Instagram can be a sordid place. It may appear to be all avocado toast and #duckfaceselfies on the surface, but scrape away that digital veneer and you reveal a much dingier side to the social media platform. As well as pink-haired pre-teens and flash-in-the-pan celebrities, Instagram is home to all manner of shady characters—from violent Taser-wielding cyberbullies to militant terrorists. And while the site claims to be “simple, fun & creative”, the darker fringes of Instagram are having a huge impact on its users. A recent study by the Mental Health Foundation found that almost half of young adults have suffered some anxiety linked to the pressures of social media.

SEE ALSO: 10 Creepy Things Social Media Does To Control Your Mind

9 The Human Skull Market

In recent years, a niche circle of people has emerged online with a passion for collecting human remains. The macabre hobby has gained something of a cult following on social media. Since 2016, when eBay banned users from selling human body parts, the avid network of traders has used Instagram to buy and sell human skulls. Henry Scragg, one of the kingpins of the Instagram skull market, boasts over 33,000 followers. In the past, artifacts have been known to retail for the best part of $20,000 (£16,000).

Instagram is home to a number of illegal black markets—weapons, stolen artifacts, and rare animals to name a few. But unlike those illicit trades, the people who sell human remains online aren’t actually violating any laws. For the most part, bones are covered by the “no property rule” and therefore have no legal provenance. While some US states do technically place legal restrictions on the skull market, traders have found that in the majority of cases these laws go unenforced.

The collectors claim to be part of a respectful, if rather morbid, community; one that is often misunderstood by outsiders. However some historians are concerned by the “dark echoes of colonialism” that haunt this supposedly eccentric pastime. Some traders have received further criticism from historians and archaeologists for falsely decorating their skulls to resemble “tribal” aesthetics. ^[1]

8 Baby Adoption Scammers

An increasing number of couples in the US are turning to Instagram to adopt a baby. Long waiting lists are driving wannabe parents away from traditional agencies and onto social media. And while many do find success, others end up as victims of a cruel and emotionally traumatic scam.

Imposters pose as pregnant women to convince couples that they are being offered their babies, then disappear leaving the aspiring parents devastated. In some cases the scammers have strung couples along for months, letting them believe they are on the cusp of adopting a gorgeous newborn baby, only to pull the rug from underneath them at the last minute.

Earlier this year, the BBC reported on Samantha and Dave Stewart from Michigan who were left in tears after the pregnant teenager they were hoping to adopt from turned out to be a fake account. “They don’t ask for money,” Samantha posted on Instagram shortly after the supposed mother cut off communication. “They don’t ask for material things like a lot of scams do. They want your time, emotional investment and quite frankly someone to talk to while promising you what you are desperate to find: your future child.”

And there lies one of the issues in clamping down on this scam. Because the victims are defrauded emotionally, but not financially, most US states do not have the legal power to hold the scammers to justice.^[2]

7 Exploitation of Grief

On Saturday July 13 2019, Bianca Devins, aged seventeen, traveled hundreds of miles from her home in New York to attend a concert with 21-year-old Brandon Clark. She never returned home. In the early hours of Sunday morning, Devins was killed by a knife to the throat.

Soon afterwards, images of Devins’ bloodied corpse began to emerge online, which were then shared across Instagram. The images, which came from Clark’s account, included a photograph of her torso with the caption, “I’m sorry Bianca.” Another was a selfie that Clark had taken lying on a tarpaulin that was allegedly covering Devins’ body.

It took the site several hours to remove the disturbing images, by which point they had been shared hundreds of times. Some social media users capitalized on the events in hope of gaining more followers and increasing their popularity, posting comments like, “FOLLOW ME!!!& DM !! me for full video and picture”. Clark, who was subsequently charged with Devins’ murder, saw his social media following surge. According to one BBC report, some twisted individuals even edited images of Devins’ body into vile memes. Users who attempted to flag up the distressing images to Instagram’s moderators claim their reports were rejected.

In the aftermath, Instagram was heavily criticized for not addressing the images sooner and allowing users to exploit Devins’ traumatic death for personal gain. The response to Devins’ murder—which happened months after Australian gunman Brenton Tarrant live-streamed the notorious Christchurch mosque shootings on Facebook—poses a number of questions about the ethics of moderation of social media.^[3]

6 Terrorist Propaganda

Instagram is the latest social media site to be targeted by terrorist propaganda. In 2017, The Times reported that more than 50,000 accounts had some links to ISIL militants. Supporters of Islamic State are able to spread their extremist message to a wide audience through posts and stories on the image-sharing site.

