These days, it is almost de rigueur to describe people as being addicted to this or that. The ubiquity of the phrase and the casualness with which it is often used masks the tragedy that comes with actual, clinical addiction – but it is in that battle against the condition that TV and filmmakers have found inspiration over the years. Here are ten of the best films and movies made about addiction and recovery.
10. The Queen’s Gambit
This 2020 Netflix series rode the wave of chess’s rise in popularity ushered in by Magnus Carlsen and his contemporaries. Set in the 1960s, The Queen’s Gambit tells the story of Beth Harmon (Anya Taylor-Joy), a teenage chess prodigy who rises to play the world’s greatest players in an international tournament in Moscow. The twist is that Beth is a drug-dependent alcoholic, having become addicted to tranquillizers during a traumatic childhood. The crucial moment comes deep in the second episode, when Beth, playing an arrogant local champion, retreats to the women’s toilets to drop a tranquillizer and give herself a pep-talk that takes her to a crushing win. As an example of how people can come to rely on the kick of drugs to bolster their performance and self-belief while disregarding the wider consequences, it can hardly be bettered.
9. Nymphomaniac
No stranger to depicting addiction on screen, Lars von Trier’s sprawling two-part existential drama boasted an impressive ensemble cast including Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stellan Skarsgård, and Shia LaBeouf. Nymphomaniac sees Joe (Gainsbourg) enters into an acquaintanceship with Seligman (Skarsgård), to whom she relates the particulars of her love life. Joe suspects she has a sex addiction, pointing out the countless sexual encounters she has had over the years; but when her employer insists she sees someone for therapy, she refuses. As always with von Trier’s oeuvre, the films are uncomfortable to watch, offering little respite from the emotional and physical savageries that typify Joe’s life, with a gruesome denouement. As with all compulsive behaviors, von Trier succeeds in demonstrating that the one thing sex addiction isn’t is fun.
8. Trainspotting
Before British director Danny Boyle earned an Academy Award for Slumdog Millionaire, he produced this cult gem, a zeitgeisty meditation on mid-1990s Scotland. Renton (Ewan McGregor) repeatedly tries to kick his heroin addiction in Trainspotting, winding up falling into a life of crime alongside his similarly drug-addled friends. Boyle’s cold, clinical direction explores the heights and the depths of addiction, including Renton going for a swim in Scotland’s filthiest toilet, and going cold turkey in his childhood bedroom, with phantasms to match. Boasting a soundtrack dripping with mid-1990s Britpop, ambient, and techno, the film became a touchstone of 1990s British culture. For McGregor, a lifetime’s calling as Obi-Wan Kenobi lay in wait – and his fellow cast members Robert Carlyle (The Full Monty, The 51st State), Jonny Lee Miller (Elementary, The Crown), and Ewen Bremner (Pearl Harbor, Black Hawk Down) also went on to greater things.
7. Californication
After tasting mainstream success in The X-Files, David Duchovny went on to star in Californication, Showtime’s Emmy Award-winning series that ran from 2007 to 2014. Duchovny plays wisecracking Hank Moody, a writer with a series of addictions that worsen following a move to Los Angeles to work on an adaptation of his best-selling novel. The story arc sees Hank falling in and out of drug and alcohol abuse, but also spends much time covering its effect on those around him, particularly his on-off girlfriend Karen (Natascha McElhone) and his teenage daughter Becca (Madeleine Martin). Not all viewers found the somewhat downbeat series finale satisfying, but perhaps it was the best for Hank could be hoped for given the writer’s uncanny ability to screw up his life in LA.
6. Bojack Horseman
Among the laughs here, there is pity for a talking horse unable to kick the bottle. Welcome to the world of the titular Bojack Horseman, a has-been sitcom star from the 1990s whose career has ended up in the doldrums after Mr. Peanutbutter (a talking Labrador, naturally) stole the central idea of Horseman’s show. Surrounded by a ragtag entourage of sycophants, assorted hangers-on, and a ghostwriter attempting to write his autobiography, Horseman blunders from one disaster to the next while in thrall to his dependencies (especially whisky). Featuring a star-studded voice cast including Will Arnett as Horseman and Alison Brie as his long-suffering ghostwriter Diane, Bojack Horseman underwent a remarkable evolution during its six seasons on Netflix, with a bittersweet ending that forced viewers to re-evaluate not only Horseman’s life choices, but the whole concept of fame in today’s world.
