Hollywood heads to the hospital
Friday, August 8, 2025
Film fans can point to countless movies that feature physicians who do their profession proud. But when it comes to nurses, who outnumber doctors four to one in the real world, positive portrayals in motion pictures are often less common – as evidenced by the instant pop culture recognizability of naughty nurse personalities like Hot Lips Houlihan in M*A*S*H* (the movie, not the TV show), Ms. Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, and Annie Wilkes in Misery.
Yet these notorious characters tend to overshadow the numerous noble nurses and angels in white that can be found throughout film history, experts agree.
“Movie producers the world over have found nurses to be suitable and inspirational characters for on-screen drama since the beginning of cinema,” says Chris Hite, a film professor at Allan Hancock College in Santa Maria, California.
He says one of the earliest examples of an exemplary nurse character in film is Sister Edith, a Salvation Army nurse in director Victor Sjöström’s 1921 morality tale The Phantom Carriage, a silent movie from Sweden. “Up to her dying breath, Edith is concerned with making amends with a reckless alcoholic, from whom she contracted tuberculosis while caring for him. Her selflessness and humanitarianism set a template for the nurse archetype yet to come in motion pictures,” Hite notes.
Then there was Helen Hayes plays Cathryn, a wholesome nurse, in Frank Borzage’s 1932 adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, in which she cares for World War I wounded soldiers, including Frederic (Gary Cooper).
A memorable movie example of a traveling nurse is Stella (Thelma Ritter) in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window from 1954.
“Stella is a no-nonsense nurse attending to the homebound L.B. Jefferies, played by Jimmy Stewart. She’s rough around the edges – a veteran health worker grounded in reality. She dispenses wisdom acquired from years in the trenches and is integral to the story as a moral guide,” notes Hite. “In Stella, we see a matronly, intuitive depiction of the nursing profession but also a depiction of a profession whose dedication to its most problematic and troublesome clients is unshakable.”
Ask Marie Bashaw, a professor and director of nursing at Wittenberg, University in Springfield, Ohio, and she’ll tell you that her go-to nursing movie is the 2014 documentary The American Nurse, which covers the practice of five different nurses (home nurse, prison hospice nurse, labor/delivery nurse, none nurse, and Army vet nurse) and the patients they serve.
“It shows the actual work that nurses do and why they chose the specialty they did. It’s an actual chronology of their work rather than a cinematic representation,” she says. “The film can inspire any member of the health care team, especially nurses and people who want to become one.”
Mary Sue McInerney, a registered nurse in Palos Hills, Illinois, is also a huge fan of this movie.
“The American Nurse is a beautiful look at the emotional intricacies of caring that nurses are called to do,” says McInerney. “As a nurse, you are called to care for those whom society has sometimes turned their backs on or patients who are difficult to deal with. This film does not shy away from the tough issues of AIDS, prisoners, or the poor and their absolute right to compassion and support.”
Another common contender for a favorite film featuring a memorable nurse is The English Patient from 1996, in which Juliet Binoche stars as Hana, a caregiver of a man suffering from severe burns.
“This movie demonstrates the dedication of Hana, who empowers the soldier through his recovery. This film showed the time that nurses spend caring for patients at the bedside,” says Nancy Mimm, assistant professor and program lead Master of Science and Nursing and Population Health at Harrisburg University in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Audiences are seeing more depictions of male nurses in cinema lately, too. In addition to Greg Focker (Ben Stiller) in Meet the Parents and its two sequels, there’s Nathan (Stephen Peacocke) in 2016’s Me Before You, and Nurse John (Lenny Kravitz) in Precious from 2009.
“Kravitz provides an excellent portrayal of what it’s like to be a male nurse today. His demeanor and bedside manner in this movie says a lot about how male nurses interact with their patients and within the health care landscape,” notes Nicholas McGowan, an RN and the CEO of Critical Care Academy in Los Angeles.
