12 Poignant and Accurate Movies About Suicide

People impacted by suicide often feel alone in their struggles with depression, anxiety, isolation, or other complicated emotions. Having an accurate portrayal in movies about surviving suicide, suicidal ideation, and other topics surrounding it gives people comfort in seeing their struggle represented on screen. It can aid in alleviating the isolation that comes with feeling like no one understands.

When movies handle the subject of suicide, it is often mishandled or shut down. When a movie gets it right, it opens the conversation for people who often suffer in silence. The films below showcase the best movies about suicide and have done an excellent job of shedding light on the topic in all its facets.

Award-Winning Movies About Suicide

Movies that stand out due to their accurate portrayal, acting, or excellent writing often receive recognition because these aspects make shared experiences touching or relatable. An award-winning movie about suicide indicates that, somehow, the writers, producers, and actors were able to touch on this complicated subject in a way that audiences have felt connected with and can see themselves represented. The films on this list represent wide-ranging emotions, diverse life circumstances, and the relatability of the humanity behind grappling with the desire to end one’s life.

1. Ordinary People (1980)

In this 1980 drama, Timothy Hutton won an Academy Award for his role as Conrad, an 18-year-old young man internally tormented after witnessing the death of his older brother in a sailing accident. Making things worse, his mother makes it very clear that she preferred her older deceased son over Conrad. As pressure builds and with nowhere to turn, Conrad grapples with the desire to end his life.

Ordinary People gives a brilliant portrayal of the quiet subtleties around suicide. Characters implode from within while maintaining a relatively “normal” appearance to the outside world. It forces viewers to address the importance of breaking the silence of one’s pain, how crippling this can feel without a supportive place to land, and the need to seek support even if your family can’t provide it.

• Stream or buy
• Additional ways to stream

2. Love Liza (2002)

In Love Liza, Phillip Seymour gives an award-winning performance of Wilson, a man grieving the unexpected loss of his wife, Liza. His mother, played by Kathy Bates, encourages him to open a sealed letter from Liza, but Wilson can’t seem to bring himself to do it until one day he does. To his disappointment, what he once thought was a suicide letter did not contain the closure Wilson had hoped for in putting together the puzzle pieces of his wife’s suicide.

With graceful comedy for relief and poignant truths, the movie touches on the indescribable grief people experience after suddenly losing a loved one to suicide and how people try to cope with this loss.

• Stream or buy
• Additional ways to stream

3. For Colored Girls (2010)

Suicide is often treated as taboo in communities of color, giving people who deal with it little solace and few resources. For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Isn’t Enough was originally an award-winning stage play by Ntozake Shange that received critical acclaim when it broached the subject of suicide for Black women with poetic and emotional candor in 1975.

When the film arrived in 2010, it took some liberties with the original play, but it also captured the essence of the play, which told the story of 5 women whose life tragedies led them to the brink of suicide. The film garnered several awards, including the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Directing. The stories serve as an ode to women of color who have considered suicide and offer hope to carry on.

• Stream or buy
• Additional ways to stream

The Best Movies About Suicide for Teens

Many teens seek peer approval, support, and allyship during the crucial teenage years. Regarding topics like teen depression and suicide, they may have difficulty sharing what they’re going through with their parents or loved ones. Movies about teen suicide allow this group of growing people to feel understood through characters who are going through the same stage of life and can relate to the experience they are having. The movies on this list provide insight, relatability, and encouragement in a language teens can understand.

4. My Ascension (2020)

My Ascension is an eye-opening documentary about a teen who looked picture-perfect to the outside world but battled the depths of depression and anxiety inside. Emma Benoit was a varsity cheerleader who desired to end her life. Still, after a tragic self-inflicted gunshot wound that landed her in a wheelchair, Emma made it her mission to share her pain and ongoing recovery to give hope to others.

This unique documentary also shares the stories of two teens who lost their lives to suicide and the devastation their passing left behind. It is a story of inspiration, prevention, and honesty that can help teens recover.

5. Heathers (1988)

Teens are known to make up the most rebellious crowds, and sometimes the best way to broach a tough subject with them is through a bit of dark humor. With a cult following, this teenage comedy brings the topic of suicide to light with a flippant relatability of just how brutal high school can be. Bringing up issues like the death of a parent, suicide pacts, and the toll that the social pressures of being cool can take, this movie tackles many topics of utmost importance during the teenage years.