With traditional sites like Facebook and YouTube cracking down on terrorist content, organizations are migrating onto the newer platforms for publicity. As well as Instagram, militants in Syria are said to be using Snapchat to communicate amongst themselves and search for new recruits.

The content of their online propaganda tends to vary. At times it includes videos of public executions or images decapitated “kafirs”, a term that refers to non-believers. But besides the violent imagery, Islamic State also broadcast scenes of locals completing regular upkeep such as repairing roads and harvesting crops. As Neil Doyle, a journalist specializing in Islamic terrorist, told reporters, ISIS is attempting to “paint areas it controls as paradise on earth.”^[4]

5 Unattainable Weight Loss Claims

Social media is notorious for wreaking havoc with users’ body image. There is a widely documented history of people, especially young women, feeling ashamed and disgusted when they compare their own bodies to images of highly airbrushed models. A recent study by the Mental Health Foundation revealed that one in eight adults has thought about taking their own life for reasons linked to body image anxiety.

Now a new market has emerged on Instagram to profit from users’ insecurity and negative body image. Exploitative companies have popped up on the platform peddling supposedly “miraculous” weight loss products, often with celebrity endorsements. Famous faces like the Kardashians and Cardi B have come under fire from body positivity campaigners for promoting detox teas and slimming lollipops. Several of these products are known to have a damaging impact on people’s mental and physical health.

Instagram is taking some steps to clamp down on these unscrupulous businesses. But, with almost half of young adults reporting some body anxiety due to social media, the advocates of body positivity have definitely got their work cut out.^[5]

4 Black Market Verification Ticks

Instagram’s blue tick is one of the internet’s biggest status symbols. The verification check is bestowed upon an elite club of celebrities, influencers and brands. In a sense it is Instagram’s seal of approval, a sign of certification and credibility. Blue-ticked accounts are given pride of place at the top of searches and are able to access exclusive features on the platform.

The hunger for social media credibility has spawned an entire underground market centered on the blue tick. Although Instagram insists that the symbol is not for sale, the digital black market is described as an “open secret” among users desperate for attention online. A number of shady sources claim to be able to provide one for a fee. That tiny blue icon can retail for as much as $15,000 (£12,000).

It may seem like a ridiculous thing to spend money on, but the blue tick is a highly coveted symbol, and a growing number of people have good reason to want one. Influencers—people who promote brands and products to their vast audience of followers—rely on verification to secure sponsorship deals. Brands are more likely to favor blue-ticked accounts, and these sponsorship deals can correspond to huge money. A study by Mediakix suggests that advertisers are shelling out over $1 billion each year on Instagram influencers. That little blue checkmark is a giant boost up the social media pecking order.^[6]

3 Toxic Siberian Lake

Nestled in the rolling hills of Siberia, an exquisite turquoise lake seems like an idyllic setting for a selfie. Over the summer, swarms of socialites have flocked to the city of Novosibirsk to be photographed against the backdrop of the glimmering waters. Nicknamed the “Maldives of Novosibirsk”, the lake has become such an attraction that it now has its own Instagram page, complete with photos of people kitted out in beachwear, practicing yoga and generally lapping up the view.

But all is not as it seems. Rather than an aquamarine paradise, the lake is actually a toxic dump. What appears to be a freshwater pool is in fact a waste site filled with refuse from a nearby power station. Years of depositing waste ash has made the water highly alkaline, and that alluring shade of blue is actually caused by calcium salts and metal oxides. At the base, the slurry is said to be so thick that it is near impossible to free yourself. And who knows what chemicals linger in the air?^[7]

2 Cyberbullying Gets Out of Hand

Cyberbullying is never pleasant. But for one Australian teenager, the digital torment spiraled wildly out of control.

It all began when 19-year-old Yasemin Ercan was called a “dog” on Instagram by a former schoolmate, aged 18. Ercan was livid. To extract her revenge, she arranged to meet up with her old school friend at a shopping centre near Melbourne. But when the 18-year-old pulled into the carpark, Ercan and another man climbed into her vehicle armed with a Taser. The victim was forced to drive around for 20 minutes, until Ercan and her accomplice decided to stop the car and get out. Ercan then slapped and spat on the teenager, a court heard, before attacking her with the Taser.

