The Ninth ConfigurationMovies like The Ninth Configuration
- Key Features:
- Psychological drama, Mental institution, Existentialism, Philosophical, Military, Faith, Redemption, Director-driven, Cerebral
- Tone:
- serious, dramatic, poetic
- Target Audience:
- Cerebral film enthusiasts, Psychological drama viewers, Fans of philosophical films, Art house cinema lovers
- Emotional Arc:
- ['Intrigue → Confusion → Revelation']
The Ninth Configuration

Army psychiatrist Colonel Kane is posted to a secluded gothic castle housing a military asylum. With a reserved calm, he indulges the inmates' delusions, allowing them free rein to express their fantasies.
The Ninth Configuration
A young psychiatrist applies for a job at a mental asylum and must pass a test by interviewing four patients. He must figure out which of the patients, is in fact, the doctor that he would be replacing if hired.

Dr. Richard Sturgess leads a team of compassionate doctors at a veteran's hospital. Along with Drs. Morgan, Handleman and Van Dorn, he fights to deliver adequate care to needy veterans in the face of funding cuts and a corrupt administration. To succeed, the staff may have to bend the rules and circumvent the villainous "Article 99," a bureaucratic loophole that prevents veterans from receiving the benefits they deserve.

While struggling with his dual identity, Arthur Fleck not only stumbles upon true love, but also finds the music that's always been inside him.

After returning home from the Vietnam War, veteran Jacob Singer struggles to maintain his sanity. Plagued by hallucinations and flashbacks, Singer rapidly falls apart as the world and people around him morph and twist into disturbing images. His girlfriend, Jezzie, and ex-wife, Sarah, try to help, but to little avail. Even Singer's chiropractor friend, Louis, fails to reach him as he descends into madness.

An Oxford Medical School graduate takes a position at a mental institution and soon becomes obsessed with a female mental patient, but he has no idea of a recent and horrifying staffing change.

A psychotherapist journeys inside a comatose serial killer in the hopes of saving his latest victim.

Psychiatrist Sam Foster has a new patient, Henry Letham, who claims to be suicidal. In trying to diagnose him, Sam visits Henry's prior therapist and also finds Henry's mother -- even though Henry has said that he murdered both of his parents. As reality starts to contradict fact, Sam spirals into an unstable mental state. Then he finds a clue as to how and when Henry may try to kill himself, and races to try to stop him.

A young woman with a troubled past takes a job at recently closed down hospital. Working the night shift alone she begins to experience a series of unsettling events that lead her to believe that the hospital may be connected to a number of recent murders in the area. To uncover the truth she will have to revisit the past behind the walls of Psych:9.

Admitted to Mt. Abaddon Hospital for a routine procedure, George Grieves discovers that his condition is much more serious and complicated than originally expected; and as his own fears begin to manifest around him, he learns that Mt. Abaddon is not a place where people come to get better... it is a place where people come to die.

Tensions rise within an asbestos cleaning crew as they work in an abandoned mental hospital with a horrific past that seems to be coming back.

When a mysterious "John Doe" wakes up in a morgue and wanders into a psychiatric ward, a devoted doctor and curious medical examiner must slowly uncover dark and sinister secrets about the man that reveal a more horrifying truth than they could have ever imagined.

A prisoner in a state-of-the-art penitentiary begins to question the purpose of the emotion-controlling drugs he's testing for a pharmaceutical genius.

A military veteran goes on a journey into the future, where he can foresee his death and is left with questions that could save his life and those he loves.

A psychologist who begins working with a young boy who has suffered a near-fatal fall finds himself drawn into a mystery that tests the boundaries of fantasy and reality.

Prot is a patient at a mental hospital who claims to be from a far away planet. His psychiatrist tries to help him, only to begin to doubt his own explanations.

A man takes up residence with a mysterious marquis and is soon persuaded to enter into an asylum for preventative therapy. Things are not what they seem, and the marquis may be even more sinister than what the young man might have predicted.

