5 Movies to Watch After Watching Oakdale 1959

Oakdale 1959 doesn’t exist in a vacuum, no film does. So when you’re done watching it, here are a few more movies that explore the themes I explored in my short.

1. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

Oakdale, at its core, is about mental illness. For me, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is the OG film delving into the suffering and stigmatization of people with mental illness. By bringing Nurse Ratchet into the lexicon, it did a lot of work showing regular people how those with mental illness can too easily be mistreated and abused. 

2. Infinitely Polar Bear

Mark Ruffalo plays a father with bipolar disorder who is forced by extenuating circumstances to temporarily be the sole caregiver to his two young kids. The film does a great depiction of the effects of mental illness on a family and shows how those families have to adjust from 'normal' relations to adapt and make their lives work. It shows that there's hope for those who suffer. 

3. The Skeleton Twins

A darkly humorous movie starring Kristin Wiig and Bill Hader centering on the attempted suicides of a pair of severely depressed adult twins. The movie focuses on their journey's of self-acceptance as they both deal with depression.

4. It's Kind of a Funny Story

Because of construction in the youth wing of a mental institution, a 16 year old has to undergo treatment with the adults. While this is not the most realistic portrayal of depresssion, suicidal ideation and mental illness (after all, it's a comedy) it's an uplifiting movie that normalizes depression and its treatment. 

5. Inside Out

Palette cleanser time! To me, Oakdale is in part a metaphor representing the mental landscape of a person suffering from mental illnesses, including depression. While not explicitly about that subject, I thought Inside Out was a refreshingly honest look at the complexities of the internal landscape. It's a movie that tells kids (and grownups) that it's ok to feel what you're feeling, and that being happy all the time isnt necessarily healthy just as being sad sometimes isn't necessarily unhealthy. 

-Josh