From Fatal Attraction to Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, borderline personality disorder (BPD) has been depicted in film and television for decades. Some portrayals have helped raise awareness and reduce stigma. Others have reinforced harmful stereotypes that make life harder for the millions of people living with this condition. Understanding how BPD appears on screen matters, because for many people, movies and TV shows are their first introduction to what borderline personality disorder looks like. That makes the accuracy of BPD in movies especially important.
At Front Range Treatment Center, we specialize in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), the gold-standard treatment for BPD. We know from working with clients every day that the reality of living with BPD is far more nuanced than what Hollywood typically shows. In this article, we examine some of the most notable portrayals of BPD in popular culture, what they get right, what they get wrong, and why accurate representation matters.
Why BPD Representation in Media Matters
Borderline personality disorder affects an estimated 1.4% of the adult population in the United States, according to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Despite its prevalence, BPD remains one of the most misunderstood mental health conditions. Media portrayals play an outsized role in shaping public perception. How BPD in movies is depicted directly influences whether people seek help or suffer in silence. When films and TV shows reduce BPD to dangerous instability or romantic chaos, they contribute to the stigma that prevents people from seeking help.
Good representation can do the opposite. When a character’s BPD is portrayed with empathy and clinical accuracy, it can help viewers recognize symptoms in themselves or loved ones and encourage them to pursue evidence-based treatment like DBT.
BPD in Movies: Films That Portray Borderline Personality Disorder
Girl, Interrupted (1999)
Perhaps the most well-known portrayal of BPD in film, Girl, Interrupted is based on Susanna Kaysen’s memoir about the 18 months she spent at McLean Hospital in the 1960s after being diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. Winona Ryder plays Susanna, while Angelina Jolie delivers an Oscar-winning performance as Lisa Rowe, a charismatic and volatile fellow patient diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder.
The film captures several aspects of BPD with reasonable accuracy, including Susanna’s impulsivity, her unstable sense of self, and her ambivalence about her own diagnosis. However, the 1960s hospital setting means the treatment depicted bears little resemblance to modern approaches. We explore this in much greater detail in our article Borderline Personality Disorder in Girl, Interrupted.
Fatal Attraction (1987)
Fatal Attraction is perhaps one of the most damaging examples of BPD in movies. Glenn Close plays Alex Forrest, a woman who becomes increasingly unstable and violent after a brief affair with a married man (Michael Douglas). Alex exhibits classic BPD features, including an intense fear of abandonment, emotional volatility, and impulsive behavior, but the film frames these symptoms as dangerous and predatory rather than as manifestations of genuine psychological suffering.
Mental health professionals have criticized the film for equating BPD with violence and obsession. In reality, people with BPD are far more likely to harm themselves than others. The film set back public understanding of the condition significantly, and its cultural impact persists decades later.
Welcome to Me (2014)
Welcome to Me stars Kristen Wiig as Alice Klieg, a woman with BPD who wins the lottery and uses the money to create a talk show about herself. The film stands out for actually naming BPD as Alice’s diagnosis and depicting her in treatment, including scenes where she takes medication and attends therapy. Alice’s grandiosity, impulsivity, and difficulty maintaining relationships are portrayed with humor but also genuine compassion.
While not a perfect representation, Welcome to Me is notable for humanizing a character with BPD rather than demonizing her. It also shows that people with BPD can function in the world, hold relationships, and have full lives, even while struggling with their symptoms.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
Clementine Kruczynski, played by Kate Winslet, is never given a formal diagnosis in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but many viewers and mental health professionals have noted that her character displays traits consistent with BPD. Her rapid mood shifts, impulsive decisions (including dramatically changing her hair color), unstable relationships, and fear of abandonment all align with common BPD presentations.
What makes this portrayal particularly effective is that Clementine is shown as a complete person. She is creative, passionate, and deeply caring, even as she struggles with emotional regulation. The film demonstrates that people with BPD traits are not defined by their symptoms.
Silver Linings Playbook (2012)
Tiffany Maxwell, played by Jennifer Lawrence, is a young widow dealing with what the film implies is a combination of depression and BPD traits. Her emotional intensity, impulsive behavior, and difficulty with interpersonal boundaries are central to the story. While the film primarily focuses on Pat (Bradley Cooper) and his bipolar disorder, Tiffany’s arc demonstrates how someone with BPD traits can form meaningful connections when given patience and understanding.
