1. Requiem For A Dream (2000)
Not particularly a violent film, but nonetheless a rather powerfully emotionally bruising experience for the viewer, Requiem for a Dream is a shocking film about addiction and how it ruins people. First of all, there is Sara Goldfarb, a New York Jewish widow who likes to watch a bizarre gameshow while eating chocolates. She gets an invitation to appear on the show and her drab life is suddenly transformed. Sara dreams of being on TV dolled up to the nines in her special red dress that her deceased hubby loved. She tries the dress on but cannot do up the zip. After several failed diets, she succumbs to the lure of diet drugs which help her lose weight but which also makes her lose her mind (amphetamine psychosis). She hallucinates that the fridge is alive and that the gameshow is happening in her living room. Looking like a derelict, she takes the train to the TV show premises where she rambles about the show incoherently and is taken away in an ambulance. Life in a mental hospital is no better - she is force fed, medicated and given ECT. Nothing works. At the end of the movie we see two of Sara's friends crying their hearts out and hugging each other after they have been to see Sara. More addiction woes lie in store for Sara's son Harry Goldfarb, who is always purloining her TV to pawn for drug money. Harry is blissfully in love with Marion, who dreams of being a fashion designer, and he is also best mates with Tyrone - a fellow junkie. Harry and Tyrone buy a sizeable amount of heroin and sell it for a good profit. Unfortunately, Tyrone becomes mixed up in a drug deal gone violently wrong and is slung in jail. The money he and Harry earned goes to bailing him out. Now the three young friends are stuck with no money and the supply of heroin has become very limited in NYC. Harry encourages Marion to sleep with her slimy shrink to get money for drugs. He has a festering wound on his arm where he injects. In a state of withdrawal, Harry and Tyrone decide to drive to Florida to source drugs there. On the trip, Harry's arm and health deteriorates to the point where they must go to the hospital for medical help. A suspicious doctor raises the alarm and the pair are sent to jail. Tyrone, who is black, must deal with racial hostility and withdrawals in prison. Harry has his arm amputated and Marion falls into the clutches of an evil pimp who makes her do sex shows for heroin. Basically, everyones' individual dream has gone down the swanny at the end of the film. A very harrowing and affective movie, Requiem for a Dream is not just about hardcore drugs, it is also about hardcore human misery and the way we become enslaved by our addictions. The film is remarkably free of violence and aberrant sex for an NC-17 movie but it retains a strongly adult theme and is powerfully disturbing. Darren Aronofsky - the film's director, uses stylistic quirks to depict the use of drugs which gradually get more frantic and skewed as the film advances. Some amazing performances from Ellen Burstyn, Jared Leto, Marlon Wayans and Jennifer Connelly combine to make the film a brilliant whole. Ellen Burstyn as Sara Goldfarb probably gives the strongest and most demanding performance in the film. To portray encroaching madness is a very hard acting feat to pull off convincingly, but we are with Sara 100% as she deteriorates - due to Burstyn's acting skills. Maybe the greatest NC-17 film ever.