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Table 1 List of selected movies (N = 20)

From: Treating rare diseases with the cinema: Can popular movies enhance public understanding of rare diseases?

Movie tittle

Type of disease

Year

Genre

Country

Director

Box office

The Boy in the Plastic Bubble (TV movie)

Severe combined immunodeficiency

1976

Biography, Drama

USA

Randal Kleiser

No data available

The Elephant Man

Proteus syndromea

1980

Biography, Drama

USA

David Lynch

$26,023,706

Mask

Craniodiaphyseal dysplasia

1985

Biography, Drama

USA

Peter Bogdanovich

$48,230,162

Crystal Heart (Corazón de cristal) (TV movie)

Severe combined immunodeficiency

1986

Drama, Romance

Spain/USA

Gil Bettman

No data available

Alex: The Life of a Child (TV movie)

Cystic fibrosis

1986

Biography, Drama

USA/Canada

Robert Markowitz

No data available

Lorenzo’s Oil

Adrenoleukodystrophy

1992

Biography, Drama

USA

George Miller

$7,286,388

Children of the Dark (TV movie)

Xeroderma pigmentosum

1994

Drama

USA

Michael Switzer

No data available

Jack

Werner syndrome

1996

Comedy, Drama

USA

Francis Ford Coppola

$58,620,973

Sixth Happiness

Osteogenesis imperfecta

1997

Drama

UK

Waris Hussein

No data available

The Mighty

Morquio syndrome

1998

Comedy, Drama

USA

Peter Chelsom

$2,652,246

Simon Birch

Osteogenesis imperfecta

1998

Comedy, Drama

USA

Mark Steven Johnson

$18,253,415

Jack and Jill vs. the World

Cystic fibrosis

2008

Drama, Romance

USA/Canada

Vanessa Parise

No data available

Paa (Father)

Progeria

2009

Comedy, Drama

India

R. Balki

$9,696,629

Extraordinary Measures

Pompe disease

2010

Drama

USA

Tom Vaughan

$15,134,293

And I'll Be Dead Tomorrow Noon (Und morgen mittag bin ich tot)

Cystic fibrosis

2013

Drama

Germany/ Netherlands/Belgium

Sacha Polak

No data available

Wonder

Treacher Collins syndrome

2017

Drama, Family

USA/Hong Kong

Stephen Chbosky

$306,209,289

Midnight Sun

Xeroderma pigmentosum

2018

Drama, Romance

USA

Scott Speer

$27,365,467

Five Feet Apart

Cystic fibrosis

2019

Drama, Romance

USA

Justin Baldoni

$91,527,795

Ondine

Congenital central hypoventilation syndrome

2019

Drama

Poland

Tomasz Śliwiński

No data available

More Beautiful for Having Been Broken

Fanconi anaemia

2019

Drama

USA

Nicole Conn

No data available

  1. aAlthough for many years it has been argued that Joseph Merrick, the cinematic ‘elephant man’, was afflicted with Neurofibromatosis type I, most recent studies have demonstrated that he actually suffered from Proteus syndrome [29]