Care and Quality: Good Films About Dementia
- Nick Digilio
- 2 days ago
- 7 min read
Alright… this one’s personal. And when I say personal, I mean right down to the bone.
Dementia and Alzheimer’s disease are brutal, relentless, heartbreaking afflictions. There’s no poetry in them. There’s no “silver lining.”
They do enormous damage not only to the person who is suffering, but to everyone orbiting around that person—family, friends, caregivers, loved ones who slowly watch someone they recognize disappear in front of them.
I’ve lived this. Dementia runs in my family, and the most painful, gut-wrenching experience of my life was watching members of my family go through it. It changes everything.
It rewires your days, your nights, your patience, your anger, your sadness. It’s exhausting and terrifying and confusing, often all at the same time. Sleepless nights. Constant tension. Guilt. Grief that starts long before anyone is gone.
It’s not an easy subject to live with, and it sure as hell isn’t an easy subject to talk about casually. So when movies decide to tackle dementia or Alzheimer’s, I take it very seriously. Because if you’ve been through it (or you’re going through it) you know immediately when a filmmaker has done the work… and when they absolutely have not.
I’ve always felt that documentaries tend to handle this subject better than narrative films. They allow space for truth, complexity, contradiction, and pain without forcing neat dramatic arcs onto something that simply does not work that way.
Right now, there’s a wonderful PBS-funded documentary called Wine, Women and Dementia that I cannot recommend highly enough. It focuses on caregivers (who might be the most important, underappreciated people on the planet) and it treats the subject with intelligence, compassion, and honesty.
That’s usually where this topic works best. Narrative films, on the other hand, are walking on a minefield.
When filmmakers approach dementia and Alzheimer’s with care, research, empathy, and restraint, the results can be devastating in the best possible way. Honest. Painful. Human.
But when they don’t—when the disease is used as a cheap plot device, a melodramatic switch, a quirky personality trait, or a convenient excuse for characters to behave however the script needs them to behave—that’s when it becomes insulting. That’s when it becomes dangerous. And that’s when it makes me angry.
I object strongly to movies that exploit dementia for shock value, horror metaphors, or manipulative tear-jerking without understanding what the disease actually does to a person and to their loved ones.
Turning dementia into a monster in a haunted house, or a quirky road-trip complication, or a romanticized late-stage condition designed to squeeze tears out of an audience without accuracy or responsibility... that’s not art, that’s exploitation.
There are horror films that use dementia as a gimmick. There are dramas that sanitize it beyond recognition. There are thrillers where it comes and goes at the convenience of the plot.
And then there’s what I consider one of the most offensive portrayals I’ve ever seen: A Good Person, directed by Zach Braff. That movie’s depiction of dementia is inaccurate, manipulative, misleading, and downright shameless.
I happened to see it while dealing with a family member's diagnosis in real time, and I cannot overstate how enraging that experience was. It was wrong in ways that matter. It treated a devastating illness like a storytelling accessory. That kind of irresponsibility sticks with you.
This disease is still mysterious. Even with research, even with experience, it’s hard to fully understand. That’s exactly why filmmakers need to approach it with humility. You don’t fake your way through this subject.
You don’t wing it. You don’t use it as a narrative shortcut. If you do, you’re lying to the audience, and worse, you’re lying to people who are actually living this nightmare.
But… there are films that get it right.
There are films that treat dementia and Alzheimer’s with sensitivity, intelligence, patience, and grace. Films where the filmmakers clearly cared, clearly researched, and clearly understood that this is not about plot twists or sentimentality, but about human beings unraveling in real time, and the people who love them trying desperately to hold on.
Those are the films I want to talk about.
So what follows is not a list of “easy watches.” These are not comfort movies. These are films that respect the audience and respect the subject.
They hurt, but they hurt honestly. They don’t exploit. They don’t lie. They don’t simplify. They observe, they empathize, and they tell the truth as best as cinema possibly can.
Here are ten films that deal with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease the right way.
These are films I recommend, films I respect, and films that understand just how devastating, complicated, and deeply human this subject really is.
