This Season’s Top Picks!

This season’s Top Picks that portray mental health issues with compassion and accuracy. And a few for levity and laughter – just what the doctor ordered.  The following are endorsed by Julie Ridge, LCSW-R, President and Founder. (last updated: December 2024)

BEST MOVIES of 2023-24

• Avenue of the Giants, directed by Finn Taylor. Starring Stephen Lang, Elsie Fisher, Luke David Blume and Robin Weigert. The story of a 74-year-old man (Stephen Lang) carrying a traumatic secret. He befriends an isolated teenager in an emotional story of multigenerational healing.  Based on the life story of Herbert Heller.
• Out of My Mind, directed by Amber Beasley. Starring Phoebe-Rae Taylor (in her smashing screen debut), Rosemarie DeWitt, Luke Kirby, Judith Light and the voice of Jennifer Aniston. If you have time to see only one movie this year – see this one! Not only is it brilliantly authentically cast, it’s entirely honest, charming and thoroughly delightful.
• Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me, directed by Alek Keshishian. This documentary came out in 2022, but I’ve only recently discovered it. I rank it as one of the best movies I’ve seen this year because of Gomez’s youth, extraordinary talent, and willingness to share her uniquely raw and intimate story.
• Still: a Michael J Fox Movie, a documentary directed by Takashi Doscher. Still is the unapologetic, warm and loving story of Fox’s career and his navigation of Parkinson’s disease.
• Monk’s Last Case, 2023.  For Monk fans everywhere, the original crew (Ted Levine, Jason Gray-Stanford and Traylor Howard), teams up to solve one last case, with the forever germaphobic, obsessive-compulsive brilliant detective at the helm. As always, Tony Shalhoub plays these mental health conditions with grace and authenticity, and has the uncanny ability to have us laugh with him, never at him. 
• Every incredible film shown in the 16th Annual ReelAbilities Film Festival, April 3 – 10, 2024. This Festival outdoes itself every year, with a dazzling line-up of shorts and feature length films, narratives and documentaries. Our 2024 opening night film is streamable on major platforms and one of my very top picks: Ezra, starring Bobby Carnavalli, Rose Byrne, Robert DiNero and introducing William Fitzgerald as Ezra. [I have the honor of serving on the ReelAbilities selection committee.]

Best Television in 2023-24:  This year I’m highlighting not just shows that feature a mental illness. I’m mentioning some of the funniest as well – because laughter is the best medicine and right now we need all the laughs we can muster.

• Only Murders in the Building. A Hulu series, now in its 5th season. Starring Steve Martin, Martin Short and Selena Gomez. No character in this comedy series has a mental illness, however Selena Gomez has been open about her bipolar disorder and shines brightly in Only Murders.     
• The Detroiters.  A new surprise hit Netflix series in its first season. Not only is it laugh-out-loud funny, the father of one of the two primary protagonists has an unspecified (but performed with warmth and wit) mental illness and spends the majority of the show confined to a psychiatric ward.
• The Patient. This chilling series aired on Hulu and FX in 2022, but it is a must see in any season. Steve Carell plays a psychiatrist to Domhnall Gleeson’s serial killer. This may well be Carell’s finest acting ever, as he embodies a psychiatrist every practitioner should aspire to be. And, somehow, due to Gleeson’s finely-tuned performance, we grow to care for a serial killer. Caution: there is violence and some disturbing scenes. It’s about a serial killer, after all.
• And last, but never least, Monk (2002-2009). Tony Shalhoub portrays a germaphobic, obsessive compulsive brilliant detective with humor, accuracy and compassion. Binge for a jolly good time! You’ll thank me later.

Ongoing best website:

www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org. The Treatment Advocacy Center, founded by Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, one of the world’s foremost research psychiatrists, specializing in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. His web site provides a plethora of global information and resources on all mental health conditions.