Other nurse characters who represent their profession well on the big and small screen include:
Yet these notorious characters tend to overshadow the numerous noble nurses and angels in white that can be found throughout film history, experts agree.
“Movie producers the world over have found nurses to be suitable and inspirational characters for on-screen drama since the beginning of cinema,” says Chris Hite, a film professor at Allan Hancock College in Santa Maria, California.
He says one of the earliest examples of an exemplary nurse character in film is Sister Edith, a Salvation Army nurse in director Victor Sjöström’s 1921 morality tale The Phantom Carriage, a silent movie from Sweden. “Up to her dying breath, Edith is concerned with making amends with a reckless alcoholic, from whom she contracted tuberculosis while caring for him. Her selflessness and humanitarianism set a template for the nurse archetype yet to come in motion pictures,” Hite notes.
Then there was Helen Hayes plays Cathryn, a wholesome nurse, in Frank Borzage’s 1932 adaptation of Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, in which she cares for World War I wounded soldiers, including Frederic (Gary Cooper).
A memorable movie example of a traveling nurse is Stella (Thelma Ritter) in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window from 1954.
“Stella is a no-nonsense nurse attending to the homebound L.B. Jefferies, played by Jimmy Stewart. She’s rough around the edges – a veteran health worker grounded in reality. She dispenses wisdom acquired from years in the trenches and is integral to the story as a moral guide,” notes Hite. “In Stella, we see a matronly, intuitive depiction of the nursing profession but also a depiction of a profession whose dedication to its most problematic and troublesome clients is unshakable.”
Ask Marie Bashaw, a professor and director of nursing at Wittenberg, University in Springfield, Ohio, and she’ll tell you that her go-to nursing movie is the 2014 documentary The American Nurse, which covers the practice of five different nurses (home nurse, prison hospice nurse, labor/delivery nurse, none nurse, and Army vet nurse) and the patients they serve.
“It shows the actual work that nurses do and why they chose the specialty they did. It’s an actual chronology of their work rather than a cinematic representation,” she says. “The film can inspire any member of the health care team, especially nurses and people who want to become one.”
Mary Sue McInerney, a registered nurse in Palos Hills, Illinois, is also a huge fan of this movie.
“The American Nurse is a beautiful look at the emotional intricacies of caring that nurses are called to do,” says McInerney. “As a nurse, you are called to care for those whom society has sometimes turned their backs on or patients who are difficult to deal with. This film does not shy away from the tough issues of AIDS, prisoners, or the poor and their absolute right to compassion and support.”
Another common contender for a favorite film featuring a memorable nurse is The English Patient from 1996, in which Juliet Binoche stars as Hana, a caregiver of a man suffering from severe burns.
“This movie demonstrates the dedication of Hana, who empowers the soldier through his recovery. This film showed the time that nurses spend caring for patients at the bedside,” says Nancy Mimm, assistant professor and program lead Master of Science and Nursing and Population Health at Harrisburg University in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Audiences are seeing more depictions of male nurses in cinema lately, too. In addition to Greg Focker (Ben Stiller) in Meet the Parents and its two sequels, there’s Nathan (Stephen Peacocke) in 2016’s Me Before You, and Nurse John (Lenny Kravitz) in Precious from 2009.
“Kravitz provides an excellent portrayal of what it’s like to be a male nurse today. His demeanor and bedside manner in this movie says a lot about how male nurses interact with their patients and within the health care landscape,” notes Nicholas McGowan, an RN and the CEO of Critical Care Academy in Los Angeles.
Other nurse characters who represent their profession well on the big and small screen include:
- Sister Luke (Audrey Hepburn) in The Nun’s Story (1959)
- Eunice Evers (Alfre Woodard) in Miss Evert’s Boys (1997)
- Nurse Emily (Emma Thompson) in Angels in America (2003)
- Susie Monahan (Audra McDonald) in Wit (2001)
- Florence Nightingale (Jaclyn Smith) in a made-for-TV movie of the same name (1985)