5. Sid and Nancy
This 1986 biopic told the story of the infamous Sex Pistols bass player Sid Vicious, and his doomed relationship with the punk rock groupie Nancy Spungen. Starring the then unknown pairing of Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb in the lead roles, the film documents Vicious’ descent into heroin addiction after being introduced to the drug by the already-hooked Spungen. British director Alex Cox was uninterested in making a film that stayed true to punk conventions, using a synth-heavy soundtrack and long, mazy tracking shots to recount the final two years of Vicious’ life, which involved a move to America, a failed attempt at being a solo artist (though installed as the Pistols’ bass player, Vicious famously couldn’t play a note), the alleged murder of Spungen, and, finally, Vicious’ own death from a heroin overdose in early 1979. It makes for unsettling viewing, but rarely have the psychological highs of stardom and the pharmacological lows of addiction been filmed more compellingly.
4. Mom
Addiction seems like bare ground for a situation comedy, but Mom pulled off the trick, airing on CBS to critical acclaim from 2013 to 2021. Christy (Anna Faris) is a single mom in Napa, California, battling alcohol and drug abuse. Filmed in front of a studio audience, the laughter track marked Mom out as an old-style sitcom but with decidedly edgier vibes, with characters cracking jokes about cooking meth and alcohol binges. Though largely overlooked by the awards ceremonies, the series earned Allison Janney, who played Christy’s mother Bonnie, a Primetime Emmy for her portrayal.
3. Withnail and I
Screenwriter and director Bruce Robinson famously struggled to find an American buyer for his 1987’s comedy Withnail and I before ex-Beatle George Harrison saw it, and promptly gave it the green light with his own production company, Handmade Films. The movie stars future Academy Award nominee Richard E. Grant (Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Can You Ever Forgive Me?) as Withnail, a classically trained but perpetually drunk actor with delusions of grandeur, and a pre-Doctor Who Paul McGann as Withnail’s friend, “I”. Set during the post-hippie malaise at the end of the 1960s, and with a distinctly unpromising premise – the two struggling actors leave London to “go on holiday by mistake”, spend a miserable few days in a remote cottage in the north of England, and then return home – the film hardly seemed a likely hit. But Grant’s mercurial portrayal of Withnail as a hopeless alcoholic touched a nerve, showing at once the sozzled highs of drunkenness and the hopeless lows of hangovers with a refined sincerity.
2. Rachel Getting Married
In this 2009 drama, The Silence of the Lambs director Jonathan Demme explores the lingering effects of substance abuse after recovery. Anne Hathaway plays Kym, a young woman who emerges from rehab for alcohol addiction in order to attend the wedding of her sister Rachel (played here with verve by Rosmarie DeWitt). As the complicated family dynamics play out, several themes emerge: Rachel’s resentment of Kym for her alcoholism, and for taking attention away from the best day of her life; Kym’s guilt for causing the death of her younger brother when she drove into a lake while drunk; Rachel and Kym’s mother’s anger at Kym for the death. Aided by a bravura performance from Hathaway, Demme paints a nuanced picture of the scars that addiction can leave on the sufferer. The film was a box office hit, and earned Hathaway her first Academy Award nomination.
1. Flight
After the underwhelming box office performances of Beowulf (2007) and A Christmas Carol (2009), director Robert Zemeckis returned to form with this rollercoaster drama. Denzel Washington turns in an Academy Award-nominated performance as Flight‘s protagonist Whip Whittaker, a commercial airline pilot. Addicted to cocaine and alcohol, Whittaker finds himself at the controls when his airliner suffers a catastrophic failure mid-flight; Whittaker and his co-pilot (Brian Geraghty) battle for control the plane and manage a crash landing that saves most of the passengers. The remainder of the film is a brutal, unpleasant examination of the realities of addiction: Whittaker’s repeated failed attempts to kick his habits, the web of lies in which he finds himself as investigators seek the cause of the crash, and finally, his reckoning with his demons and his path to recovery. Watch for Washington’s committed performance, some excellent supporting work by Don Cheadle and Kelly Reilly, and a stomach-churningly realistic crash scene that will put you on the edge of your seat.