She had now been charged with various offences including kidnapping and intentionally causing injury. Ercan is also facing trial for threatening to inflict serious injury, after messaging her ex-schoolmate that she would stab her in the throat, shoot her in the head, and “smash the f——” out of her. Ercan was banned from all social media platforms following her arrest in 2018.^[8]

1 Blackfishing

Over the past few years, a new trend has emerged on social media. Users, particularly young white women, are altering their appearance to make themselves look black or mixed race. Users have been known to take melanin hormones, inject their lips and even pay for nose jobs to resemble a black woman.

Nineteen-year-old model Emma Hallberg was one of the first to be taken to task for imitating black women. Although the social media star was born in Sweden, she presents herself online as having dark skin, thick lips and frizzy permed hair. And while she has never overtly claimed to be black, she has never denied it either.

Accounts like Hallberg’s with an avid following are often sponsored to promote brands and products. Black rights activists claim this creates a racist digital culture in which influencers are able to profit by stealing from a culture that they do not naturally belong to.

This mimicking of black identity has even been given a more extreme name by the Black Twitter community: ‘niggerfishing’. The term comes from ‘catfish’, a word for someone who takes on a deceptive alter ego online, usually to dupe others into relationships.^[9]

A person blackfishing should not be confused with a trans-black person such as Rachel Dolezal, the difference being that a trans-black is one who believes he or she is the racial form of a transgender: a black woman or man born in a white body.

Every now and then a show crosses a line in the sand and gets one of its episodes banned. Sometimes it’s for good reason, such as a health issue.

SEE ALSO: Top 10 Movies That Have Been Banned Around The World

Sometimes the ban is based on current events and unfortunate timing. Sometimes there’s no good reason at all, and occasionally a show even willingly bans its own episodes!

From adult favorites to children’s cartoons, shows from all over the spectrum have found themselves on the wrong end of society’s sensibilities and been subjected to censure. Some even ended up censored on later releases on DVD and digital platforms.

These 10 episodes were banned from televisions across the world for reasons ranging from the reasonable to the insane, and I for one am delighted to share them with you!

10 Peppa Pig
“Mr. Skinnylegs”

If you have a child at home, you probably already know about Peppa Pig, the spunk little piglet who’s show revolves around teaching kids wholesome lessons about life and how to deal with fears. She’s also been the subject of many internet jokes and memes, bringing joy to people far beyond her typical audience.

Of course, as you guessed by her inclusion on this list, she also happens to have a banned episode.

The 2004 episode “Mr. Skinnylegs” is a seemingly harmless episode advising children not to be afraid of spiders, as they are more scared of you than you are of them, and won’t hurt you. Normally this message would be fine, and rings true enough…Unless, of course, you live in Australia.

In 2012, and again in 2017, the Australian Broadcasting Company banned the episode from airing on the Australian version of Nick Jr because of its “inappropriate message”. While to someone from the US or the UK, this might seem crazy, it’s important to note that Australia is home to massive, incredibly poisonous spiders such as the Redback Spider and the Sydney Funnelweb.^[1]

9 Pokemon
“Electric Soldier Porygon”

[WARNING: The above clip may trigger seizures.] Everyone knows Pokemon, the extremely popular game where you collect and battle cute little monsters to make them bigger and stronger. It also spawned many spin offs, several shows, a Japanese comic (called a manga), a card game, and tons of merchandise.

With such a massive, family friendly franchise, it’s hard to imagine they could do anything so bad they would get themselves banned from the airwaves, right?

Well, you are half correct! It wasn’t the story content of the episode, so much as the visuals. “Electric Soldier Porygon”, featuring the man-made Pokemon ‘Porygon’, had flashing and strobing lights to simulate a cybernetic explosion. This display caused over 600 children to need a trip to the hospital as the lights caused various illnesses ranging from nausea to seizures to temporary (but frightening) blindness!

Team Rocket couldn’t have come up with a better nefarious plot!^[2]

8 The X-Files
“Home”

The X-Files has never been one to shy away from horrible things. Monsters, mutants, and mayhem (oh, my!) abound in this show, both the original and the 2016 continuation. So it’s really no surprise that they would have found themselves on the wrong end of the banning stick when, in 1994, they released the episode “Home” onto TVs across the nation for the first time.

In the episode, a deformed baby is found buried in a baseball field in Mayberry, Pennsylvania. Mulder and Scully arrive (as is customary) to investigate, and soon uncover something much more awful than a monster or alien invasion: a family of inbred monster men whose matriarch, lacking arms and legs, lives under a bed in the family home.

