I know we used to have a thread on this subject but for the life of me I cannot find it so decided to do a new one.
For me, it is a subject I am very interested in, not just because I had a problem with drink but because the whole area of addiction fascinates me...so diverse in its severity but all the same in it's commen theme.
Anyhoo, I was looking for a list of such movies and this is the best and most comprehensive I could find. I now have a long list of movies to download lol...
Some of these films deal with drug addiction but the main theme is alcoholism.
If any of you have seen any..maybe you can leave a review letting us know what you thought about it and if it is worth watching!!
ilms Made and Distributed in the United States on Alcoholism, Drugs, &/or Recovery
1. 1935: “Marijuana - Assassin of Youth.”In the mold of "Reefer Madness" this campy "I Told You So" expose shows what can--and will--happen when a girl smokes weed: her life goes down the tubes! Hilarious exploitation scare film showing good girls turning into fiends after smoking wacky weed. Some versions had the moonlight nude scenes cut. A.K.A. "Assassin of Youth." Luana Walters stars. 74 min.
2. 1936: “Marihuana: Weed with Roots in Hell. “ Film by Dwain Esper who exploited mental illness, v.d. and more during the 1930’s. Poster promises “weird orgies,” “wild parties,” and “unleashed passions.” Showed nudity as part of the “expose.” Cast contains no one who was ever noted before or heard from again. Part of “Hollyweird” period.
3. 1937: “The Cocaine Fiends” (also “The Pace That Kills”). A strident, scare-them-off film, like “Reefer Madness,” below. An brother and sister go to the big city. The sister is introduced to cocaine under the guise of “headache powder” by a member of the mob. The young girl and her brother, both innocents to big city and drug using lives, become addicted. Heavily moralizing. Like earlier films, evil powers are imputed to the drug.
4. 1938: “Reefer Madness,” with an unknown cast! It’s strident, moralizing tone
has made it a cult, comedic favorite. It represents the “moralization” of drugs and
alcohol that typified the era. Never heard of anyone in the cast, then or later.
Heavily moralizing; evil powers are attributed to the drug.
5. 1945: “The Lost Weekend” (Ray Milland). Early articulation of an uncontrollable, self-destructive, alcoholic binge. An innovative depiction of alcoholic isolation, secrecy (e.g. hidden bottles), demons, and frenzy. The wife (Jane Wyman) is a classic female enabler and the ending offers nearly a magic cure based on sudden insight and self-will. The Director, Billy Wilder, anticipated the “disease concept” in the drunkenness and blackouts that follow the first drink.
6. 1947: “Smash-Up: The Story of a Woman” with Susan Hayward (see below) as a nightclub singer whose life and marriage and placed on hold while she invests in her husband’s career. Her life descends into alcoholism as his career takes off. Rather a gender reversal of “A Star is Born” with the primary character descending to a true alcoholic “bottom.”
7. 1951: Night into Morning.” Small-town professor loses family in fire, becomes out-of-control and self-destructive (suicidal) alcoholic. No specific treatments noted. Attribution is to the tragedy and not to a weakness or moral condition. Ray Milland (see “Lost Weekend” above) gives good performance.
8. 1951: “Come Fill the Cup.” News reporter (James Cagney) is sacked for
drinking. Later gets straight and hires 3 former alcoholics on his staff while still living with his friend Charley who is an alcoholic. Helps a young man through D.T.’s. Good film on the path of alcoholism. Also with Raymond Massey, Jackie Gleason and Gig Young. Film reflects A.A. precepts: permanent illness and the need to help others in order to stay sober.
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Note: with “Come Back Little Sheba” and “Something to Live For” in 1952
came the first extensive introduction of A.A. in the way of “12th Step Calls,”
meetings, slogans, prayers and birthday celebrations.
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9. 1952: “Come Back Little Sheba.” Tremendous film depicting a Dr., active in
A.A., who has blamed his drinking and diversion from his career on his long
suffering wife (Shirley Booth). Doc gets jealous and abusive with his wife, ending
up drunk and physically violent. Path breaking. Tremendous acting.
