A quick and easy way for a movie or television show to inform an audience about a character is to have them visit a psychiatrist, psychologist, analyst, or therapist, especially as the modern mental health movement means that more and more of us have visited one of these professionals ourselves. But sometimes we get a peek into the lives of the mental healthcare professionals themselves, whether their purpose in the film or show is to reveal more about a character, or whether they are the focus. Take a seat, maybe lie down on the couch, and read on for the 15 most memorable, although perhaps not the most helpful, psychiatrists and psychologists ever to grace TV and movie screens.
15What About Bob? (1991) - Richard Dreyfuss as Dr. Marvin
Directed by the great Frank Oz of Muppet fame (he voiced Miss Piggy, Fozzie, Yoda, and the Cookie Monster, among many others),What About Bob?isabout a psychiatrist, Dr. Leo Marvin (Richard Dreyfuss), and his incredibly annoying patient, Bob (Bill Murray), and still stands out as one of the funniest movies of the decade. Bob runs through therapists like water, until one recommends that he get in touch with the author of a book calledBaby Steps, Dr. Marvin. Bob is incredibly excited at the prospect of working with the self-important Dr. Marvin. As Bob’s previous therapists have learned, he’s not too good at respecting boundaries, and manages to invade Marvin’s life to such an extent that he blows it up. Literally. Dreyfuss is excellent as the unwinding doctor.
14Hannibal - Hannibal Lecter
We’re choosingMads Mikkelsen’s TV version of Dr. Lecter inHannibalover Anthony Hopkins inThe Silence of the Lambs, because Hopkins’ isn’t exactly practicing at the time of the film. The Danish Mikkelsen has the kind of face you want in a therapist: bland, unemotional, and with a calm and soothing voice to go with it. His gorgeously appointed office might make you feel a little unworthy of your surroundings, and if that doesn’t, his elegant bespoke suits probably will.
It’s easy to see how the other characters, including Hugh Dancy as tortured profiler Will Graham and Laurence Fishburne as FBI Behavioral Sciences head Jack Crawford, fall so completely under his spell, to the point that they continually seek his counsel and collaboration, never noticing that he is a killer and a cannibal, the very one they are so desperately trying to track.
Related:Every Actor Who Played Hannibal Lecter, Ranked
13Ordinary People (1980) - Dr. Berger
Conrad Jarrett (an Academy Award-winning Timothy Hutton) is trying to put his life back together after the accidental death of his brother and his own suicide attempt. His cold, perfectionist mother (Mary Tyler Moore) and struggling father (Donald Sutherland) are little help, but luckily he has Dr. Berger (Judd Hirsch), who helps him to grapple with his emotions and reemerge from tragedy with a sense of semi-normalcy.
Dr. Berger’s attentions eventually give Conrad the strength to confront his mother over her obvious favoritism for his dead brother, which finally leads her to walk out on the family. Hirsch personified the genuinely caring psychiatrist, and was also nominated for the Best Supporting Actor Award, which he lost to Hutton.
12Wire in the Blood - Dr. Tony Hill
This early 2000s British crime drama was an early entry into the genre of shows about a slightly unhinged investigator, and this time it’s Dr. Tony Hill (Robson Green), a clinical psychologist and university lecturer who helps the Bradfield Police, and specifically Detective Inspector Carol Jordan (Hermione Norris), solve the heinous crimes of serial killers. Hill is a brilliant lecturer and criminal profiler, but his social skills rub almost everyone he works with the wrong way.
There’s some suspicion that he is on the Asperger’s end of the autism spectrum, but his laser focus, insight, and ability to insert his mind into the worst of the worst make him an invaluable asset in solving these grisly crimes.
11The Brood (1979) - Dr. Hal Raglan
David Cronenberg’s classic 1979 body horror,The Brood,revolves around a controversial psychiatrist played by a sinister Oliver Reed. Dr. Hal Raglan uses a technique called psychoplasmics in his therapy for the exorcism of repressed emotions, and one of his patients is Nola (Samantha Eggar), a disturbed woman going through a battle for custody of her daughter with her ex-husband, Frank (Art Hindle).
