Bigger Than Life is a 1956 American drama film directed by Nicholas Ray and starring James Mason, Barbara Rush and Walter Matthau.

[2] It is based on a 1955 article by medical writer Berton Roueché in The New Yorker, titled "Ten Feet Tall".

Although it was a box-office flop on its initial release,[4] many modern critics hail it as a masterpiece and a brilliant indictment of contemporary attitudes toward mental illness.

At one of their meetings, Ed blatantly insults a mother about her child's intelligence, and seems unbothered when his colleague Wally Gibbs informs him that the woman is the association president.

Wally confronts Lou with research suggesting that cortisone can trigger psychosis in some patients when taken in high doses (known colloquially as "'roid rage").

Ed's mental state further declines, and he continually insults those around him, expressing abject arrogance, grandiosity and anger over minor inconveniences.

The following day, a desperate Richie raids Ed's medicine cabinet, hoping to steal his father's cortisone pills and dispose of them.

In a rage, Ed locks Lou in a coat closet, blares the volume on the family's television set, and goes to Richie's bedroom armed with a blade from a pair of scissors.

His doctor, Dr. Norton, informs Lou that the cortisone may have resulted in irreversible brain damage, and that he may never return to his prior mental state.

[10] Modern critics have praised Nicholas Ray's use of widescreen cinematography to depict the interior spaces of a family drama, rather than the open vistas typically associated with the format, as well as his use of extreme close-ups in portraying the main character's psychosis and megalomania.

While the film can be read as a straightforward exposé on medical malpractice and the overuse of prescription drugs in modern American society,[12] it has also been seen as a critique of consumerism, the traditional family structure, and the claustrophobic conformism of suburban life.

[15] The film has also been interpreted as an examination of masculinity and a leftist critique of the low salaries of public school teachers in the United States.