DRUG ADDICTIONS
- Veronique Goguen
- Jun 11, 2021
- 4 min read
Updated: Feb 26, 2022
The human achieves the blissful feeling of existence in 2 states, in dreams and in intoxication
1/10
CHRISTIANE F (1981)
Genre: Drama
Director: Uli Edel
Starring: Natja Brunckhorst
Summary: In 1970s Berlin,
Fourteen-year-old Christiane lives with her mother and little sister in a small apartment in a dull neighbourhood in the outskirts of West Berlin. She’s bored and lacks things to do and is sick and tired of living there.
Reason to Watch:
* In 1970s Berlin
* Worth reading the subtitles * Great soundtrack
* David Bowie concert scene
Scenes from Christiane F.
2/10
FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS (1998)
Genre: Comedy
Director: Terry Gilliam
Starring: Johnny Depp, Benicio del Toro, Christina Ricci
Summary
Raoul is a journalist who along with his lawyer head to Las Vegas to cover the mint 400 motorcycle race. Soon pleasure overtakes work and they indulge in a variety of recreational drugs.
Reason to Watch:
* Based on Book by Hunter S Thompson
* Johnny Depp * Set in Las Vegas
Scene from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
3/10
REQUIEM FOR A DREAM ( 2000 )
Genre: Drama/Psychological thriller
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Starring: Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly
Summary:
Imaginatively evoking the inner landscape of human beings longing to connect, to love and feel loved, the film is a parable of happiness gloriously found and tragically lost. "Requiem for a Dream" tells parallel stories that are linked by the relationship between the lonely, widowed Sara Goldfarb and her sweet but aimless son, Harry. The plump Sara, galvanized by the prospect of appearing on a TV game show, has started on a dangerous diet regimen to beautify herself for a national audience.
Reason to Watch:
* Based on book by Hubert Selby Jr.
Scenes of Jennifer Connelly from Requiem For A Dream to song Party Girl
4/10
TRAINSPOTTING ( 1996 )
Genre: Drama/Dark comedy
Director: Danny Boyle
Starring: Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner,
Jonny Lee Miller, Robert Carlyle, Kelly Macdonald
Summary: Renton is a drug addict who tries to mend his ways by moving to London and starting life afresh. He, however, is pulled back into the world of addiction by his friends.
Reason to Watch:
Based on book by Irvine Welsh
5/10
DRUGSTORE COWBOYS (1989)
Genre: Drama
Director: Gus Van Sant
Starring: Matt Dillon, Kelly Lynch,
Heather Graham, William S. Burroughs
Summary:
Bob Hughes (Matt Dillon) is the leader of a "family" of drug addicts consisting of his wife, Dianne (Kelly Lynch), and another couple who feed their habit by robbing drug stores as they travel across the country. After a tragedy befalls a member of his group, Bob decides he must leave his dysfunctional clan and go straight. Parting ways with his junkie past proves more difficult than expected when Bob is stalked by an old acquaintance looking to score drugs at any price.
Reason to Watch:
* That LBD she wears
* Sexy couple
Trailer for Drugstore Cowboy
6/10
BASKETBALL DIARIES
( 1995 )
Genre: Drama
Director: Scott Kalvert Starring : Leonardo Dicaprio
Summary: Jim Carroll is a high school basketball player growing up in Manhattan in the sixties. The film chronicles his downward spiral into addiction, homelessness, crime, and eventually prostitution.
Reason to Watch:
*Based on the book by Jim Carroll
Interview with Leo - The Basketball Diaries promo
7/10
SPUN (2002)
Genre: Drama
Director: Jonas Åkerlund Starring: Britney Murphy, Jason Schwartzman,
Mena Suvari, Mickey Rourke
Summary:
Comical tale focusing on the anarchic adventures of a college drop-out named Ross who has an unhealthy appetite for illegal drugs, particularly amphetamine sulphate, or speed. Having met a heavyweight dealer and drug manufacturer, Ross agrees to become his driver, a job that leads him into a series of manic and increasingly bizarre situations that distract him from his personal quest to find his errant girlfriend.
Reason to Watch:
* Britney Murphy and her trashy looks
Scene from Spun
8/10
CANDY (2006)
Genre: Romance/Drama
Director: Neil Armfield Starring: Heath Ledger, Abbie Cornish
Summary:
A fatherly chemistry professor indulges two young lovers in their ever-increasing heroin habits. Eventually, the pair, an artist named Candy and an aspiring poet named Dan, become caught in a harrowing downward spiral of drug dependency and failed efforts to get clean.
Reason to Watch:
Heath Ledger
Depressing, toxic love
Scenes from Candy
9/10
NAKED LUNCH ( 1991)
Genre: Sci-fi/Drama
Director: David Cronenberg
Starring: Judy Davis, Peter Weller, Roy Scheider
Summary:
Blank-faced bug killer Bill Lee (Peter Weller) and his dead-eyed wife, Joan (Judy Davis), like to get high on Bill's pest poisons while lounging with Beat poet pals. After meeting the devilish Dr. Benway (Roy Scheider), Bill gets a drug made from a centipede. Upon indulging, he accidentally kills Joan, takes orders from his typewriter-turned-cockroach, ends up in a constantly mutating Mediterranean city and learns that his hip friends have published his work -- which he doesn't remember writing.
Reason to Watch:
Based on 1959 novel by William S. Burroughs
Extremely disturbing
Scene "Mujahideen" from Naked Lunch
10/10
THE PANIC IN NEEDLE PARK ( 1971 )
Genre: Romance/Drama
Director: Jerry Schatzberg Starring : Al Pacino, Kitty Winn
Summary
Bobby is a heroin addict who lives in "Needle Park," the nickname for an area on the Upper West Side of Manhattan where junkies congregate. He meets Helen, a lonely homeless girl, and they fall in love. However, Bobby also introduces Helen to heroin, and she eventually becomes addicted, too. As Bobby and Helen become more and more dependent on each other and on heroin, their need for money to feed their habit grows, resulting in crime, desperation and betrayal.
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