The episode was so disturbing and received such strong backlash that it was immediately banned from the airwaves and received only one rerun, in October of 1999.^[3]

7 Sesame Street
The Entire Show

There’s nothing that really brings back the feeling of childhood quite like Sesame Street. The muppets, friendly kids, and reassuring adult characters bring back a feeling of safety and gentle nostalgia that wraps you in its arms like a warm hug.

There could be nothing worth banning about the show, right? I mean, it’s recommended showing to pre-school aged children as a primer for kindergarten, so surely it couldn’t be harmful!

Yet, in May of 1970, the state of Mississippi took a rather different view of the show. Citing its fully integrated cast of diverse characters and how that might clash with the views of the average Mississippian, the state of Mississippi actually banned the show from playing on state channels for 22 days.

While the ban was eventually reversed, it left a mark on the history of the show and the state.^[4]

6 Cow And Chicken
“Buffalo Gals”

Ah, the ’90s. Was there ever a better time for television? The answer is yes, but that’s neither here nor there. If you were a fan of cartoons in the late ’90s, you probably watched Cow And Chicken, a show about a pair of siblings, a heifer named Cow and a rooster named Chicken.

As was the style of the time, the cartoon was often crude, hiding adult jokes in plain sight and making various jokes about bodily functions, both human and animal.

One such joke crossed the line however, and ended with the episode being banned from the airwaves after just one airing! The episode, titled “Buffalo Gals”, was about a group of female bikers who wore buffalo head helmets, played softball, and broke into peoples houses to chew up their carpets. The episode, being chock full of innuendo as it was, aired once, and then was never seen again.^[5]

5 Family Guy
“Partial Terms of Endearment”

We all knew Family Guy was going to show up on this list sooner or later. How could it not, being one of the raunchiest, grossest adult cartoons of all time? You would think, given its history, that banned episode would revolve around Herbert the Pervert, or perhaps something to do with Quagmire’s many exploits (and exploitations).

It seems however that the straw that broke the FOX’s back wasn’t Quagmire or Herbert or even one of the many gross and outlandish adventures of Stewie, but instead an episode that tackled abortion and pro-choice vs pro-life views.

“Partial Terms Of Endearment” focused on Lois’s decision of whether or not to get an abortion after the couple she was going to surrogate for die in a car accident. The episode handles the topic in typical Family Guy fashion, with many jokes and jests at both sides of the argument. The episode was too much for FOX Network, however, who pulled it from airing before it could even run. While you can still get it on the DVD box sets, the episode is banned from public airtime.^[6]

4 The Amanda Show
“Episode 29”

Remember Amanda Bynes? ’90s Kids grew up tuning into her sketch show on Nickelodeon after school, watching her and her co-host Drake Bell put on a variety of sketches, mock interviews, and physical comedy bits for our collective amusement.

The ill fated banned episode, simply titled “Episode 29”, featured a skit called ‘The Lucklesses’, about a family with absolutely abysmal luck trying to go about their day, with various disasters culminating in their house being hit by a meteor.

The episode had the unfortunate luck itself of airing in March of 2001, just 6 months before 9/11. The episode was subsequently pulled from the air for fear of it resembling the Tower attack too much and was never shown in the US again.

Those Lucklesses really couldn’t catch a break, could they?^[7]

3 Married With Children
“I’ll See You In Court”

A beloved jewel of the 1980s, the well known sitcom Married With Children often used crude humor and remarks to tickle the funny bone of its home audience. For the most part, they were successful, but apparently one woman wasn’t laughing in January of 1998, when the show aired an episode titled “I’ll See You In Court”.

The episode shows the main characters suing the owner of a local hotel for filming their…intimate time, we’ll call it, without their permission. It also features a mention of homosexuality, and a woman removing her bra. While today that’s a big nothingburger, in the 1980s it was apparently so shocking that a Michigan woman had to start a letter writing campaign to FOX Network and its advertisers, demanding the episode be pulled and complaining of its disgusting and shocking contents.

Eventually, under pressure from its advertisers, FOX acquiesced to her demands, pulling the episode from the air.^[8]

2 You Can’t Do That On Television
“Adoption”

Is it any wonder that a show titled “You Can’t Do That On Television” would get at least one of its episodes banned? According to one of the show’s creators, Geoffrey Darby, it was very much a surprise.

