listed below are some Films/Documentaries we have seen:
Snow Cake
Stars: Alan Rickman, Sigourney Weaver and Carrie-Anne Moss
Released: 2006
Director: Marc Evans
Length: 112 Minutes
Snow Cake is a Canadian drama about a middle-aged woman with autism and the friendship she develops with a man who is traumatized after having a car accident
involving her daughter. Sigourney Weaver researched her role, and was coached by autism author and speaker Ros Blackburn.
Mercury Rising
Stars: Bruce Willis, Alec Baldwin, Miko Hughes
Released: 1998
Director: Harold Becker
Length: 108 Minutes
A brilliant 9-year-old autistic boy becomes a target for assassins after he breaks a top government code. An undercover FBI agent finds the boy hiding in his closet and protects him.
Rain Man
Stars: Dustin Hoffman, Tom Cruise, Valeria Golino
Released: 1988
Director: Barry Levinson
Length: 140 Minutes
A car dealer returns to his boyhood home soon after learning about his father’s death. His father left a large sum of money to a benefactor, who he later discovers is left to his autistic brother, Raymond. Raymond was institutionalized soon after his mother’s death because of the fear that he might accidentally hurt his younger brother. Raymond has many autistic features, such as perseverations, insistence on sameness, rocking, self-injury, and savant abilities. Throughout the movie, the car dealer gets to know his brother during a cross-country car trip. (Dr. Rimland was the technical advisor on this movie ).
United States of Autism
Follow one man’s 11,000 mile, 40 day journey across the American landscape to visit twenty families and individuals affected by autism while searching for answers for his own son. With interviews from around the nation that include the widest spectrum of backgrounds and diagnoses – each conducted in the participants’ original language – the film weaves a broad and compelling tapestry across the spectrum of American life in all its faiths, disparities, colours, and cultures. Positively reviewed in the NY Times, LA Times, Hollywood Reporter, Variety Magazine and more, the United States of Autism was winner of the Pepsi Refresh Project and one of only two films featuring autism to make the Oscar Qualification list in 2013.
The Horse Boy
This movie chronicles the journey of the Isaacson family as they travel through Mongolia in search of a mysterious shaman who they believe can heal their autistic son. Delving into the world of autism, horses, shamanism, and Mongolia, it tells the story of a family that will go to the ends of the earth to find a way into their son’s life. Directed by Michel Orion Scott, this movie stars Rupert Isaacson and Temple Grandin.
Ben X
A 2007 Belgian-Dutch dram film based on the novel Nothing Was All He Said by Nic Balthazar, who also directed the film. The film is about a boy with Asperger Syndrome (played by Greg Timmermans) who retreats into the fantasy world of the MMORPG Archlord to escape bullying. The film’s title is a reference to the leet version of the Dutch phrase “(ik) ben niks”, meaning “(I) am nothing”. The novel was inspired by the true story of a boy with autism who committed suicide because of bullying. The film won three awards at the 31st Montreal World Film Festival: the Grand Prix des Amériques, the Prix du Public for the most popular film, and the Ecumenical Jury Prize for its exploration of ethical and social values.
Son-Rise: A Miracle of Love (1979)
A young couple is overjoyed when they find out that, after having had two girls, the wife is pregnant again, and this time it will be a son. However, the boy turns out to autistic. Unhappy with the diagnoses and treatments available, they decide to work out their own therapy program for their son.
The Black Balloon
Is a 2008 Australian, comedy-drama film starring Toni Collette, Rhys Wakefield, Luke Ford, Erik Thomson, Gemma Ward as well as a cast of newcomers. It is directed by first-time feature film director, Elissa Down. The film was released in Australian cinemas on 6 March 2008. The world premiere was at the Berlin International Film Festival in Germany in February 2008, where the film received a Crystal Bear as the best feature-length film in the Generation 14plus category.
What’s Eating Gilbert Grape? (1993)
With his father dead and his mother unable to care for her children on her own, Gilbert Grape (Johnny Depp) becomes the primary caregiver for his younger brother, Arnie (Leonardo DiCaprio), a teenager who has autism. Gilbert becomes fiercely protective of Arnie, who, because he doesn’t understand social expectations and norms, is always getting into some kind of trouble.