10 RECOMMENDED FILMS ABOUT DEMENTIA:
This is, without question, the best film I have ever seen about dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Period. No qualifiers. No hesitation. Familiar Touch is devastating, humane, quietly radical, and profoundly truthful in ways that almost no other narrative film has ever managed. What makes it extraordinary is that it does not treat dementia as a decline narrative or a tragedy machine. It treats it as a continuation of life.
Kathleen Chalfant is astonishing as Ruth, an elegant, intelligent woman whose routines begin to unravel as she enters assisted living, and the movie places us directly inside her experience. We feel the confusion, the humor, the fear, the grief, and the flashes of clarity without manipulation or sentimentality.
Sarah Friedland’s direction is compassionate, observational, and fearless, and the film’s refusal to sensationalize or simplify this illness is its greatest strength. It’s about identity, dignity, connection, and the persistence of self, even as memory shifts. This movie understands dementia. It respects the people living with it. And that makes it essential.
One of the most formally daring and emotionally punishing films ever made about dementia. This movie doesn’t just show you what dementia looks like, it makes you feel what dementia feels like.
The fragmented narrative, shifting locations, and subtle changes in casting are disorienting in exactly the right way. Anthony Hopkins gives a towering, terrifying, heartbreaking performance, and Olivia Colman is quietly devastating as the daughter trying to hold everything together.
This is not an easy watch, but it is an honest one. It places the audience inside the illness instead of observing it from a safe distance, and that takes courage.
Julianne Moore earned that Oscar, no question about it. Still Alice is especially brutal because of how early the diagnosis comes and how quickly things unravel. Watching a brilliant linguistics professor lose the very thing that defines her identity is crushing.
The film captures the fear, the anger, the denial, and the grief with real empathy, and it never turns Alice into a symbol or a lesson. She remains a person all the way through, which matters enormously.
A deeply mature, quietly heartbreaking film about love, loss, and acceptance. Julie Christie is extraordinary here, and Gordon Pinsent’s performance as her husband is one of the most emotionally honest depictions of caregiving I’ve ever seen.
The way this film explores what it means to love someone who no longer remembers you (and whether love means holding on or letting go) is devastating in its restraint. No melodrama. Just emotional truth.
Michael Haneke’s film is stark, unsparing, and incredibly powerful. This is a movie about devotion and endurance as much as it is about illness. It refuses comfort, refuses sentimentality, and refuses easy answers.
Watching this couple’s life narrow as dementia progresses is painful, but the honesty is undeniable. This is cinema that demands engagement and respect.
One of the best portrayals of how dementia affects adult children who are completely unprepared to become caregivers. Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman are both phenomenal, capturing the resentment, guilt, confusion, and reluctant love that come with suddenly having to care for a parent who was never really there for you. It’s funny in a very dark, uncomfortable way, and painfully real.
This movie nails the family conflict side of dementia with painful accuracy. The arguments, the denial, the guilt, the differing opinions about care, all of it feels painfully familiar if you’ve lived through this.
Blythe Danner is wonderful, and Hilary Swank brings real emotional weight to a story that understands there are no clean solutions, only hard choices.
A rare example of a mystery framework actually enhancing a dementia narrative instead of cheapening it. Glenda Jackson is extraordinary, and the film’s use of her fractured memory as both obstacle and engine is smart and respectful. The confusion is never played for laughs or shock. It’s sad, frustrating, and oddly empowering at the same time.
A risky concept that largely works because it treats memory loss seriously, even within a thriller structure. Christopher Plummer brings dignity and gravity to a role that could have easily slipped into gimmickry. The film understands urgency, regret, and moral weight, and while it’s more stylized than some others on this list, it never loses respect for the condition at its center.
This one walks a fine line, and while it occasionally veers toward quirkiness, it ultimately earns its place here because of the performances. Helen Mirren and Donald Sutherland ground the film in humanity, reminding us that love, humor, and intimacy don’t disappear just because memory fades. It’s gentler than most films on this list, but it still treats the illness with sincerity.
These are not easy movies. They shouldn’t be. Dementia and Alzheimer’s are not easy illnesses, and any film that pretends otherwise is lying.
What these ten films have in common is care. The filmmakers did the work. They understood the responsibility. They respected the people living with this disease and the people who love them.
And if you only watch one of them, make it Familiar Touch. That movie gets it right in ways that feel almost miraculous.
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