The Professor and the Madman

The Prisoner of Shark Island

Drama · 1936

After healing the leg of the murderer John Wilkes Booth — responsible for the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln — Dr. Samuel A. Mudd, considered part of the atrocious conspiracy, is sentenced to life imprisonment and sent to the sinister Shark Island Prison.

Stuart: A Life Backwards

Drama · 2007

Story about the remarkable friendship between a reclusive writer and illustrator and a chaotic homeless man, whom he gets to know during a campaign to release two charity workers from prison.

Birdy

Drama · 1984

Two young men are seriously affected by the Vietnam War. One of them has always been obsessed with birds - but now believes he really is a bird, and has been sent to a mental hospital. Can his friend help him pull through?

Girl, Interrupted

Drama · 1999

Set in the changing world of the late 1960s, Susanna Kaysen's prescribed "short rest" from a psychiatrist she had met only once becomes a strange, unknown journey into Alice's Wonderland, where she struggles with the thin line between normal and crazy. Susanna soon realizes how hard it is to get out once she has been committed, and she ultimately has to choose between the world of people who belong inside or the difficult world of reality outside.

Papillon

Crime · 1973

A man befriends a fellow criminal as the two of them begin serving their sentence on a dreadful prison island, which inspires the man to plot his escape.

Naked Lunch

Crime · 1991

Blank-faced bug killer Bill Lee and his dead-eyed wife, Joan, like to get high on Bill's pest poisons while lounging with Beat poet pals. After meeting the devilish Dr. Benway, Bill gets a drug made from a centipede. Upon indulging, he accidentally kills Joan, takes orders from his typewriter-turned-cockroach, ends up in a constantly mutating Mediterranean city and learns that his hip friends have published his work -- which he doesn't remember writing.

The United States of Leland

Crime · 2003

A withdrawn young man, Leland Fitzgerald is imprisoned for the murder of a mentally disabled boy, who also happened to be the brother of his girlfriend, Becky. As the community struggles to deal with the killing, Pearl Madison, a teacher at the prison, decides to write about Leland's case. Meanwhile, others affected by the murder, including Becky and her sister, Julie, must contend with their own problems.

Reversal of Fortune

Drama · 1990

Wealthy Sunny von Bülow lies brain-dead, husband Claus guilty of attempted murder; but he says he's innocent and hires Alan Dershowitz for his appeal.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Drama · 1975

A petty criminal fakes insanity to serve his sentence in a mental ward rather than prison. He soon finds himself as a leader to the other patients—and an enemy to the cruel, domineering nurse who runs the ward.

The Physician

Adventure · 2013

England, 1021: Born in a miserable mining town, Robert Cole swears to become a physician and vanquish disease and death. His harsh path of many years, a quest for knowledge besieged by countless challenges and sacrifices, leads him to the remote Isfahan, in Persia, where he meets Ibn Sina, the greatest healer of his time.