Backdrop fallback

Manic

Manic

Share

Manic

"You can't escape yourself."

2002

1h 42m

6.8(119 votes)

Drama

Overview

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.

Links & Resources

Website IMDbView

Social & External

Production Companies

The people behind it

Cast & crew

10 featured cast members

Starring

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

Lyle

Don Cheadle

Don Cheadle

Dr. David Monroe

Zooey Deschanel

Zooey Deschanel

Tracy

Michael Bacall

Michael Bacall

Chad

Elden Henson

Elden Henson

Michael

Cody Lightning

Cody Lightning

Kenny

Sara Rivas

Sara Rivas

Sara

William Richert

William Richert

Diego

Blayne Weaver

Blayne Weaver

Charlie

Maggie Baird

Maggie Baird

Rebecca

Creative team

Directed by: Jordan Melamed
Written by: Jordan Melamed
Blayne Weaver
Produced by: Trudi Callon
Kirk Hassig

Similar Movies

Abigail

Abigail

A lonely and elderly widower struggles to come to terms with the loss of his wife and the circumstances surrounding her death. When he visits her grave, he encounters a little girl who shows him the path to healing and fills him with hope.

A Silent Love

A Silent Love

Through an Internet service, a Montreal professor arranges for himself a Mexican bride. But both husband and wife, even with their good intentions, are in for a bumpy ride toward marital harmony.

Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa!

Kenneth Williams: Fantabulosa!

Kenneth Williams was the star of the Carry Ons and Round the Horne. Despite his fame, he led a life full of mental torture as he tried to overcome his homosexuality in 1950s Britain. This film follows his life and eventual death based on the many diaries he kept

New Jersey Drive

New Jersey Drive

Jason and Midget are two young, black teenagers living in Newark, New Jersey, the unofficial car theft capital of the world. Their favourite pastime is that of everybody in their neighbourhood: stealing cars and joyriding. The trouble starts when they steal a police car and the cops launch a violent offensive that involves beating and even shooting suspects.

Villa 69

Villa 69

Hussein is a terminally ill yet charming architect who enjoys a solitary routine in his old family home, and a variety of female visitors. Not realizing his past is about to catch up with him, Hussein's sister and her grandson move into the house, disrupting a well-established lifestyle, and forcing him to re-examine his ideas about life, love, and family.

Paper Man

Paper Man

A coming-of-middle-age comedy that chronicles the unlikely friendship between failed author Richard Dunne and a Long Island teen who teaches him a thing or two about growing up, all under the disapproving eye of his long-suffering wife and his imaginary Superhero friend.

Control Alt Delete

Control Alt Delete

A moody romantic comedy exploring fetishism, addiction and love in the information age. As Lewis struggles to integrate his public and private personas, he realizes he may not be the only one harboring a dirty little secret.

The Man in the Trunk

The Man in the Trunk

On an otherwise quiet night there is a startling knock at the door. Andrew Tucker answers the door to find an old friend whom he hasn't seen in years. The disheveled and absent friend comes to him with one request: "I need you to come with me but, I can't tell you where we're going." Andrew takes a chance but learns that every answer brings more questions. Nothing good ever comes knocking after midnight and Andrew's nightmare asks how far you would go to help a friend.

Small Town Saturday Night

Small Town Saturday Night

Just days before Rhett (Chris Pine) is leaving for Nashville to pursue a lifelong dream of being a singer/songwriter, his girlfriend Samantha (Bre Blair) realizes that "his" future may not be "their" future. This news comes as a shock to Rhett, and he is faced with having to choose between following his dream and staying in his hometown in order to be with the woman he loves.

Fevers

Fevers

Benjamin is at war: with life, with adults, with himself. From his earliest childhood onwards, the 13-year old has been shunted from one care home to another. When his mother has to go to prison, he is sent to his father, whom he has never known. The man turns out to be a dead loss, a warehouseman who's given up on life, a man in his mid-40s who still lives with his Moroccan parents in a high-rise block in the banlieue. Benjamin's turbulence and violence soon prove too much for his new family.

Killer Instinct

Killer Instinct

For America, the Vietnam War is over. Johnny doesn't see it that way. This Special Forces soldier battles vicious Vietcong, a sadistic Russian advisor and his own peacenik girlfriend as he embarks on a deadly mission behind enemy lines.

An Amish Sin

An Amish Sin

Rachel is an Amish teen who refuses to obey her parent’s command that she marry the man who abused her as a child. When she attempts to run away, she is caught and sent to a “rehab” for Amish girls who don’t follow the rules

Escanaba in da Moonlight

Escanaba in da Moonlight

On the eve of deer-hunting season in Michigan, a family of hunters contends with the shame of their eldest son never having shot his own buck.

Inside Moves

Inside Moves

After a failed suicide attempt leaves him partially crippled, Rory begins spending a lot of time at a neighborhood bar full of interesting misfits. When Jerry the bartender suddenly finds himself playing basketball for the Golden State Warriors, Rory and the rest of the bar regulars hope his success will provide a lift to their sagging spirits. Will Jerry forget his friends? What about his junkie hooker girlfriend and her pimp?

The Edge of Quarrel

The Edge of Quarrel

Director David Larson's engaging tale follows Brian Johansen (Rocky Votolato), who returns home to Seattle after a four-year stint in college only to find his two best friends, Jason Talbott (John Pettibone) and Chance Linstrom (Dann Gallucci), at war with each other. As Jason and Chance -- who've become the leaders of rival "gangs" -- attempt to draw Brian over to their respective sides, he sets about uniting the feuding factions.

Repeated Absences

Repeated Absences

François Naulet turns his bedroom into an island of drugs, loneliness and despair.