The episode in question, titled “Adoption”, was about a couple who, as you may have guessed, had several adopted children. The children were poorly treated, but in a funny way as per the rules of comedy, slime was dumped on everyone, the audience laughed.

Or rather, the audience became quite upset, as the episode ended up pulled from the channel after many complaints were made. Darby himself notes that the episode went “too far”, and was pulled after airing “maybe once”.^[9]

1 South Park
“201”

South Park is the Holy Grail of offensive shows. Parodying and mocking anyone and everyone without limit or concern of consequence, South Park has been a stronghold of pure expression for 23 years, refusing to compromise on its jokes or values.

Until, that is, episode 201. Following directly on the heels of the story line of Episode 200, 201 was to feature the Super Best Friends, a team of religious icons acting as super hero’s, fighting against Tom Cruise and other celebrities looking to destroy the town of South Park and become exempt from criticism or ridicule.

The episode was most notable for featuring Muhammad, the prophet of Islamic faith who is not allowed to be depicted in any form. The episode, doing just that in reaction to the backlash to Muhammad’s previous appearance on the show, netted the network and creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker threats to life, limb, and bank account. While Stone and Parker would have gladly braved the storm for their art, the network was not convinced to do the same, and the showed was aired once, heavily edited, and then never again, even stripped entirely from digital platforms.^[10]

About The Author: Deana Samuels lives with her girlfriend and no cats, and has recently acquired a massive collection of Hello Kitty dolls and memorabilia. She hopes to one day achieve her dream of filling an house with plastic balls, like a Mickey D’s ball pit.

Anyone can crack under enough pressure, but these warning signs in movies predict some of cinema history’s most iconic character breakdowns. By following multifaceted characters from the film’s beginning to its ending, we get a glimpse into their thinking patterns and learn how their interactions with themselves, the world, and the people in their lives shape their decision-making and the choices they make in the end. All this reveals to us what can make or break them.

These are 10 warning signs from movies that the main character is headed for a psychological breakdown.

Related:Top 10 Culture-Specific Illnesses And Mental Disorders

10 Apocalypse Now

Warning sign: Willard Destroys the Hotel Room

Apocalypse Now is one of those movies that people tell you to watch if you want to see a serious war movie that doesn’t hold back. Vietnam, 1969. Colonel Kurtz has built a rebel army deep in the jungle, and Captain Willard, a veteran of the Special Forces, has been given top-secret orders to locate and assassinate him. Willard struggles against the lunacy that surrounds him as he dives further and deeper into the forest and succumbs to its hypnotic powers.

Francis Ford Coppola’s groundbreaking film from 1979 opens with Captain Benjamin Willard on the edge of a nervous breakdown. He’s traumatized, and there are a few telltale indicators the viewers can see right away. All we can feel at this moment is surprise, disbelief, and confusion. The movie focuses heavily on issues of mental health, and not only for Willard. Their effects extend to Colonel Walter E. Kurtz as well (Marlon Brando), the man they’re after. Whether or not he and his crew will survive the war’s brutal conditions and complete their mission is a mystery to the audience.

The scene in the hotel room has a few clear intentions; one is to show that the mind is fallible and that everyone has a breaking point by contrasting a mental breakdown with a captain, someone who is responsible for maintaining composure. The other could be to show that the things we see and experience in our daily lives can very likely be the source of our mental instability.^[1]

9 American Beauty

Warning sign: Colonel Fitts’s Repression

A great example of a movie from this time period that skillfully addresses a challenging issue head-on by taking us on a trip through the experience of a midlife crisis is American Beauty. Midlife disillusionment has hit Lester Burnham hard. Both his wife Carolyn and daughter Jane are selfish and apathetic, which he finds all the more irritating. Disillusioned with society, Lester Burnham chooses to withdraw from it entirely and focus only on what brings him joy.

