We all know the name: Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis. Born in 1856, this man made such significant contributions to psychiatry that even people who don’t study human behavior know his name. That includes expressions, such as the “Freudian slip” or “The Oedipus Complex,” that wouldn’t be here without him. He explained human behavior using the nature of the unconscious, the hidden mental processes that are so difficult to detect that he came up with a method of therapy to help people become more aware of them. Among other things, Freud came up with a three-part model for the unconscious which popular culture adopted and still often uses today: the id (our basest instincts), the superego (internalized societal expectations), and the ego (the conscious self trying to reconcile the other two).
Of course, not everything Freud did has been met with universal praise. The Oedipus complex (having a sexual desire for the parent of the opposite sex while developing a hatred of the parent of the same sex), for instance, doesn’t have the same amount of influence it used to. That said, this and so many of Freud’s other ideas have become so ingrained in Western culture that it’s easy to find this man’s influence in literature and film. So, let’s have a little fun and ask which movies would get this intellectual titan’s stamp of approval. Of course, we can’t know for sure what Freud would actually say in response to these films, but we have enough information about his theories to speculate on a superficial level. The following movies explore at least one idea that Freud pioneered, or at least are told in such a way that Freud would probably read them in a way that aligns with at least one of his famous theories.
1
‘Back to the Future’ (1985)
Let’s start with a fun one: Back to the Future. Marty (Michael J. Fox) is sent back thirty years into the past, where he accidentally gets hit by a car that his father George (Crispin Glover) was supposed to get hit by. Now Marty’s future mother (Lea Thompson) is in love with Marty, and he’s got to change that pronto. There’s no doubt about what Freud would say about this plot line: he would go straight to the Oedipus complex.
While Marty doesn’t play along with his teenage mother’s flirting, the scene when they first meet consistently uses sexual tension for humor. He’s frightened by how young (and attractive) she is, and she literally took off his pants while he was sleeping (which had no medical basis whatsoever). Thus, Freud would probably say that this is essential for Marty’s development; he must overcome his subconscious desire for his mother and build a sturdier relationship with his father. Throughout the movie, Marty indeed helps his future father stand up for himself and asks out Lorraine. Thank goodness the movie doesn’t say this was all a dream.
2
‘Psycho’ (1960)
Mommy-issues get much more severe in Alfred Hitchcock‘s Psycho, in which Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) creeps us out pretty quickly. When the man says, “A boy’s best friend is his mother,” it feels like an unusual claim in general. Freud would home in on how a grown man refers to himself as a “boy,” suggesting that he’s still in the phallic stage of the child’s early psychological development. There’s also Norman’s mother’s verbal abuse, making theirs a codependent relationship that gets complicated further by the movie’s classic twist.
Norman also brings up how he was born into his own private trap. Worse, he tells Marion (Janet Leigh) that “a son is a poor substitute for a lover.” So much to unpack here, but again: the Oedipus complex. Meanwhile, there are other things to note—from the trauma of a child losing his father at such a young age to the trauma of a mother losing two husbands. Freud took after Josef Breuer‘s lead and further developed the idea that trauma can affect people later in life. In summary, he’d have a lot to say about Psycho.
3
‘Raging Bull’ (1980)
You can’t find a better example of the “Madonna-mistress Complex” than in what is perhaps Martin Scorsese’s most intense masterpiece, Raging Bull. Jake LaMotta (Robert De Niro) plays a man who is so insecure and immature that he loses respect for any woman who he would deem to share his bed. At first, he sees Vickie (Cathy Moriarty) as pure, a (very) young girl that he feels strongly attracted to. By the time they’re married, though, he convinces himself that she’s sleeping around. His jealousy and rage perfectly encapsulate several hallmarks of toxic masculinity.
The Madonna-mistress complex was coined by Freud to describe men who can only understand a woman in one of two ways: an innocent and motherly figure of love, or a promiscuous object of desire. To bring things back to the mother-son conflict, guys like this can’t handle the feeling of loving a woman while being sexually attracted to her. A man who thinks like this can be found in movies other than Raging Bull, but this film reduces the phenomenon to its essence.
4
‘Fight Club’ (1999)
More toxic masculinity can be found in Fight Club, a story about a bunch of guys who secretly and periodically beat each other up in a dark basement. Two guys fight at a time—no shirts, no shoes, and for no reason except to feel alive. Freud would probably look at this and bring up the id, our most fundamental human desires that the superego is supposed to combat. Technically, there are rules in fight club, so there is something of a societal dimension here. But it’s still based on the release of fundamental, instinctual pleasures.
When it’s revealed the protagonist has an alarming psychological disorder, that’s definitely something that would pique Freud’s interest. From a very basic understanding of his work, he would probably say there is a severe imbalance of the id, ego, and superego. It doesn’t take the father of talking therapy to know someone needs some psychoanalysis, as the main character of this movie has been repressing some pretty strong feelings for way too long.