As the custody struggle turns uglier, Raglan’s work with Nola intensifies, and he discovers dark secrets about her past, which leads Frank to further investigate Raglan’s methods. A series of murders by a tiny, deformed child puts the typical Cronenberg spin on things, and Raglan turns out to be much worse than just an unorthodox psychiatrist.
Related:David Cronenberg’s Best Movies, Ranked
10Frasier - Frasier Crane
It’s two psychiatrists for the price of one in this beloved, long-running sitcom.Frasier Crane(Kelsey Grammer) conducts mini-therapy sessions on his Seattle call-in radio show. His brother Niles (David Hyde Pierce) has a more traditional off-air practice. Much of the show revolves around the brothers’ often dysfunctional relationships with each other, their ex-cop father (John Mahoney), and a revolving cast of women that includes Frasier’s producer Roz (Peri Gilpin) and Niles’ crush Daphne (Jane Leeves) as regulars.
Famously beginning life as a bar patron onCheers, Frasier elegantly made the leap to being the central character on the spin-off, and while you wouldn’t necessarily go and see the man as a psychiatric patient, it makes for a charming, endearing show that proves just because you’re a psychiatrist doesn’t mean you have it all together.
9Spellbound (1945) - Dr. Constance Petersen
Ingrid Bergmanstarred in Hitchcock’s 1945 thriller as likely the most beautiful psychiatrist you’ll ever see. She plays Dr. Constance Petersen, and the Vermont institution where she works has just replaced its head of staff. Newly in charge is Dr. Anthony Edwards, played by Gregory Peck as likely the most handsome psychiatrist around.
As one would expect, the two fall in love, but it isn’t long before Petersen begins to suspect that something is very awry with her new beau and colleague. It emerges that Edwardes is not the real Edwardes, that he has amnesia and believes that he killed the real Edwardes. Determined to prove her lover innocent through the use of psychoanalysis, Petersen sets off on a dangerous road that might prove her wrong and in very real danger.
8Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist - Dr. Katz
If you’re looking for proper psychiatric help, you’ve come to the wrong place. But if you crave the voices of Jonathan Katz and H. John Benjamin (Bob onBob’s Burgers),Squigglevision, and some of the most popular stand-up comics and actors of the early 2000s, Dr. Katz’s office is where it’s at.
Dr. Katz had a simple life with his immature 20-something son Ben, deadpan secretary Laura, and a couple of regular friends. His patients included such familiar names as Ray Romano, David Duchovny, Janeane Garofalo, Marc Maron, Bob Odenkirk, Winona Ryder, and many more. Dr. Katz didn’t always have an awful lot of advice for his patients, and usually doodled on his notepad while they told him their troubles.
7The Sixth Sense (1999) - Malcolm Crowe
One of thebiggest film sensationsof the ’90s was M. Night Shyamalan’s thriller about a little boy (Haley Joel Osment) who claims to see the dead, and the psychiatrist (Bruce Willis) who’s working to help him. Nine-year-old Cole is going through some tough times, and Malcolm is too, after the suicide of a patient (who shot Malcolm before shooting himself) and the increasingly distant behavior of his wife Anna (Olivia Williams). But Cole baffles Malcolm, and he at first thinks he might be schizophrenic before realizing that, amazingly, Cole is telling the truth about what he’s experiencing. You probably already know what the big twist was, but just in case you don’t, we’re not going to spoil the surprise.
6The Sopranos - Jennifer Melfi
Without Tony Soprano’s regular sessions with Jennifer Melfi (Lorraine Bracco),The Sopranoscould easily have ended up being just another run-of-the-mill mafia show. But luckily for television history, Tony (James Gandolfini) is referred to Dr. Melfi after experiencing a panic attack.
There is a constant push and pull throughout the series as Tony wrestles with how much of his life to disclose to Dr. Melfi, much of which she already knows, and she spends an awful lot of time being conflicted about her involvement in his life, which we see from sessions with her own therapist, Dr. Kupferberg. The sessions between Tony and Dr. Melfi are illuminating and transformative for both characters, and often in unexpected ways.