A new patient mysteriously appears in a psychiatric ward. He claims to come from another planet to study humans and their behavior. The alien is gentle but criticizes humans for their harsh treatment of each other. The assigned psychiatrist is himself unhappy, and affected by the patient's insight. But he is ordered to treat the patient according to institutional procedure.

A female psychologist wants to understand the minds of a confessed serial killer who spent the last five years in a mental hospital because of his state.

A young nurse, Alma, is put in charge of Elisabeth Vogler: an actress who is seemingly healthy in all respects, but will not talk. As they spend time together, Alma speaks to Elisabeth constantly, never receiving any answer.

Michaela, an epileptic, enrolls in college to study education. She goes off her medication and soon begins hearing voices and seeing apparitions that tell her to avoid religious objects, although she is devoutly Roman Catholic. One priest scoffs at the idea that Michaela could be possessed by demons, but a younger pastor arranges an exorcism for the young woman.

When a gloomy, God-fearing island community is rocked by the assault of an infant, a psychiatrist is called in to examine Dorothy Mills, the teenager accused of the crime. Despite the villagers' hostility to her inquiry, she soon comes to suspect that Dorothy suffers from multiple personality disorder...

Mrs. Van Houten has shown signs of losing touch with reality, and her husband discusses possible treatment with Dr. Caligari, who says Mrs. Van Houten has a disease of the libido.

A dangerously unstable man addresses the unseen followers of his video log about his obsession with an old army buddy.

A newsman works with a blind puzzle-solver to uncover a deadly conspiracy linked to a genetic research facility.

Whilst on their way to a concert four friends get sidetracked and stranded in a seemingly abandoned town and whilst looking for help find themselves stalked and terrorised by a gang of violent clown dressed psychopaths who will stop at nothing ensnaring them into their sinister blood thirsty games.

Dr. Marcus, a renowned psychiatrist, has selected 6 severe mentally ill and dangerous patients from the Spring Valley Mental Hospital to interview as part of research for his new book. As Dr. Marcus interviews each patient, one by one the horrors they have committed begin to unfold. However, Dr. Marcus soon learns that there is one patient who ties them all together - Patient Seven.

A military experiment to create a race of super-warriors goes awry, as legions of murderous zombies are unleashed upon a suburban neighborhood.

Near the end of the Korean War, a platoon of U.S. soldiers is captured by communists and brainwashed. Following the war, the platoon is returned home, and Sergeant Raymond Shaw is lauded as a hero by the rest of his platoon. However, the platoon commander, Captain Bennett Marco, finds himself plagued by strange nightmares and soon races to uncover a terrible plot.

A troubled actor, a television show runner, and an acclaimed videogame designer find their lives intertwining in mysterious and unsettling ways.

On the day of his scheduled execution, a convicted serial killer gets a psychiatric evaluation during which he claims he is a demon, and further claims that before their time is over, the psychiatrist will commit three murders of his own.

During the 1980s, a failed stand-up comedian is driven insane and turns to a life of crime and chaos in Gotham City while becoming an infamous psychopathic crime figure.

Dr. Bock, the chief of medicine at a Manhattan hospital, is suicidal after the collapse of his personal life. When an intern is found dead in a hospital bed, it appears to Bock to be a case of unforgivable malpractice. Hours later, another doctor, who happens to be responsible for another case of malpractice, is found dead. Despondent, Bock finds himself drawn to Barbara, the daughter of a comatose missionary.

A woman becomes very curious about one of her psychiatrist husband's inmates, a man who was found guilty in the murder and disfigurement of his former wife.

A WWII military pilot makes a valiant effort to be certified insane in order to be excused from flying missions. But there's a catch.

Unable to cope with a recent personal tragedy, LA's top celebrity shrink turns into a pothead with no concern for his appearance and a creeping sense of his inability to help his patients.

The staff of a Korean War field hospital use humor and hijinks to keep their sanity in the face of the horror of war.

The military attempts to contain a manmade virus causing death and permanent insanity in those infected, as it overtakes a small Pennsylvania town.