You Are Not Alone

You Are Not Alone

Young teenager Bo is too sensitive for the hothouse atmosphere of a boarding school run by a cold, unfeeling would-be man of the cloth. Lonely and scared, he finds a soulmate in the headmaster's son Kim with whom he forms a bond of friendship... that slowly grows into something more.

The Head-Eater

The Head-Eater

In a city where young people disappear, Anya goes through the process of losing her best friend, Mayra, after she transfers to another school. Anya's loneliness and sadness attract Orion, an alien who attaches to her head, but which no one else sees. He manipulates Anya's dreams to convince her to go to his planet, but she clings to her chaotic reality.

Therapy

Therapy

Therapist Leena and her soon-to-be ex-husband Pekka run a relationship camp in the midst of their own painful break-up. The participants are all very different: an actor who has lost himself and his memory, his spouse, a police officer who cannot let go of his loved one, and a couple whose open relationship is not quite as open as they think. Through surprising twists, painful encounters, and humor, the campers discover new perspectives on each other—and themselves. Perhaps not everything can be fixed, but there is still much to learn.

Arjun Reddy

Arjun Reddy

A brilliant but impulsive young surgeon spirals into self-destruction after a painful breakup, struggling to cope with love, loss, and the consequences of his own temper.

Recommended Movies

Starred Up

Starred Up

19-year-old Eric, arrogant and ultra-violent, is prematurely transferred to the same adult prison facility as his estranged father. As his explosive temper quickly finds him enemies in both prison authorities and fellow inmates — and his already volatile relationship with his father is pushed past breaking point — Eric is approached by a volunteer psychotherapist, who runs an anger management group for prisoners. Torn between gang politics, prison corruption, and a glimmer of something better, Eric finds himself in a fight for his own life, unsure if his own father is there to protect him or join in punishing him.

Better Man

Better Man

Follow Robbie Williams' journey from childhood, to being the youngest member of chart-topping boyband Take That, through to his unparalleled achievements as a record-breaking solo artist – all the while confronting the challenges that stratospheric fame and success can bring.

Bad Boys

Bad Boys

Mick O'Brien is a young Chicago street thug torn between a life of petty crime and the love of his girlfriend. But when the heist of a local drug dealer goes tragically wrong Mick is sentenced to a brutal juvenile prison where violence is a rite of passage and respect is measured in vengeance.

Anna

Anna

A man with the ability to enter peoples' memories takes on the case of a brilliant, troubled sixteen-year-old girl to determine whether she is a sociopath or a victim of trauma.

Girl, Interrupted

Girl, Interrupted

Set in the changing world of the late 1960s, Susanna Kaysen's prescribed "short rest" from a psychiatrist she had met only once becomes a strange, unknown journey into Alice's Wonderland, where she struggles with the thin line between normal and crazy. Susanna soon realizes how hard it is to get out once she has been committed, and she ultimately has to choose between the world of people who belong inside or the difficult world of reality outside.

Palmer

Palmer

After 12 years in prison, former high school football star Eddie Palmer returns home to put his life back together—and forms an unlikely bond with Sam, an outcast boy from a troubled home. But Eddie's past threatens to ruin his new life and family.

Foxfire

Foxfire

The story of five teenage girls who form an unlikely bond after beating up a teacher who has sexually harassed them. They build a solid friendship but their wild ways begin to get out of control.

Thirteen

Thirteen

When 13-year-old Tracy befriends Evie, the most popular girl in school, her life is turned upside down as Evie introduces her to a world of sex, drugs, and money. But it isn’t long before Tracy’s new lifestyle begins to take a heavy toll on her and her family.

Good Boy

Good Boy

Tommy, a volatile 19-year-old, revels in drugs, parties and violence. After getting separated from his friends on a drunken bender, he is abducted by a shadowy figure. He wakes to find himself imprisoned in the basement of a remote Yorkshire house, inhabited by a very strange family. But what unfolds is not what he could possibly expect.

Mammal

Mammal

After Margaret, a divorcée living in Dublin, loses her teenage son, she develops an unorthodox relationship with Joe, a homeless youth. Their tentative trust is threatened by his involvement with a violent gang and the escalation of her ex-husband's grieving rage.

I'm Not Ashamed

I'm Not Ashamed

Based on the journal entries of Rachel Joy Scott, the first student killed in the Columbine High School shooting in 1999.

Requiem for a Dream

Requiem for a Dream

The drug-induced utopias of four Coney Island residents are shattered when their addictions run deep.

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden

A disturbed and institutionalized 16-year-old girl struggles between fantasy and reality.

Sleepers

Sleepers

Two gangsters seek revenge on the state jail worker who during their stay at a youth prison sexually abused them. A sensational court hearing takes place to charge him for the crimes.

Gimme Shelter

Gimme Shelter

After running away from her abusive mother, a streetwise teen seeks refuge with her father, but he rejects her when he learns that she's pregnant.

Bully

Bully

A group of teenagers in South Florida enact a murder plot against their mutual bully, Bobby, who has emotionally, physically, and sexually abused them for years.

Kids

Kids

A group of bored, disaffected New York City teenagers spend a day skating, smoking, drinking, partying, deflowering virgins, and getting into fights.

Goodbye June

Goodbye June

Four siblings' lives change drastically when their ailing mother takes a turn for the worse over the holiday season.

Zero Day

Zero Day

Two troubled adolescents chronicle the events that ultimately lead up to a terrifying assault on their school.

Coldwater

Coldwater

A teenage boy is sent to a juvenile reform facility in the wilderness. As we learn about the tragic events that sent him there, his struggle becomes one for survival with the inmates, counselors, and the retired war colonel in charge.