There, he meets Ricky Fitts, the son of a homophobic colonel who can’t stand the thought of his kid not being composed or precisely what he wants in his eyes. Lester chooses to befriend Ricky, and Ricky ultimately starts selling pot to Lester. Colonel Fitts, Ricky’s dad, notices and finds their frequent meetings strange. The colonel’s intolerance for individuals who are different from him is severe, leading to the realization that he has repressed his own desires about being with another man. There are clearly numerous indicators throughout this movie that the colonel is on the verge of a mental breakdown, but it takes a clash to reveal his true character.^[2]

8 Boogie Nights

Warning sign: Bill Shows No Emotion at His Wife Having an Affair

The timeless movie Boogie Nights, directed by Paul Thomas Anderson in 1999, sees the birth of the porn business in California, a moment that attracted individuals from all walks of life. Jack Horner, a porn director, hears about a young guy named Eddie Adams performing in a nightclub and quickly elevates Eddie, now known as Dirk Diggler, and his “gift” to the pinnacle of the pornographic business. The arrival of the 1980s, however, means that Dirk and his fellow pornographers must adjust not just to a new period but also to the legacy of the 1970s.

Assistant director, Bill Thompson, undergoes a psychotic break that is one of the film’s most memorable scenes. At a party where Bill and his wife are guests, he catches her having sex with another man in full view of the partygoers. Given how normally you would anticipate Bill to respond, which is anger, rapid wrath, and violence, his lack of response to his wife’s actions is almost unsettling.

This is surely a red flag, and his answer to the unavoidable question of whether he has any feelings for this is revealed in a scene from the New Year’s Eve party, where he once again walks in on his wife having sex with another man. But this time, during the final countdown, he enters the party, shooting his wife, the guy she’s with, and himself. As an intense psychological breakdown of a character, we find ourselves both disturbed and shocked.^[3]

7 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest

Warning sign: Billy Bibbit Breaking His Social Barriers

In the 1975 classic One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Randle McMurphy, a person with a checkered past, has once again found himself in legal hot water and is incarcerated. In order to get out of prison labor detail, McMurphy fakes insanity and is sent to a mental institution. Here, McMurphy experiences and watches Nurse Ratched’s cruel abuse of the other inmates in an attempt to raise her own prestige and power, bearing witness to it all.

To rebel, McMurphy and the other inmates establish an alliance. However, when we meet someone like Billy Bibbit, we can see right away that he is very timid and paralyzed by fear, which inhibits him from attempting to put himself out there and experience life. Fear is used throughout the film, most notably when Randle sneaks his female friend Candy into the house at night. As soon as Nurse Ratchet learns that Billy spent the night with Candy, she threatens to inform Billy’s mother.

From there, his anxiety rises as he is thrust back into the isolation and fear that led to his inability to overcome his social difficulties and, ultimately, his confinement in a mental institution. Billy’s reaction of shock and paralyzing fear should set up warning bells. His mother’s fear at learning of his connection with Candy is natural, but the audience can tell straight away that he has no need to be so frightened. The news that he commits suicide as a consequence of his mental breakdown comes as the last, devastating blow.^[4]

6 Black Swan

Warning sign: Nina Sayers’s Attempt to Break Through the Barrier of Perfection

Nina Sayers, a beautiful, delicate, and committed dancer, has worked for years in a prestigious New York City ballet company due to her unbridled desire for excellence. In his bold re-imagining of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s everlasting love classic, Swan Lake, dictatorial artistic director Thomas Leroy hires Nina as the Swan Queen after pushing his former student, Beth MacIntyre, into early retirement.

Brilliantly portrayed by Natalie Portman, her character struggles greatly against the barrier of her obsession with perfection. Through a series of hallucinations and imagined ideas, we see Nina’s mental collapse, which leads to the film’s climax and the eventual psychosocial disintegration of her character.^[5]

5 Foxcatcher

Warning sign: John DuPont’s Loss of Power Over Mark Shultz

Based on a true story, Foxcatcher is a devastating account of the friendship between two world-class wrestlers and a quirky multimillionaire. Wrestling champion brothers Mark and Dave Schultz of the United States join “Team Foxcatcher,” coached by zany entrepreneur John du Pont, to train for the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. John’s disruptive behavior, however, poses a danger of engulfment to the whole group.

This 2014 sports film, expertly portrayed by Steve Carell, tells us what happens when someone has a lot of power and no one to share it with. Brothers and Olympic wrestlers Mark and David Shultz differ in subtle ways. David has a family and a life planned out for him, while Mark, the younger and more impressionable of the two, starts to work closely with John DuPont and is eventually taken under his wing.