Complete strangers stranded at a remote desert motel during a raging storm soon find themselves the target of a deranged murderer. As their numbers thin out, the travelers begin to turn on each other, as each tries to figure out who the killer is.

Kristen, a troubled young woman, is captured by the police after burning down a farmhouse and is locked in the North Bend Psychiatric Hospital. Soon, she begins to suspect that the place has a dark secret at its core and she's determined to find out what it is.

When Col. William McNamara is stripped of his freedom in a German POW camp, he's determined to keep on fighting even from behind enemy lines. Enlisting the help of a young lieutenant in a brilliant plot against his captors, McNamara risks everything on a mission to free his men and change the outcome of the war.

A lonely metermaid has a psychotic reaction to his medication and becomes convinced he's a superhero. A very select group of people in life are truly gifted. Special is a movie about everyone else.

A group of cooks at an asylum for the criminally insane get locked in with the inmates during a massive thunderstorm

Follows the fate of Lyle, a violent adolescent who, in lieu of prison, is placed in a juvenile mental institution, where he encounters a group of equally troubled teens. This motley crew—abused, sexually confused, violent, and yet hanging on by their grit and anger—becomes Lyle's last lifeline as he fights to find meaning in a world that seems to defy understanding.

A man's life is turned inside out after a visit from his college friend leads him into the unexpected.

During the Iraq War, a Sergeant recently assigned to an army bomb squad is put at odds with his squad mates due to his maverick way of handling his work.

The US President and the UK Prime Minister are planning on launching a war in the Middle East, but—behind the scenes—government officials and advisers are either promoting the war or are trying to prevent it.

Blonde Betty Elms has only just arrived in Hollywood to become a movie star when she meets an enigmatic brunette with amnesia. Meanwhile, as the two set off to solve the second woman's identity, filmmaker Adam Kesher runs into ominous trouble while casting his latest project.

After their airplane crashes behind enemy lines, four soldiers must survive and try to find a way back to their battalion. However, when they come across a local peasant girl the horrors of war quickly become apparent.

When Dr. Pieter Fales' patients start receiving ominous letters and getting murdered by an unknown black-clad assailant, he and his daughter both come under suspicion.

Years after his squad was ambushed during the Gulf War, Major Ben Marco finds himself having terrible nightmares. He begins to doubt that his fellow squad-mate Sergeant Raymond Shaw, now a vice-presidential candidate, is the hero he remembers him being. As Marco's doubts deepen, Shaw's political power grows, and, when Marco finds a mysterious implant embedded in his back, the memory of what really happened begins to return.

Low-level bureaucrat Sam Lowry escapes the monotony of his day-to-day life through a recurring daydream of himself as a virtuous hero saving a beautiful damsel. Investigating a case that led to the wrongful arrest and eventual death of an innocent man instead of wanted terrorist Harry Tuttle, he meets the woman from his daydream, and in trying to help her gets caught in a web of mistaken identities, mindless bureaucracy and lies.

As the result of a head injury, brilliant computer scientist Harry Benson begins to experience violent seizures. In an attempt to control the seizures, Benson undergoes a new surgical procedure in which a microcomputer is inserted into his brain. The procedure is not entirely successful.

The story of a group of men, an Army Rifle company called C-for-Charlie, who change, suffer, and ultimately make essential discoveries about themselves during the fierce World War II battle of Guadalcanal. It follows their journey, from the surprise of an unopposed landing, through the bloody and exhausting battles that follow, to the ultimate departure of those who survived.

When Jane is rejected by life, she spirals into a chaotic, schizophrenic world where love and normality collide with humorous consequences.

The old and overcrowded penitentiaries are just a memory. Inmates now serve their sentence in a state of deep sleep that renders them harmless, and has drastically reduced recidivism. Until one day, a psychologist in charge of monitoring the mental state of inmates finds himself confronted with a prisoner over whom he's lost all control.

