EN
The purpose of this paper is to present different perceptual strategies presented in American popular cinema. In film reality, perception of the world is determined by many different factors. Among them we can distinguish two dominant groups: internal factors, genetically conditioned mental illness, and external factors – enforced ways of reading reality, determined by ideology, the political system and technical civilization. The first part of the elaboration includes analyses of films, describing the falsity of the existing reality. Dystopian images, such as The Matrix and The Truman Show, in fact clearly refer to the concept of “simulacra” by Jean Baudrillard, the theory of the “brain in a dish” by Hilary Putnam and the theatrum mundi theme. In the second part of the work, struggles with mental disorders were included, significantly affecting the perception of reality. In works such as A Beautiful Mind, Forrest Gump and Rain Man, the topic of genius affected by mental illness is visible.