Elevating portrayals of mental health is a key issue for Kristen Bell and Stacy L. Smith — and they’re working together, along with the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, to ensure more stories make it to the screen.

Today, Bell and Smith announced the launch of the Mental Health Accelerator, a program that offers emerging filmmakers grants to tell stories that center on mental health. The $20,000 grants will be awarded to three filmmakers aiming to tell a short, fictional story centered around a mental health portrayal with an emphasis on resilience and capacity building. 

“We all experience mental health — both when we feel good and when we struggle,” said Bell. “The Mental Health Accelerator is designed to fund filmmakers who want to tell stories related to expanding resilience and building capacity. The stories they bring to the screen will offer audiences a new lens on mental health to expand our vocabulary and our ability to support each other — and ourselves — when we need it most.”

“Audiences want authentic and meaningful stories about mental health, but our research shows that these portrayals are rare,” said Smith. “The Mental Health Accelerator offers a seminal focus on mental health and gives emerging storytellers a chance to fill a significant gap in entertainment. Our goal is that this accelerator will result in more content that answers audience demand and showcases mental health with compassion and hope.” 

Applications will open in November 2025, and winners will be announced in early 2026. More about the program, including full eligibility requirements, can be found here. This is the most recent program from the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, and reunites Smith with producer Coco Francini of Dirty Films, who will work with Bell and Smith to screen the applicants.

The announcement of the Mental Health Accelerator comes as Smith and the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative share new results from a study regarding the prevalence and context of mental health in popular movies. 

Only 1.7% of the 4,425 speaking characters across the 100 top-grossing movies of 2024 had a mental health condition. This percentage is significantly below the 23.4% of U.S. adults with a mental health condition. There has also been no change over time, as Dr. Smith’s previous work shows that 1.7% of all speaking characters in the top 100 films of 2016 had a mental health condition.

The study also shows that more than half — 54 in all — of the top 100 films didn’t include even one character with a mental health condition. When characters did appear with mental health conditions, they were slightly more likely to be male-identified and white, and less likely to be elderly, children, or teen characters.

“Hollywood continues to present a skewed picture of mental health in film,” said Smith. “Not only is it rarely shown compared to population metrics, the characters with mental health conditions underestimate the women, children and teens, aging, and underrepresented populations living with real mental health challenges. Film’s silence on these topics does little to encourage acceptance, help-seeking, and compassion from audiences.”

Contextual factors surrounding mental health also link characters with psychological conditions to issues of violence — both as perpetrators and targets. A third of all characters were disparaged on screen specifically regarding their mental health, and one-third experienced on-screen stigma as a result of their condition. More than a quarter (28%) of characters with mental health conditions died during the films studied. 

Health-seeking depictions were rare in film. Less than one-third (31.2%) of all characters with a mental health condition received therapy and 11.8% utilized medication for their condition. 

“The Mental Health Accelerator takes aim at the very inaccuracies identified in this research,” said Smith. “Giving emerging creators the ability to tell new stories that counter the unrealistic portrayal of people with mental health conditions is an avenue to changing perceptions and attitudes about mental health off-screen.”

Learn more about the accelerator here and read the full study here.