Teenager David Clemens develops a hysterical fear that he will die if he comes into physical contact with another person. Perturbed, David's overbearing mother places him in a home for mentally disturbed young people, but David remains withdrawn from the other patients and his psychiatrist. Over time, however, David grows interested in 15-year-old Lisa, who suffers from multiple personalities – one who can only speak in rhyme, and the other, a mute.

A rare book dealer finds himself at the heart of a string of paranormal events when he is hired to find the last two copies of a text, The Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows, capable of summoning the Devil.

A young couple travels to a remote island to eat at an exclusive restaurant where the chef has prepared a lavish menu, with some shocking surprises.

Peter Winter is a young schizophrenic who is desperately trying to get his daughter back from her adoptive family. He attempts to function in a world that, for him, is filled with strange voices, electrical noise, disconcerting images, and jarringly sudden emotional shifts. During his quest, he runs afoul of the law and an ongoing murder investigation.

While on a class observation trip at a local mental hospital, young psychology major Abby Jones, has a chilling encounter with high-risk patient, Harmon Porter. She returns home for an evening of normal study with her two roommates unaware of the darkness she’s awakened within him.

Tov Matheson is a war veteran with PTSD who perceives that the apocalypse is coming. After starting a relationship with a dubious Messiah, he leaves his normal life and begins the construction of a shelter underground, training himself, in an extreme way, at the cost of losing everything and making people believe he is insane. When he also believes it, something extraordinary happens.

A disgraced FBI agent with a drinking problem joins nine other troubled law enforcement officers at an isolated detox clinic in the wilds of Wyoming. But the therapeutic sanctuary becomes a nightmarish hellhole when a major snowstorm cuts off the clinic from the outside world and enables a killer on the inside to get busy.

A man trapped in an automated prison must outsmart a computer in order to escape and try and find his way back to the outside world that may already be wiped out.

Following an unexpected tragedy, child psychologist Malcolm Crowe meets a nine year old boy named Cole Sear, who is hiding a dark secret.

After again attempting to commit murder, a Jewish man with a mysterious past and extraordinary intelligence, charisma, and body control returns to an insane asylum, where he makes a startling discovery.

A young policewoman slowly goes insane while tracking down an elusive serial rapist/killer through Italy when she herself becomes a victim of the brutal man's obsession.

To stop an arms dealer from unleashing a deadly superweapon, Ace sniper Brandon Beckett and Agent Zero are deployed to Costa Verde to lead a group of elite soldiers against an unrelenting militia. Taking an untested sniper under his wing, Beckett faces his newest challenge: giving orders instead of receiving them. With both time and ammo running low in a race to save humanity, the team must overcome all odds just to survive.

After witnessing a bizarre, traumatic incident involving a patient, Dr. Rose Cotter starts experiencing frightening occurrences that she can't explain.

A Vietnam veteran that spends his days photographing pretty girls, and his nights strangling them, sets sights on the patients of a radio psychiatrist.

Upon receiving reports of missing persons at Fort Spencer, a remote Army outpost on the Western frontier, Capt. John Boyd investigates. After arriving at his new post, Boyd and his regiment aid a wounded frontiersman who recounts a horrifying tale of a wagon train murdered by its supposed guide – a vicious U.S. Army colonel gone rogue. Fearing the worst, the regiment heads out into the wilderness to verify the gruesome claims.

A mysterious teenager named Ángelo cares for Klaus, a German doctor with a dark past who lives trapped in an iron lung.

A schizophrenic rock musician, is convinced that his parents were murdered by three men. Taking the support of a journalist, he sets out to find the culprits. Will he succeed in his mission, and in the process, what will he learn about his own roots?

Neurosurgeon Koichi uses an experimental technique to enter the brain of his beloved Atsumi, who is in a coma after attempting suicide. In his quest, Koichi drifts steadily further into the sweltering marshes of the spirit. It is soon no longer clear what is real and what is not.

After a bloody invasion of the BOPE in the High-Security Penitentiary Bangu 1 in Rio de Janeiro to control a rebellion of interns, the Lieutenant-Colonel Roberto Nascimento and the second in command Captain André Matias are accused by the Human Right Aids member Diogo Fraga of execution of prisoners. Matias is transferred to the corrupted Military Police and Nascimento is exonerated from the BOPE by the Governor.