Mark, played by Channing Tatum, is a young and husky athlete. On the surface, he is good at what he does but is easily taken advantage of in a variety of ways, such as using cocaine with John in a helicopter and acting almost as a personal servant to him. A big notable red flag is when John finally loses control over Mark, a power he has wielded throughout the movie. In the end, we watch John Dupont’s mental collapse coming on slowly, under the influence of drugs and envy.^[6]

4 A Clockwork Orange

Warning sign: The Big Test

In the 1971 film that most notably struck a cord in the psychological community, young man Alex DeLarge lives in a Britain of the not-too-distant future. His poor luck finally runs out when he is caught and given a life sentence for murder. Alex finds out about a trial program at the prison that seeks to rehabilitate violent inmates. He may be able to return to society sooner than anticipated with a reduced sentence if he is successful in the program.

We witness the terrifying experiment conducted on him by scientists and government officials who desperately want to get their hands on his mind in the hopes of remaking him into a better member of society. We observe the manipulation of his psyche and the effort to alter him for the better when he is forced, in a claustrophobic manner, to see certain frightening moving images in conjunction with the music he used to enjoy.

The official “test” for this is putting him in a room with a cruel man and a naked woman to see whether he acts on vengeance and desire. Alex’s instantaneous nausea at even contemplating any of these acts is a glaring red flag. He is made to feel physically ill because of his animosity, which, together with the manipulation treatment, should alert the audience that something is seriously wrong with this guy’s mental health. The genuine breakdown and psychological phenomena of the horrors of the mind are shown in a combination of Alex’s internal collapse and the world’s rejection of him following his release.^[7]

3 Birdman

Warning sign: Riggan’s Ego Triumphs

The decline of a once-great actor in Birdman: or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) offers some insightful psychological truths. The main character, Riggan Thomson, has a hard time dealing with the egotism that inevitably comes with his success. The massive success of the film in which he starred, Birdman, was released many years ago, and its sequels left him in a pitiful condition at a moment in modern history when he could not bear to face the reality of growing older and changing with the times.

The fact that Riggan’s ego follows him down the mountain despite his best efforts as both a star and director in the play What We Talk About When We Talk About Love is a sobering reminder of the futility of trying to escape one’s past. Like in real life, he’s constantly reminded of his past failures, but he frantically wants to portray himself as someone capable of overcoming.

In Riggan’s fight, he is followed by Birdman, or his ego. The red flag that should jump out to the audience is Riggan’s surrender to his ego at the moment when he’s going about New York, and the Birdman is following him like a shadow. It represents the way our anxious and self-centered ideas permeate our brains. It floats “above them all” and tries to attach itself to Riggan, convincing him that his vanity will triumphantly take over and make all the choices going forward, causing Riggan’s mental health to deteriorate to the point of complete breakdown.^[8]

2 The Aviator

Warning sign: Howard Hughes’s Continual Fight Against OCD

The Aviator chronicles Howard Hughes’s life as a young, successful filmmaker and pilot, along with his lifelong struggle with severe obsessive-compulsive disorder. Hughes’s OCD is shown here in some of its more extreme forms. The tragic irony of a film like this is that, in the background, he is plagued by his obsessions, which include cleanliness and solitude, but he has no qualms about flying or spending money on movies in the hopes that they will be successful.

The film gives us heavy warning signs to keep an eye out for, and although Howard’s major collapse at the film’s conclusion is the most evident, his obsessions are more subtly shown throughout the buildup to this point. Unfortunately, he lived in a period when his ailment was grossly misunderstood, which led his contemporaries and rivals in the business world to see his sickness as a sign of weakness and an opening for them to take advantage of him.^[9]

1 Taxi Driver

Warning sign: Travis’s Preference for Isolating Himself

The 1976 best picture winner Taxi Driver is the type of film that may make you scratch your head the first time you see it. Ex-Marine Travis Bickle is a loner and an impotent insomniac who spends his evenings in the 1970s New York City taxi business. His exploits as he drives and interacts with the world not only capture a raw energy he is not suited to but also prove that he is incompatible with any of it.

Through his narrations and bitter pleasure of viewing adult videos on his own terms, he underlines throughout the film how much the city sickens him. When he takes Betsy, a girl he meets, to an adult theater, we, as viewers, realize something is definitely wrong with his thinking, and his psyche is traveling in all kinds of places.

When he’s alone is when we get to glimpse the real Travis Bickle. Whether it’s his mind wandering when he drives or his getting in shape and constructing tools and gadgets to use with his firearms, he’s always thinking about something. It’s fascinating to see where this classic film’s protagonist ends up, but one thing is certain: Travis is comfortable when he’s left to his own introspective thoughts.^[1]