Trainspotting & 9 Other Classic Movies About Drug Use

Drug use has been a popular subject matter for movies since Hollywood was just starting out. 1936’s Reefer Madness is a hilarious-in-retrospect propaganda piece about the devastating effects of marijuana use. As society has lightened up and drug use has become more accepted, cinema has given way to more sympathetic portrayals of addicts. Not all drug movies are mindless endeavors like Dude, Where’s My Car?.

Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting, chronicling the ups and downs of a group of heroin addicts in Edinburgh, is a prime example of a movie about drug use that’s been praised by critics as a respectable work of cinema.

10 Trainspotting (1996)

In adapting Irvine Welsh’s cult-favorite novel Trainspotting for the screen, director Danny Boyle successfully visualized the manic energy of the author’s prose, while screenwriter John Hodge kept the book’s pitch-black comic tone intact.

The loose plotting works because the movie is anchored by Ewan McGregor’s compelling lead performance. Drug addiction is a big theme in this movie, but it also touches on class issues in Edinburgh.

9 Requiem For A Dream (2000)

Darren Aronofsky established his ironclad command of the cinematic form with Requiem for a Dream, which charts the drug addictions of four interconnected characters as they slip further and further into a world of delusion.

Some scenes are particularly grim and the movie is difficult to watch at times, but Requiem for a Dream is the quintessential portrait of addicts losing touch with reality.

8 Scarface (1983)

Al Pacino stars in Brian De Palma’s revered crime epic Scarface as a Cuban immigrant who comes to Miami and slowly rises through the ranks of the criminal underworld to become the leader of his own cocaine empire.

As with most gangster stories, Tony Montana’s rise eventually gives way to his fall. In this case, it can be blamed on his own drug addiction. In the second half of the movie, he’s often seen with his face buried in a mountain of coke.

7 Traffic (2000)

There are a bunch of intertwining story threads in Steven Soderbergh’s crime epic Traffic, but the main one sees the U.S. President tasking a judge with making some progress in America’s ever-worsening war on drugs.

In his investigation into the ongoing drug epidemic, the judge is horrified to discover that his own teenage daughter is addicted to crack.

6 Pulp Fiction (1994)

In the “Vincent Vega and Marsellus Wallace’s Wife” segment of Quentin Tarantino’s darkly comic crime anthology Pulp Fiction, mob hitman Vincent Vega buys some heroin from his dealer Lance and shoots up before picking up his boss’ wife Mia Wallace for dinner.

After dinner, he takes her home and she wears his coat. While he’s in the bathroom, she finds his heroin in the pocket, mistakes it for cocaine, snorts a couple of lines, and overdoses. If she dies, Vincent is a dead man. So, in a panic, he drives her down to Lance’s house to administer an adrenaline shot to her heart.

5 Moonlight (2016)

Tarell Alvin McCraney wrote his semi-autobiographical, ultimately unproduced play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue as a coping mechanism when his drug-addicted mother died. It’s a coming-of-age story about the hardships faced by a gay Black kid growing up with an abusive crack-addicted mother.

Feeling a kindred spirit with the playwright as his own mother had grappled with addiction, Barry Jenkins decided to adapt the play into a movie, and the result was one of the most beautiful films ever made, more than deserving of its Best Picture win.

4 Drugstore Cowboy (1989)

Matt Dillon stars as the head of a “family” of junkies in Gus Van Sant’s powerful drama Drugstore Cowboy. They travel across America and rob drugstores to fund their substance addictions.

When tragedy befalls the family, he decides to go straight but faces the tough reality that giving up his drug-using past isn’t going to be easy.

3 Easy Rider (1969)

Dennis Hopper ushered in the New Hollywood movement with Easy Rider, his biker movie capturing the counterculture zeitgeist of the late ‘60s.

Hopper co-stars with Peter Fonda as a pair of bikers who hit the road after making a boatload on a drug deal and do their fair share of drugs along the way. One particularly nightmarish sequence sees the characters have a bad trip while celebrating Mardi Gras in a cemetery.

2 Goodfellas (1990)

Martin Scorsese’s ongoing thesis in his movies about the mafia is that a life of crime never pays and only ever ends one way. The story of mobster-turned-FBI informant Henry Hill gave Scorsese the perfect groundwork for that cinematic statement, and Goodfellas ended up being arguably the greatest gangster movie ever made. Real-life gangsters say it plays like a home movie.

Henry’s downfall begins when he defies his boss Paulie’s wishes and starts selling coke. And, of course, he starts getting high on his own supply. The iconic helicopter sequence beautifully conveys Henry’s frenzied, paranoid, drug-addled mindset.

1 Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas (1998)

Terry Gilliam is possibly the only director whose visual style is surreal and mind-bending enough to adapt the gonzo writings of Hunter S. Thompson for the big screen.

Johnny Depp stars as Raoul Duke, a thinly veiled portrait of Thompson himself, who goes to Vegas with his lawyer Dr. Gonzo, played by Benicio del Toro, to cover the Mint 400 motorcycle race. However, like the novel, the movie quickly devolves from sports journalism into a drug-addled odyssey through Sin City.

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Ben Sherlock
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Ben Sherlock is a writer, comedian, independent filmmaker, and Burt Reynolds enthusiast. He writes lists for Screen Rant and features and reviews for Game Rant. He’s currently in pre-production on his first feature (and has been for a while, because filmmaking is expensive). You can catch him performing standup at odd pubs around the UK that will give him stage time. Previously, he wrote for Taste of Cinema, Comic Book Resources, and BabbleTop.

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