Mental Health Awareness Week: 10 films showing the evolution of mental healthcare in the UK

To mark Mental Health Awareness Week, we’ve compiled these 10 short films from the 1940s to 1990s, all preserved by the BFI National Archive and all available free to view on BFI Player.  

These films give us insights into how mental health and illness were understood and portrayed – for both general and specialised audiences – in different decades of the last century. Unsurprisingly, they at times unthinkingly invoke problematic practices, attitudes and language, with occasional distressing scenes. But they might also surprise you: some are more forward-thinking and compassionate than you might expect.

Each film also speaks to the evolving technology and techniques of British filmmakers (several of them women) exploring mental health topics – sometimes with startling creativity.  

Subtle this film is not, but striking it certainly is. It’s one of the most unusual among the hundreds of wartime propaganda films overseen by the Ministry of Information, being one of very few exploring the inner landscape of the human mind. 

The troubled title character lives a life “handicapped by unnecessary fear”, rooted in unempathetic, fault-finding parenting. The film quickly jumps from childrearing theory into positing that such fear lies at the roots of Nazism and the conflict now engulfing Europe. A big, bold thesis! And what’s more it’s put across with an almost feverish filmmaking style, blending touches of noir, horror and surrealism into a heady brew. Director Richard Massingham was an inimitable talent, who was better known for his work – both behind and in front of the camera – delivering public information via eccentric comedy.  

– Patrick Russell 

Occupational health wasn’t defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) until 1950, but this fascinating portrait of a centre for ‘Industrial Medicine’, established late in World War II, outlines a range of treatments for workers experiencing poor mental health. It’s filmed in mostly natural light on Kodachrome reversal stock (often used in amateur filmmaking), gifting the footage a remarkable presence and proximity, despite the many decades that have since passed. The emphasis on activity – carpentry, gardening, cooking and dancing – gives the film a wholesome feeling, making its sudden turn to more controversial treatments, such as electroconvulsive therapy and narcoanalysis, even more startling. 

– Jez Stewart

This engrossing drama-doc is something of a landmark. The first UK film directly addressing and destigmatising clinical depression, it was also the first demystifying psychiatric hospitalisation within the NHS. Produced by the government’s in-house Crown Film Unit for the Ministry of Health, and starring Rank Charm School graduate Jane Hylton, it was aimed at both the public (through cinema release) and NHS staff (screened in training sessions). 

Although not above sensationalism and sexism, it ultimately presents a sympathetic, informative and, for 1951, progressive underlying message: lead character Molly’s breakdown results from illness not ‘madness’, and she regains control of her life with sensitive support. Incidentally, director Philip Leacock later went on to a minor Hollywood career.    

– Patrick Russell

Never shown to the public, this film (another ‘documentary’ that is in fact scripted and acted drama) was instead screened within the NHS to nurses working in, or moving on to, psychiatric wards. And it shows just how creative and impactful a training film can be. There’s the scene, early on at 01:05, where film itself is depicted being used in training. And then from 12:03 we reach the heart of the film, depicting a staff discussion leading into a stunning, stylised interpretation of a disturbed patient’s delusions. 

While there’s a naivety to the film’s understanding of mental illness, there’s also an admirable humanity and commitment, and a fascinating engagement with changing NHS demographics: the filmmakers make sure to include female Irish and Afro-Caribbean nurses amid the RP-speaking white males. Director Margaret Thomson was a considerable talent in documentary, public information and industrial films from the 1930s to the 1970s.

– Patrick Russell

Another gripping ‘story-documentary’ about anxiety and depression – but, 14 years on from Out of True, a lot has changed. The filmmaking has a confident stylishness, graced with experimental touches, that its well-made but more sedate predecessor lacks. Much of this is down to its director Eric Marquis, one of the most flamboyant talents on Britain’s then-thriving industrial filmmaking scene. But what’s also changed is the context and messaging. 

This film isn’t funded by government but by pharma, promoting the use of medication rather than hospitalisation, and at the same time educating its target audience – NHS GPs – in the subtleties of declining mental health. Moving away from older stereotypes, it grounds the drama in informative to-camera presentations by Dr David Stafford-Clark, who pioneered public understandings of psychiatry and psychology.

– Patrick Russell

Here the focus is on the mental health of parents bringing up disabled children, often finding themselves tirelessly fighting for their rights in the face of structural challenges. After viewing the ‘story-documentaries’ above, within seconds of starting to watch this one you’ll realise you’ve entered a different filmic universe, and a different world of mental health communication. 

A mobile, mostly handheld 16mm camera, observing real families in their homes and capturing their testimonies while facing the viewer, supersedes the beautifully crafted 35mm artistry of the earlier films. It’s a more people-centred approach, giving voice not to professional experts but to those with lived experience, even hinting at the additional intersectional impact of class and race. 

The film was commissioned by the Mental Health Film Council, a conglomerate of NGOs promoting the use of film in mental health comms. Director Bernice Rubens is best-known as a novelist and was one of several creatives brought together for this and other films by admirable producer-director Derrick Knight. 

– Patrick Russell

This film is something of a gag rather than a serious study of mental health. The neat comic premise is that a man masks his depression behind a smile and finds a woman who appears a kindred spirit – only to be disappointed when he discovers her serious demeanour hides an inner happiness. But there’s enough truth in the film to turn the comedy black and make the message poignant. 

When we ask the courtesy greeting “How’s things?”, how often do we really listen to the response? When do we take the time to consider not just what people say on the surface but how they are really feeling? Bob Godfrey’s stripped-back animation is the perfect form to visualise the troubled mind behind the mask, inviting us to take the time to look out for each other a little better. 

– Jez Stewart

Having the same director of photography, Peter Jessop, as Stress: Parents with a Handicapped Child, this also benefits from a freewheeling 16mm camera and live synchronised sound. But this time the camera contains colour film stock and the live sound is interspersed with an authoritative voiceover. Again a female director, Brigit Barry, is behind the camera, here working for prolific production company Samaritan Films, headed by that yet greater rarity for the era, a female producer: Anne Balfour-Fraser. Eighteen years after Out of True, this piece, principally intended for NHS nurse recruitment purposes, surveys a radically different world of provision, in a completely different style.   

– Patrick Russell

Yet another different approach, in which a low-key – almost off-key – fictional narrative unfolds across a series of scenes presented without any editorial comment. Producers Liberation Films worked both in activist community politics and in educational filmmaking. The idea of the ‘trigger film’, in keeping with progressive ideas of the 1970s, was to abandon the didactic approach of earlier educational media in favour of presenting situations on screen that would stimulate – ‘trigger’ – free-flowing discussion, even heated debate, among viewers as soon as the projector was switched off and the lights switched back on. The film doesn’t tell us what to think: instead it presents us with images and sounds to think about. And talk about.

– Patrick Russell

Like Out of True, Understanding Aggression and Something to Offer, this item was produced through the Central Office of Information (COI), successor to the wartime Ministry of Information. Overseeing literally thousands of films between 1946 and 2012, the COI’s moving image legacy is one of the most important preserved by the BFI National Archive. By 1997 its film work was filtered through the world of advertising agencies as much as film production companies, delivering super-short high-concept ads rather than longer docs and dramas. 

C.A.L.M. stands for the Campaign Against Living Miserably, a helpline that today is an independent nationwide charity but in 1997 was a Department of Health sponsored pilot project in Manchester. This ad, aired on ITV in the North West region, is targeted at young men, an example of the demographic micro-targeting that has increased in sophistication in the online era.

– Patrick Russell