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Alice Calhoun (1900)
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Addiction Drama

A dramatic movie centering on either tragic or unsympathetic characters grappling with their addictions to drugs and/or alcohol. While some films present the use of drug and alcohol humorously (the Cheech and Chong films) or as a part of the normal adolescent experience (Dazed and Confused), addiction is the socially preferred topic of many filmmakers trying to tackle this issue. Instead of detailing the complex reasons why characters use drugs and alcohol in the first place, most of these movies focus on the dangerous results and tragic aftermath of their use. These include loss of job, family, lover(s), friends and, eventually, mental health. The conclusion is often one of two stock endings: the characters either seek treatment, overcome their addiction and begin restoring their lives, or they face death, imprisonment or alienation due to repeated use. Often these films sermonize and preach heavy-handedly and drip with melodramatic conventions such as scenes of physical and mental abuse, overblown musical scores, torturous withdrawal sequences and numerous soliloquies. Though most of these films sprung from the Just Say No era of the ‘80s, several Hollywood films dealt with addiction with more realism in the ‘50s and ‘60s, like The Man With the Golden Arm, A Hatful of Rain, The Lost Weekend and Days of Wine and Roses. During the late ‘60s and throughout the ‘70s, drugs were either cinematically presented as a part of life (Easy Rider) or as a social problem intended for the cops to stop -- though Panic in Needle Park and The Connection were part of a brief, artistically strong drug-abuse movement in the early ‘70s. Anti-drug moralizing arrived in the ‘80s with weepies like Clean and Sober, The Boost, Bright Lights, Big City and continued into the ‘90s with Rush and When a Man Loves a Woman. More complex films like Drugstore Cowboy, Christine F., Light Sleeper, Trainspotting, Leaving Las Vegas and Barfly didn't lecture or handle addiction as a simplistic, cut-and-dry TV-movie-of-the-week issue. Also included in this subgenre are fictionalized chronicles of celebrities and artists succumbing to addiction such as Bird, The Basketball Diaries, Lenny, Naked Lunch, and Wired.

Major Works
Rating
Year
 Title
 
 Director
  9 Stars 1945 The Lost Weekend   Billy Wilder
  9 Stars 1989 Drugstore Cowboy   Gus Van Sant
  8 Stars 2000 Traffic   Steven Soderbergh
  8 Stars 1995 Leaving Las Vegas   Mike Figgis
  8 Stars 1962 Long Day's Journey into Night   Sidney Lumet
  8 Stars 1962 Days of Wine and Roses   Blake Edwards
  7 Stars 1999 Jesus' Son   Alison Maclean
    7 Stars 1996 Long Day's Journey into Night   David Wellington
  7 Stars 1996 Trainspotting   Danny Boyle
  7 Stars 1989 My Name is Bill W.   Daniel Petrie
  7 Stars 1971 The Panic in Needle Park   Jerry Schatzberg
    7 Stars 1957 A Hatful of Rain   Fred Zinnemann
    7 Stars 1971 Dusty and Sweets McGee   Floyd Mutrux
  7 Stars 1989 Traffik   Alastair Reid
  7 Stars 1986 Sid and Nancy   Alex Cox
  7 Stars 1991 Naked Lunch   David Cronenberg
  7 Stars 1969 More   Barbet Schroeder
  7 Stars 1955 The Man with the Golden Arm   Otto Preminger
  7 Stars 1988 Long Day's Journey into Night   Jonathan Miller
  7 Stars 1954 The Country Girl   George Seaton
  7 Stars 1987 Barfly   Barbet Schroeder
  6 Stars 1998 High Art   Lisa Cholodenko
  6 Stars 1997 Gridlock'd   Vondie Curtis-Hall
  6 Stars 1994 When a Man Loves a Woman   Luis Mandoki
  6 Stars 1991 Rush   Lili Fini Zanuck
  6 Stars 1992 Light Sleeper   Paul Schrader
  6 Stars 1987 Ironweed   Hector Babenco
  6 Stars 1988 Clean and Sober   Glenn Gordon Caron
  5 Stars 2001 Quitting   Zhang Yang
  5 Stars 2000 Requiem for a Dream   Darren Aronofsky
    5 Stars 1999 Tre Storie   Piergiorgio Gay
  5 Stars 1997 Before Women Had Wings   Lloyd Kramer
  5 Stars 1997 Hache   Adolfo Aristarain
  5 Stars 1997 Dangerous Ground   Darrell J. Roodt
    5 Stars 1995 Sweet Nothing   Gary Winick
    5 Stars 1988 La Leggenda Del Santo Bevitore   Ermanno Olmi
    5 Stars 1975 Sarah T.: Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic   Richard Donner
  5 Stars 1973 Go Ask Alice   John Korty
    5 Stars 1980 The Boy Who Drank Too Much   Jerrold Freedman
  5 Stars 1956 Gervaise   René Clément
    5 Stars 1958 Playhouse 90: Days of Wine and Roses   John Frankenheimer
  5 Stars 1971 Born to Win   Ivan Passer
  4 Stars 2001 Blow   Ted Demme
    4 Stars 1999 Un Pur Moment De Rock 'N' Roll   Manuel Boursinhac
    4 Stars 1998 Cour interdite   Djamel Ouahab
  4 Stars 1998 Paginas De Una Historia: Mensaka   Salvador Garcia Ruiz
  4 Stars 1997 Horsey   Kirsten Clarkson
    4 Stars 1997 My Brother Jack   Anthony Caldarella
    4 Stars 1995 White Night   Arnon Zadok
  4 Stars 1997 Drunks   Peter Cohen
    4 Stars 1965 Synanon   Richard Quine
  4 Stars 1988 Bright Lights, Big City   James Bridges
  3 Stars 2000 28 Days   Betty Thomas
  3 Stars 1998 Another Day In Paradise   Larry Clark
  3 Stars 1998 Permanent Midnight   David Veloz
  3 Stars 1995 The Basketball Diaries   Scott Kalvert
  3 Stars 1982 I'm Dancing As Fast As I Can   Jack Hofsiss
  3 Stars 1988 The Boost   Harold Becker
  2 Stars 1938 Reefer Madness   Louis J. Gasnier
    2 Stars 1970 The People Next Door   David Green
 
 
 
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