The escaped mental patient and delinquent John W. Burns Jr. replaces Dr. Maitlin on a radio show, saying he's the psychiatrist Lawrence Baird.

When a deadly secret rots the mind of a grieving widower, the decision to work alone on a deserted island morphs into a terrifying race to save his sanity and his life.

A horror-thriller in which a doctor and his teenage daughter are terrorized by flesh-eating zombies at a truck stop.

Two young men are seriously affected by the Vietnam War. One of them has always been obsessed with birds - but now believes he really is a bird, and has been sent to a mental hospital. Can his friend help him pull through?

A psychiatrist is drawn into a complex mind game when he questions a disturbed patient about the disappearance of a colleague.

Nine strangers wake up in a house with no recollection how they got there and no way out. The voice on the PA introduces them to a grisly game they must play. The prize is $5 million and their life.

20 men are chosen to participate in the roles of guards and prisoners in a psychological study that ultimately spirals out of control.

With the help of his girlfriend Cathy and Dr. Fong, a psychiatrist, ambitious journalist Johnny Barrett poses as a madman in order to be admitted to a mental institution where a bloody murder has been committed.

Dr. Tremayne is an enigmatic psychiatrist running an asylum that houses four very special cases. Visited by his colleague Nicholas, Tremayne explains his amazing and controversial theories as to why each of the four patients went mad.

An ex-soldier with PTSD is hired to protect the wife and child of a wealthy Lebanese businessman while he's out of town.

A young woman joins the military to be part of something bigger than herself and her small-town roots. Instead, she ends up as a new guard at Guantanamo Bay, where her mission is far from black and white. Surrounded by hostile jihadists and aggressive squadmates, she strikes up an unusual friendship with one of the detainees.

While vacationing on a remote German island with his younger pregnant wife, an artist has an emotional breakdown while confronting his repressed desires.

An exorcist comes up against an evil from his past when he uses his skills to enter the mind of a nine year old boy.

A rock star general bent on winning the “impossible” war in Afghanistan takes us inside the complex machinery of modern war. Inspired by the true story of General Stanley McChrystal.

A bureaucrat interviews five souls to decide which of them will be given a life on Earth. But he soon faces an existential challenge of his own.

A psychiatric hospital patient pretends to be crazy. In charge of caring for this patient, a caregiver will begin to doubt the mental state of his "protégé".

A research team in Antarctica is hunted by a shape-shifting alien that assumes the appearance of its victims.

When U.S. Rangers and an elite Delta Force team attempt to kidnap two underlings of a Somali warlord, their Black Hawk helicopters are shot down, and the Americans suffer heavy casualties, facing intense fighting from the militia on the ground.

In order to diagnose the psychic traumas suffered by his patients, Dr. Paul Novotny gets young Alex Gardner to enter their dreams.

After a failed assassination attempt, a soldier finds himself stranded in the desert. Exposed to the elements, he must survive the dangers of the desert and battle the psychological and physical toll of the treacherous conditions.

A motivational speaker, plagued by an uncontrollable itch on her head, becomes infected with a parasitic demon from her homeland.

A wealthy New York investment banking executive hides his alternate psychopathic ego from his co-workers and friends as he escalates deeper into his illogical, gratuitous fantasies.

In a prison for the criminally insane, deranged anthropologist Ethan Powell is set to be examined by a bright young psychiatrist, Theo Caulder. Driven by ambition and a hunger for the truth, Caulder will eventually risk everything—even put his very life on the line—in a harrowing attempt to understand the bizarre actions of this madman.

A seemingly innocent man is abducted by a notorious L.A. serial killer, who forces his victims to switch roles with him so that he can enact his own capture, torture and murder.

Two friends in Mexico discover the Lament Configuration and unleash Pinhead, but one decides to try to survive by swapping himself with someone else. Once they go missing, family members go in search of them, but find Pinhead instead.