10. 1952: “Something to Live For.” An actress is guided by an Alcoholics
Anonymous member to control her alcoholism and her feelings of rejection
Ray Milland in another film on debilitating alcoholism. An early reference to A.A.
Along with “Come Back Little Sheba” of the same year.
11. 1954: “The Country Girl.” Story about an alcoholic entertainer’s (Bing Crosby)
attempt to overcome his addiction to booze, make a professional comeback, and save his relationship with his long suffering wife (Grace Kelly). This is remade for television in 1982 with Faye Dunaway and Dick Van Dyke.
12. 1955: “The Man with the Golden Arm,” Tame by today’s standards, this was
an extraordinarily path breaking narrative about a musician’s (Frank Sinatra) addiction to heroin. Frankie Machine (Sinatra) is a drummer with a crippled wife.
He recovers sweating it out by himself; a type of “heroic” individual effort.
13. 1955: “I’ll Cry Tomorrow.” The life of Broadway's Lillian Roth, who sank into
alcoholism and then recovered:. Academy Award Nominations: 4, including Best Actress--Susan Hayward. Richard Conte is the caddish husband; Eddie Albert is the A.A. volunteer who lifts her up. Recovers in A.A.
14. 1956: “The Bottom of the Bottle.” Story an two brothers, one an alcoholic and
ex-offender who embarrasses his sober brother, and leaves for Mexico to
escape. Great old time cast: Van Johnson, Joseph Cotton & Ruth Roman.
15. 1957: “Monkey on My Back,” the story of welterweight boxing champion, Barney Ross (Cameron Mitchell) whose ring career is interrupted by W.W.II during which he contracted malaria, became addicted to morphine & hits a low bottom upon return. Graphically depicted, Ross later sued for defamation of character.r />16. 1958: “Voice in the Mirror.”An artist takes to drink after the death of his daughter. Resists interventions by wife and doctor. Finds the strength he needs to stay on the wagon with the help of a fellow alcoholic. Male AA-Like person.Great cast: Richard Egan, Walter Matthau, Julie London.
17. 1958: “Too Much, Too Soon.” Dorothy Malone as Diana Barrymore who stays away from her alcoholic father during his lifetime only to turn to excessive drinking and numerous marriages and suicide attempts. Treatment center. A “moral” ending with Barrymore in recovery. This is an early portrayal of children and their experiences in alcoholic/drug abusing family settings.
18. 1962: “The Days of Wine and Roses.” Academy award winner with Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick, articulating the addictive plunges into alcoholism and mutual, interpersonal risks of husband and wife use as one drags the other to the bottom. Brief introduction to AA by a visiting member.
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Note: Starting in the mid-1960’s, the films shift from alcohol abuse/addiction
drug excesses – both use and sale. This is a gradual, not an immediate or total shift (e.g. “Payday”) but the change in genre of substances portrayed is evident.
19. 1967: “The Trip.”This film is, itself, a “trip.” Peter Fonda is a TV executive on an acid odyssey (before LSD was illegal!) with Dennis Hopper as a hippie drug dealer & Bruce Dern as a guru drug-wise counselor. Some of the musicians played with Hendrix. Also Peter Bogdonovich and Susan Strasberg. Heady.
20. 1971: “The Panic in Needle Park.” Psychic perils of the addict, especially trust, selfishness and self-absorption in drug-centered relationships. The graphic shooting-up scenes led to a delay in the film’s distribution after some cosmetic changes were made. (Al Pacino – 1st starring role, Raul Julia, Kitty Winn.)
21. 1972: “Superfly.” Tremendously innovative film for 1972; “Priest” (aka Superfly, Ron O’Neal) is a coke dealer in Harlem who desires to make a one million dollar score, leave and start clean. Tremendous music score by Curtis Mayfield. (Note: “Superfly TNT,” 1973, deals more with international intrigue; “Return of Superfly, 1990, depicts, again, drug dealing and wars – below).
