From Angelina Jolie and Nicole Kidman to Jennifer Lawrence and Jung Yu-mi – actresses who have tackled mental health honestly on screen

“One in four” is the woke world's oft-quoted catchphrase – referencing the number of people believed to suffer from mental health problems at some time in their lives. And yet cinema – society’s most powerful mirror and greatest empathy machine – has been historically reticent to commit realistic portraits on screen.

Worse – filmmakers have been clumsy, and cheap, mining mental stigmas to sketch crazed sociopathic villains (Psycho, Silence of the Lambs, and, yes, even Joker ), or else playing serious conditions for comedic kicks (Thanks, Analyse This/That).

And that’s just the men; women meanwhile are too-often played as weak and “hysterical”, or deranged “bunny boilers” – much damage was done by Glenn Close’s spurned lover-turned-murderous maiden in Fatal Attraction (1987).

And one can detect a disturbing, exploitative objectification of unsettled female minds, a charge we can arguably level at Black Swan (2010), Darren Aronofsky’s highly stylised framing of Natalie Portman as a ballet dancer with a destructive commitment to perfection.

So as we enter the saddest season of the year – a Blue January of shortened days, bled-dry bank accounts and family fallouts – let’s look at a few films that got it right by offering compelling, relatable portraits of women living with mental health issues. Or at least made an honest hash of trying to do so.

A Woman Under the Influence (1974)

American auteur John Cassavetes directed his wife and regular collaborator Gena Rowlands in this stark, unflinching portrait of an overstrained housewife in 1970s suburban Los Angeles, struggling to hold together a family both despite and because of good-natured but good-time husband Nick, a construction worker who eventually commits his wife to a six-month stay in an institution.

The extended scene where she returns home, to confront an Ill-advised welcome party, is gut-wrenching to sit through.