He dared to search beyond the flesh...

Academy Award winning director John Huston (The African Queen) explores the life and the mind of one of history's most remarkable and controversial characters, Sigmund Freud (Oscar nominee Montgomery Clift, Judgment at Nuremberg). 1885, FREUD explores five years in the life of the respected Viennese psychologist.At a point in his professional life where disillusionment abounds, Freud is at odds with his colleagues' straight-forward approach to mental illness and refuses to treat patients in a mental asylum. Enlightened by a trip to Paris to visit Dr Charcot, Freud is inspired to treat hysterical patients by means of hypnosis, in order to penetrate the symptoms and get to the crux of the issue. Experimenting with these bold new techniques, Freud concentrates his efforts on Cecily Koertner (Oscar nominee Susannah York, They Shoot Horses, Don't They?), a young woman suffering a nervous and physical breakdown in the wake of her father's death. A revealing pseudo-biography, with haunting performances and atmospheric B&W cinematography, FREUD is a captivating look at one of the great turning points of medical science.