The film has been praised for depicting mental health conditions without reducing characters to their diagnoses, though some clinicians note that Tiffany’s rapid improvement oversimplifies the recovery process.
TV Shows That Portray Borderline Personality Disorder
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend (2015-2019)
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is widely regarded as the most thorough and responsible portrayal of BPD in television. The show’s protagonist, Rebecca Bunch (Rachel Bloom), receives a formal BPD diagnosis in Season 3 after years of impulsive decisions, unstable relationships, and emotional turmoil. The show depicts her journey through diagnosis, initial resistance, and eventual commitment to treatment, including DBT.
Creator Rachel Bloom worked closely with mental health consultants to ensure accuracy. The show addresses BPD stigma directly, including a musical number about the fear of being labeled with a personality disorder. For anyone wanting to understand what a BPD diagnosis looks like from the inside, this show is an excellent starting point.
Maniac (2018)
Netflix’s Maniac features Annie Landsberg (Emma Stone), a character diagnosed with BPD who is struggling with grief, guilt, and fractured family relationships. The limited series has been praised by viewers with BPD for its sensitive and accurate depiction of the condition, particularly Annie’s fear of abandonment, emotional intensity, and self-destructive patterns.
BoJack Horseman (2014-2020)
While never formally diagnosed, the animated character BoJack Horseman displays many traits consistent with BPD, including chronic feelings of emptiness, unstable relationships, fear of abandonment, impulsivity, and self-destructive behavior. The show has been widely praised for its honest and often painful depiction of mental illness, substance abuse, and the difficulty of sustained recovery.
BoJack’s story resonates with many people with BPD because it does not offer easy answers. Recovery is shown as a long, nonlinear process, which is far more realistic than the sudden breakthroughs depicted in most films.
Common Problems with BPD in Movies and TV Shows
Across film and television, several recurring problems emerge in how BPD is depicted:
The “dangerous woman” trope. BPD characters, particularly women, are frequently portrayed as manipulative, violent, or sexually predatory. This reinforces the harmful stereotype that people with BPD are dangerous, when the evidence shows they are far more likely to be victims of abuse than perpetrators, as the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) has noted.
Romanticizing instability. Some portrayals frame BPD symptoms as exciting, passionate, or even desirable, turning genuine suffering into aesthetic drama. This minimizes the real pain that people with BPD experience and can discourage them from seeking treatment.
Ignoring treatment. Very few on-screen portrayals show characters receiving evidence-based treatment for BPD. In reality, therapies like Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) have strong research support and help many people with BPD build lives they experience as worth living, to use DBT founder Marsha Linehan’s well-known phrase.
Conflating BPD with other conditions. Films often blur the line between BPD and other personality disorders, particularly antisocial personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder. This confusion makes it harder for the public to understand what BPD actually looks like.
What Accurate BPD Representation Looks Like
The best portrayals of BPD in movies and TV shows share several characteristics. They show the full person, not just the symptoms. They depict the genuine pain behind behaviors that others might find confusing or frustrating. They acknowledge that BPD is treatable. And they avoid reducing complex individuals to diagnostic labels.
At Front Range Treatment Center, we see the real face of BPD every day, and it rarely looks like what Hollywood shows. Our clients are parents, professionals, students, and partners who are working hard to build skills for managing intense emotions. Through our Adult DBT Program and DBT Skills Classes, they learn concrete strategies for emotional regulation, distress tolerance, interpersonal effectiveness, and mindfulness.
Getting Help for BPD
If you see yourself in any of these portrayals of BPD in movies and TV shows, or if you have been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, know that effective treatment exists. Dialectical Behavior Therapy was developed specifically for BPD and has decades of research demonstrating its effectiveness. You do not have to navigate this alone.
Front Range Treatment Center is a DBT-Linehan Board of Certification Certified program located in the Denver Tech Center. We offer comprehensive DBT programs for adults, teens, and children. To learn more or to schedule a consultation, please contact us.