22. 1972: “Payday.” With Rip Torn playing a country and western, “outlaw” singer, Maury Dann who, behind the “aw shucks,” on-stage presence, is a mean-spirited, hell raiser with an obsessive demand for pills, alcohol and women. Story covers the substance use and abuse and destructions over a day and a half; imputed to many “outlaw” singers, especially Waylon Jennings.
23. 1972: “Cisco Pike.” With Kris Kristopherson as a rock star fallen on bad times who is black mailed by a corrupt cop (Gene Hackman) to sell marijuana. Harry Dean Stanton plays the friend. (Also with Karen Black and Roscoe Lee Browne.)
24. 1978. “Up in Smoke.” A romancing and comedic applause for smoking weed by Cheech and Chong. Truly a statement of “just say yes” before 1980’s reversals of opinion. Considered their best film.
25. strong>1978: “Who’ll Stop the Rain: With Nick Nolte; Returning U.S. Vietnam Vets
are engaged in smuggling operations. Plays up to the cynical renderings of the Vietnam war and fondness for the “60’s imagery.” Cynical overtones. System failures and individual tragedies. Male AA person attempts to help.
26. 1980. “Cheech and Chong’s Next Movie.” An inferior romp compared to “Up in Smoke.” Continuity of the personal “mess’ of those on marijuana, etc. Very definitely, no treatment center or AA member in this film!!
27. 1981: “Only When I Laugh.” A actress, Georgia (Marsha Mason) has completed three months in a treatment center and faces the challenge of repairing her relationship with her daughter, Polly (Kristy McNichol). Film traces her crises that challenge her young sobriety. Treatment. Program. Family.
28. 1981. “Cheech and Chong’s Nice Dreams.” Another “weed comedy”: they own an ice cream truck that fronts for a grass trade. Also: Peewee Herman.
29. 1982. “I’m Dancing as Fast as I Can.” TV producer, Barbara Gordon’s (Jill Clayburgh) addiction to valium. She recovers in an institutional setting after several failed attempts to recover by herself. No formal A.A. To the best of my knowledge, this is the only general-distribution film focused on substance abuse that is centered on pill addictions. Clayburgh is excellent.
30. 1983. “Scarface.” A Cuban refugee (Al Pacino) builds a powerful cocaine distribution empire. Cynical treatment of drug sanctions and attitudes in the U.S. that long precedes those of “Traffic,” below.
31. 1983. “Tender Mercies.” Story of “Mac Sledge” (Robert Duvall, Best Actor), former star country singer, lost in the bottle, who recovers and through the non-judgmental health of a new wife (Tess Harper). He stays sober despite the death of his child and post-divorce conflicts. No group or individual therapy indicated.
32. 1984: “Under the Volcano.” Story of an extremely depressed ex-British consulate member (Albert Finney) who destroys himself with alcohol Set in Mexico, 1939, during the “Day of the Dead.” Academy Award nom. – Finney.
33. 1984: “Ironweed.” Award winning performances by Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep; also with Tom Waits. Frances Phelan (Nicholson) is wandering the streets of Albany in the Winter of 1938, haunted by his past when he dropped and killed his baby son years before. No formal treatment or program for any of these vagabonds.
34. 1986: “Sid and Nancy.” Based on the heroin demise of Sid Vicious (John Ritchie, played by Gary Oldman), a front man and most infamous member of the “Sex Pistols,” England’s most famous punk band, and his girlfriend, Nancy Spungeon (played by Chloe Webb). The film depicts several themes and perhaps this is not a “drug” movie, per se. But heroin and alcohol are ubiquitous.
35. 1987: “Barfly.” A semi-autobiographical account by Charles Bukowski about talented, marginal “skid row” type alcoholics at war between self-destruction and artistic creation. Classic alcoholic roles by Faye Dunaway and Mickey Rourke. Absolutely no recovery or “moral resolution” in this film.
36. 1987: “Less than Zero.” Poor little rich kids in the dark underside of California I the 1980’s is a common description. Robert Downey, Jr. (who else!) Huge cocaine abuse scenes. Treatment options portrayed.
