Top 10 Movies About Drugs

     I decided to include Leaving Las Vegas although it's about alcohol addiction. Also, although Taking Woodstock is not a great movie and drugs are not the main theme, I put it here because of the great LSD trip scene.
     - A Scanner Darkly: This movie is like nothing I've seen before - visually astonishing, with interesting dialogue, feeling like chaos, madness and despair. All in all, a great trip. (starring Keanu Reeves and Robert Downey Jr.)
     - Brick: The first time I saw this movie I was bored to death by it. But I gave it another try and I'm happy I did. Because it's a very unique and complex film noir, with powerful acting, solid dialogue and lots of questions that will keep you glued to the screen. (starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt)
     - Taking Woodstock: There are actors whose presence in a movie is enough to make me watch it. One of them is Emile Hirsch, the reason I decided to give Taking Woodstock a chance. Not a great film (not bad either), but worth watching because of the beautiful LSD trip scene considered by many authentic. I didn't try LSD, but even so I was fascinated by that sequence.
     - Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: Johnny Depp, Benicio Del Toro and lots of drugs make an amazing, fun to watch movie. A must see.
     - Half Nelson: A powerful story about existential struggle, emotional decline, addiction, human connections and hope. Ryan Gosling gives a startling performance as Dan Dunne, a young and unhappy teacher, tormented by anguish and despair, who befriends one of his students in an attempt to save himself from self-destruction.
     - The Basketball Diaries: A depressing, soul-shattering, anti-drugs movie. Leonardo DiCaprio is extremely convincing as a young drug addict and the scene near the end of the movie when he begs his mother for some money is so amazingly played that I could feel his despair and I hardly refrained myself from crying.

     - Leaving Las Vegas: This excerpt from the book conveys the general feeling of the movie: "How many more nights and weird mornings can this terrible shit go on? How long can the body and the brain tolerate this doom-struck craziness? This grinding of teeth, this pouring of sweat, this pounding of blood in the temples...small blue veins gone amok in front of the ears, sixty and seventy hours with no sleep..."

     - Candy: Tells the story of a young poet, Dan (Heath Ledger), who falls in love with a painter, Candy (Abbie Cornish), and draws her into the world of heroin addiction. Very intense.
     - Trainspotting: With its memorable opening, the fantastic 'Choose life' monologue of Mark Renton (Ewan Mcgregor), Trainspotting is an incredible movie, an experience I will definitely repeat.
      - Requiem for a Dream: Without a doubt one of the most devastating, wrenching, brutally honest films I've ever seen. (starring Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly, Ellen Burstyn)