• Stream or buy
• Additional ways to stream

6. Harold and Maude (1971)

With some controversy around the age gap between the two main characters, this dark comedy follows a wealthy young man, Harold Chasen, obsessed with all death-related topics through his relationship with an eccentric and rebellious older woman named Maude. They meet at a funeral, one of many that Harold attends, just to feel closer to death. Harold doesn’t know Maude has planned her suicide for her 80th birthday. Her ultimate demise leaves Harold to deal with his feelings around her suicide, but also with a new lease on life. A great movie opens up a conversation around teens dealing with depression, the grief of losing a loved one to suicide, and how to keep the good of the life the person lived alive.

• Stream or buy
• Additional ways to stream

The Best Documentary Movies About Suicide

Documentary movies offer intimate and first-hand insight into suicide and the feelings of people considering taking their own lives. While an unsuccessful suicide attempt impacts everyone differently, survivors of suicide can turn their stories into action and hope for others. These documentaries highlight the brave stories of survivors, volunteers, and loved ones impacted.

7. The S Word (2017)

The S Word is a bold and insightful documentary film from a suicide attempt survivor that gives voice to multicultural, multiracial, multi-aged, multi-gendered, and multifaceted suicide attempt survivors. The film’s title highlights just how big and stigmatized the silence is around the topic of suicide. This brave documentary shares the untold stories of survivors loud and clear to break the silence.

• Stream or buy
• Additional ways to stream

8. Suicide: the Ripple Effect (2018)

Kevin Hines attempted to take his life by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. In this documentary, he shares his survival story and other survivors’ stories and brings the knowledge of suicide prevention experts to the forefront. Many survivors use their stories to help others, and this film shares those stories of inspiration.

• Additional ways to stream

9. The Listeners (2016)

Often overlooked in the discussion of suicide prevention is the life-saving power of a listening ear and empathy. In this documentary, volunteer trainees in suicide prevention give their side of the story as they answer suicide hotline calls. The film highlights powerful prevention strategies for anyone looking to help others.

• Stream or buy
• Additional ways to stream

The Best Movies About Suicide and Grief

When someone you love takes their life, knowing where to turn to process the complicated feelings that arise can be challenging. There might be a mix of anger, grief, love, and feelings of selfishness. Not to mention, everyone grieves differently. Having your experience accurately reflected in the media can offer hope and inspiration for feeling less alone as your process your loss. The films below provide varied perspectives on grieving after losing someone to suicide.

10. Captain Fantastic (2016)

Captain Fantastic is a beautifully touching movie about a father raising his children off the grid as his wife is hospitalized to deal with bipolar disorder. Succumbing to suicide, the mother’s death leaves her children and husband in emotional pain that comes out differently for each person she leaves behind. Captain Fantastic is a great film to begin a discussion about how grief impacts. It manifests in other people even if they are a part of the same family, the lessons learned about self and the relationship with the one who passed, and how people can be there for each other in this process.

It is difficult not to fall in love with this quirky, charming, funny, strong, and beautifully vulnerable family and story.

• Stream or buy
• Additional ways to stream

11. The Virgin Suicides (1999)

After their youngest sister attempts suicide, the parents of five teen sisters confine them to stay inside the house. Over time the crippling effects of isolation start to impact the sisters’ mental health leaving them lonely, depressed, and suicidal. The girls make a suicide pact, and the boys who love them are left to deal with the grief of their decision.

Based on a Jeffery Eugenide novel by the same name, this film touches on isolation and grief in adolescence and what it is like to lose someone you love to suicide.

• Stream or buy
• Additional ways to stream

12. I’ll Love You Till The End ( 2019)

I’ll Love You Til the End is a secondary quiet struggle in the wake of someone’s suicide is its impact on those left behind. In grappling with her own experience of grieving a loved one’s suicide, Bex Singleton interviews others in the UK who have mourned the suicide of a loved one. The film provides an intense and intimate examination of the devastation suicide leaves behind.

You’re Not Alone. Therapy Can Help

These movies and shows can be great resources, but they do not replace professional help. Those experiencing suicidal ideation or the aftermath of losing someone to suicide can benefit from the support of a licensed therapist. Our online therapy options offer a convenient way to access a therapist from anywhere, and our online therapist directory provides a way to find a specific therapist in your area that is right for you. If you or a loved one is dealing with depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, or grieving someone lost to suicide, please know you aren’t alone. Find a therapist to start the conversation toward healing and thriving because both are possible.