37. 1988: “The Boost.” James Woods is a young, real estate developer whose expensive life style is destroyed by a downturn of the economy. In adapting, he turns to cocaine as a “boost.” He cleans up, noting the “program” in one flashback. But heroin use is resumed and at the end, he is isolated with cocaine.
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Note: Starting in the late 1980’s, especially with “Clean and Sober” (1988) and continuing on with “When a Man Loves a Woman “ (1994) “28 Days” (1998), the
program dynamics of “treatment centers” become articulated in film.
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38. 1988: “Clean and Sober.” Story of the forced treatment of a cocaine addicted (Michael Keaton) businessman who is still dealing. Morgan Freeman is the counselor in one of the first films to articulate the contexts of treatment centers.
39. 1988: “Bright Lights, Big City.” Cocaine addiction of “Jamie” (Michael J. Fox) and the disparity between his public (high powered magazine editor). Heavy drinking. Everyone leaves him. Advice from an old drunk (Jason Robards). Is a “Lost Weekend” of the 1980’s, even including the alcohol as well a cocaine.
40. 1989: “Drugstore Cowboy,” The lifestyle of a youthful group of addicts (Matt Dillon and Kelly Lynch) in the Pacific northwest, maintaining by stealing from drugstores and by negotiating their lives with the narcotics officers whom they have known for years. Excellent depiction of a drug group as a subculture. To me, it was amazing that this film and cast received so little recognition.
41. 1989: “Wired.” Heavily criticized film account of Woodward’s book on the drug world of the late comedian, John Belushi. Chronicles Belushi’s world of cocaine (and other) addictions and ultimate tragedy.
42. 1990: “Postcards from the Edge.” Based on Carrie Fisher’s journey through addiction, the story depicts the addictions and recovery of a daughter (Streep) of a famous movie star mother (Debby Reynolds, played by Shirley MacLaine) who, herself, is an alcoholic in total denial. Daughter goes into rehab; AA is mentioned. Recovery, rather mysteriously, occurs.
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Note: Nearly 20 years after the cult classic, “Superfly” (1972), there was a rapid increase in the numbers of films on Black gangs and drug use/trafficking.
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43. 1990: “Return of Superfly.” Second sequel. Priest returns from Europe to middle of drug war which he reluctantly enters to help federal agents. Termed a “black exploitation” film, it emphasizes blacks and inner city drug trafficking.
44. 1990: “King of New York.” Frank, an ultracool crime boss (Christopher Walken) rejoins his gang (with Laurence Fishburne) upon release from jail. Police-gang war. Violent, like “Scarface”; super dedicated, opposing police include Wesley Snipes and David Caruso. Drug lord movie.
45. trong>1991: “Naked Lunch.” Based on the life of William S. Burroughs account of drug abuse, homosexuality, violence and bizarre behaviors. Extreme, hallucinogenic images. (Peter Weller, Roy Scheider, Judy Davis…)
46. 1991: ”New Jack City.” A powerful story of a black, embattled drug lord (Wesley Snipes) combating the police and Italian gangs. Has remnants of “The Godfather,” “The Untouchables,” and “Scarface.” Tough. Influential. Accurate.
47. 1991: “Rush.” In the Texas drug culture of 1975, a rookie undercover narcotics
agent becomes hooked in infiltrating the drug world. Cynical commentary on the
subcultural enmeshments of legal and illegal worlds. Greg Allman is great; so is Clapton’s music score. (Jennifer Jason Leigh, Jason Patric and Sam Elliot)
48. 1992: Jumpin’ at the Boneyard: Story of an older brother (Tim Roth) desperately attempting to get his younger, crack addicted brother into rehab. Takes place in one day in NYC. Low budget but great cast including Roth, Luis Guzman, and Samuel L. Jackson. Attempts at rehab. No recovery or program.
49. 1992: “The Bad Lieutenant,” With Harvey Keitel as a nameless N.Y. cop, hopeless addicted to alcohol, drugs, gambling and sex. Hugely cynical view of “elite deviance” (i.e., here, police crime). Really rough film. It took me a second viewing to conclude that this was, indeed, centered on alcohol & drugs. No recovery. No redemption.
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