5
‘A Clockwork Orange’ (1971)
Another method of halting certain unwanted behaviors would be suppression, and Stanley Kubrick‘s A Clockwork Orange proves an unforgettable satirical masterpiece that tackles an extreme version of suppression. What if someone’s cruelest instincts—and, in fact, any instinct to harm another physically—could be stopped in its tracks? When violent criminal Alex (Malcolm McDowell) gets injected with an experimental serum and repeatedly forced to watch horrible things while listening to Beethoven, his body becomes literally incapable of acting on his base impulses.
It’s as if any indulgence of the id makes Alex physically ill. This is heralded as a revelation in the setting’s futuristic medical community, but free will shall not be contained! After getting tortured by those he’s wronged in the past (he couldn’t defend himself), Alex’s old mentality returns. It was a good try, but it just goes to show that balancing the tripartite structure of the mind (as Freud would recommend) is a wiser approach than such extreme suppression.
6
‘Eyes Wide Shut’ (1999)
Who needs fight clubs and medicine when you’re rich and powerful enough to have extravagant sex orgies? Kubrick’s swan song Eyes Wide Shut is most famous for its middle section, but most of it is just following a guy who’s tempted again and again to cheat on his wife. After Mrs. Harford (Nicole Kidman) tells him about a fantasy she had about another man, Bill Harford (Tom Cruise) goes on an eerie, occasionally horny odyssey through New York City and its outskirts.
This entire movie is built on sexual suppression, which Freud would be quick to praise. From the various women who seem to invite Dr. Harford into physical intimacy (without any actual sex resulting) to his jealousy and guilt, Eyes Wide Shut feels like a largely quiet (except when it’s not) meditation on desire and romantic loyalty. Not to mention power, and the degree to which one can indulge their fantasies once they’re of a certain status.
7
‘The Silence of the Lambs’ (1991)
How can we write about Sigmund Freud without including cinema’s most famous psychoanalyst? Played by Anthony Hopkins, Dr. Hannibal Lecter is the most arresting character in one of the most fascinating horror movies of all time: The Silence of the Lambs. The man is so perceptive that he can tell what kinds of products someone uses just from smelling them. But he also analyzes Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) on the spot, making fun of her accent and apparent upbringing on their very first meeting.
He even insists on having Agent Starling provide him with information about herself as the investigation goes on. He wants to understand her better, dig into her psyche. Their conversation about Clarice running away from home almost feels like a therapy session, and one imagines that Freud would see it that way, too. There is also the analysis of Buffalo Bill (Ted Levine) and Lecter’s insights about human nature, which are intriguing even for those who don’t study psychology.
8
‘Good Will Hunting’ (1997)
A less ominous depiction of therapy can be found in Good Will Hunting. Though Freud might have been insulted by Will’s (Matt Damon) mockery of the profession at the beginning of the film, he would likely also take this aggressively defensive posture as further proof that the character needs therapy. Sean (Robin Williams) uses a much more informal and conversational style to get through to Will, opening up about himself in the process.
While Freud’s notion of analysis was having the therapist in a much more detached posture than the one that Sean employs, he would at least find this different style interesting. In any case, the movie is very much a proponent of getting help to understand the unconscious machinations that dictate one’s behavior. By the time Will has his breakthrough, it feels like his sessions with Sean profoundly changed his life for the better. That’s a message that Freud would be proud to see in such a popular film almost 60 years after his death.
9
‘Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith’ (2005)
A much more amusing and less-helpful example of therapy? Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith, in which Anakin (Hayden Christensen) tells Yoda (Frank Oz) about the dreams he’s been having about Padmé (Natalie Portman). While Freud may not have considered Yoda’s advice all that useful, and definitely would have wanted the young Jedi to have more sessions, Anakin’s nightmare and what he thinks it means drives so much of the plot that the great thinker would feel like his idea of interpreting dreams has continued to be validated.
The interpretation of dreams was one of Freud’s innovations (for better or worse), and he would definitely clock Anakin as a guy who needs some deep introspection. While Anakin considers his recurring nightmare a premonition of his wife’s death, the father of psychoanalysis would probably call it a sign of deep insecurity and fear that he can’t be a good husband.
10
‘Mulholland Drive’ (2001)
For people who enjoy trying to figure out the meaning behind a dream, David Lynch‘s Mulholland Drive is a feast for the intellect. So imagine how Sigmund Freud—the guy who was so obsessed with dreams that he invented the technique of interpreting them for psychoanalysis—would react to this story’s relentless insanity. The man would have a field day. As the film unfolds, it becomes more and more difficult to follow. The order of events, the events themselves; it all becomes so impossible to make sense of on the surface that the viewer is forced to just accept it as a kind of nightmare with their own, unique opinion of what the hell they’re witnessing.
There are so many conflicting pieces of information, so many different ways to try and understand this nonlinear narrative, that Freud’s review of the movie would surely be a treat. It’s not ridiculous to think that he would consider a certain sex scene as the key to both characters, though where he would go from there is anyone’s guess. For this reason and more, Mulholland Drive goes down as a mystery for the ages.