, making learning fun and enjoyable, while promoting motivation and learning effectiveness. This study examines the relevance of mainstream films for teaching psychiatric diagnostic criteria.

Methods: A university course on psychopathology and social representations of psychiatry in cinema was created. The course is structured in ten sessions, each based on a film dealing with a specific disorder, allowing students to gain a comprehensive overview of the main psychiatric disorders. During the session, after watching a film, participants rate the character depicted in the movie according to DSM-5 criteria and evaluate their ability to recognise typical symptoms of the specific psychiatric disorder, the film’s ability to depict the key elements of this disorder, and how easily they relate and empathise with characters suffering from the presented disorder.

Results: Self-perceived ability at the beginning of the session, the percentage of symptoms exhibited and the possibility to empathise are positively associated with self-perceived ability at the end of the session, whereas the movie quality as measured by the IMDb score was not statistically associated. Furthermore, the ability to feel confident in recognising the symptoms increased over the course of the sessions.

Conclusions: The present study demonstrated the feasibility of implementing a structured course in psychiatry based on movies. It shows that cinema is a suitable instrument to teach psychopathology.