Season 1 • Episode 6
LatestLondon, 1939: Psychoanalysis flourishes in America and Freud's works are sought worldwide: his international standing has far surpassed his father's simple plea that he make professor. But in the prophet's own land, it is a different matter. More cautious friends have persuaded the elderly Sigmund to take refuge in England and it is there that he completes the final, revealing session of self-analysis.
Freud, also known as Freud: The Life of a Dream, is a 1984 six-part BBC television serial dramatised by Carey Harrison, and starring David Suchet as Austrian psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. Each episode begins with Freud and his family in London, where they had fled from Vienna in 1938 following the Nazi Anschluss, leading up to Freud's death a little over a year later. The rest of the episodes are told mainly in flashbacks to key moments in Freud's life and career
Acting
Suchet's eyes carry decades of unspoken trauma.
Production
BBC at peak 'we spent money on books not explosions' era.
Creator
Carey Harrison
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Suchet later became iconic as Poirot, making this his warmup for playing another meticulous, difficult genius with a famous mustache.
The 1984 release coincided with rising academic interest in Freud's Jewish identity and the circumstances of his exile, reflected in the unusual London bookend structure.
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