17 film recommendations for Psychology Majors

Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind | Image via Universal Pictures
Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind | Image via Universal Pictures

12) The Stanford Prison Experiment (2015)

Billy Crudup in The Stanford Prison Experiment | Image via IFC Films
Billy Crudup in The Stanford Prison Experiment | Image via IFC Films

The Stanford Prison Experiment is an essential film for psychology majors because it dramatizes a real-life psychological study conducted in 1971 by Dr. Philip Zimbardo, a psychologist and professor at Stanford University. The film explores how ordinary people can be influenced by their roles and environments to behave in extreme ways. In the docudrama film, students of Stanford are assigned roles as guards or prisoners in a simulated prison set up by Billy Crudup's Dr. Zimbardo. The movie shows how quickly the guards become abusive and the prisoners become submissive, highlighting the power of authority and situational factors in shaping behavior.

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Edited by Zainab Shaikh