A new research study found that movies focused on mental health tend to receive better reviews and pull in more money at the box office. For American audiences, mental health came to the forefront of the moviegoing consciousness with the totemic One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, about the residents of an Oregon mental institution that solidified Jack Nicholson as a movie star and even earned a recent Netflix prequel series. Most critics even consider Joaquin Phoenix's Joker last year to be more of a mental health movie than a comic book movie, even though the Joker character is one of the most recognizable comic book villains ever.

Fans of those two movies will understand the results of a new study from researchers at Stanford University, Yale University, and the University of Connecticut. The study, published by research distributor medRxiv, surveyed 2,043 movies released between 1977 and 2019 with plots involving mental illness and found their box office returns were higher than average in at least 34 years during that period. As for critical appreciation, those movies racked up about 15.2% of all Oscar nominations handed out from 1977 to 2019.


Though undoubtedly intriguing, the stats make sense when you think about the last few decades' biggest movies. Silver Linings Playbook, the 2012 romantic drama starring Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence as two people with mental health disorders, grossed more than 11 times its budget at the box office and accomplished the landmark feat of earning Oscar nominations in all four acting categories. Well before that, Rain Man was the highest-grossing movie of 1988 and won four Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Dustin Hoffman as the titular autistic character. With Joker's immense critical and commercial success last year, it seems the trend at the foundation of this study will likely continue until the box office numbers start to trend in the other direction.