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Stories about medicine provide insights into the human condition. The 10 best medical movies of all time discussed below include four true narratives and six fictional dramas. In this current era when streaming networks programs such as The Pitt, Watson, Pulse, and The Resident have revived interest in medical plotlines, these films reflect Hollywood’s ten best stories about physicians.
None of these movies features an anesthesiologist in a starring role 🙂
Links to the trailers for each movie follow, and may pique your interest in viewing the films.
#10. Coma (1978). Coma was Robin Cook’s breakout novel, made into a movie directed by Michael Crichton. Coma follows a medical student who uncovers a conspiracy behind multiple unexpected comas in postoperative surgical patients. This was THE original medical suspense film. It starred Michael Douglas and Genevieve Bujold, and their discovery of the medical crimes was fascinating. Admittedly the pulse oximeter, invented in the early 1980s, would have detected the lack of intraoperative oxygen in the movie and prevented the coma deaths, but in 1978 this movie was a spellbinder that presaged the importance of doctors knowing a patient’s oxygen saturation level at all times.
LINK TO THE TRAILER FOR COMA HERE.
#9. Patch Adams (1998). Robin Williams stars in the true story of zany medical student Patch Adams, a man who demonstrates the power of laughter in the healing process. No doctor will ever be as funny as Robin Williams, but his character in this movie was remarkable and unforgettable. The film is an optimistic take on how valuable it is to bring positivity, smiles, and humor into our medical care.
LINK TO THE TRAILER FOR PATCH ADAMS HERE.
#8. Contagion (2011). Starring Matt Damon, Gweneth Paltrow, and Jude Law, this is a prescient pandemic film about the occurrence of a bird flu pandemic not dissimilar to the COVID pandemic which struck the world in 2020. This movie was a Hollywood prediction of what we all lived through with COVID nine years later.
LINK TO THE TRAILER FOR CONTAGION HERE.
#7. The Doctor (1991). William Hurt stars as a cocky surgeon who begins in the first scene singing “Why Don’t We Get Drunk and Screw” while performing heart surgery, only to fall off his pedestal when he’s diagnosed with cancer. The film traces his emotional battles as he copes with his newfound mortality. William Hurt’s portrayal of a humbled and eventually enlightened surgeon is not to be missed.
LINK TO THE TRAILER FOR THE DOCTOR HERE.
#6. Something the Lord Made (2004). This made-for television film tells the remarkable story of Dr. Alfred Blalock and Mr. Vivien Thomas, two pioneers in pediatric heart surgery who discovered a cure for tetralogy of Fallot, known at the time as Blue Baby Syndrome. The movie is set in the 1940s when segregation and discrimination between blacks and whites was prevalent. Thomas was a Black man who had merely a high school education, and worked as a surgical research assistant to Dr. Blalock at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. He worked together with Dr. Blalock to develop a surgical treatment for tetralogy of Fallot. It’s a unique historical perspective on the development of new surgical procedures, and how a Black non-medical doctor had a significant role in changing medical history.
LINK TO THE TRAILER FOR SOMETHING THE LORD MADE HERE.
#5. And the Band Played On (1993). This film examines the early days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, based on a non-fiction book of the same name. Matthew Modine plays an American epidemiologist who is laboring to identify the cause of the new disease. His persistence wins out, as the etiology of HIV/AIDS is defined in this fascinating look at medical history.
LINK TO THE TRAILER FOR AND THE BAND PLAYED ON HERE.
#4. Awakenings (1990). Based on Dr. Oliver Sack’s non-fiction book, this film features Robin Williams as Malcolm Sayer, a doctor who discovers a treatment that temporarily revives catatonic patients. Robert DeNiro stars as the awakening patient. The movie is a historical look at a medical breakthrough, and demonstrates the miraculous changes a physician can bring to a patient’s life. The movie was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Actor (Robert DeNiro), and Best Adapted Screenplay.
LINK TO THE TRAILER FOR AWAKENINGS HERE.
#3. The Verdict (1982) This riveting medical-legal drama portrays Paul Newman as an over-the-hill plaintiff lawyer who takes a tragic malpractice case to trial. The medical details of the patient’s demise are pivotal, and Newman’s management of the witnesses and their testimony make for a dramatic look at malpractice in medicine. The movie was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor (Paul Newman), Best Supporting Actor (James Mason) and Best Adapted Screenplay.
LINK TO THE TRAILER FOR THE VERDICT HERE.
#2. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) Jack Nicholson portrays a criminal who fakes insanity to serve his sentence in a mental institution. His inpatient stay shows a critical look at psychiatric care and institutionalization in the 1960s. The movie showcases an unforgettable performance by Nicholson and introduces the world to the sinister Nurse Ratched. The film won Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Actor (Nicholson), Best Director, Best Actress (Louise Fletcher), and Best Adapted Screenplay.
LINK TO THE TRAILER FOR ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST HERE.
#1. M*A*S*H (1970). This classic Robert Altman black comedy, starring Elliott Gould and Donald Sutherland, follows the hijinks of sexually charged surgeons and their colleagues at a mobile army surgical hospital during the Korean War. It’s laugh-out-loud hilarious and spawned the TV series M*A*S*H starring Alan Alda, which aired on CBS from 1972-1983. The movie was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actress (Sally Kellerman), and won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.
LINK TO THE TRAILER FOR M*A*S*H HERE.
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