10 Movies That Made New York City Look Like The Worst Place In The World

9. The Basketball Diaries (1995)

The scabby, wretched, dungeon-like streets of New York City in The Basketball Diaries are enough to make you lose your entire faith in humanity. The deadly drug scene dominates this movie by Scott Kalvert, which is based on the true story of a boy's descent from the warm safety of education and school to the mean streets of NYC. The city is portrayed as being capable of infecting an innocent teen and aggressively pulling him down to the gutters of the street, seemingly indicating no way out. A young Leonardo Di Caprio is sickeningly effective as Jim Carroll - a teenager with an adoration for basketball but an even stronger love for heroin. This love soon becomes obsession, up to the point where he's clawing around the door of his mother's humble New York flat screaming at her to give him some money . A terrifying portrait of addiction and an even scarier depiction of an abhorrent NYC, The Basketball Diaries is a gruelling watch, casting New York City in a scrofulous light to make it resemble a hellish nightmare.