6. Requiem For A Dream
Few moves are as downbeat and soul-suckingly bleak as Darren Aronofsky's psychological drama about the horrors of addiction. The film stars Jennifer Connelly, Jared Leto, Marlon Wayans and Ellen Burstyn (nominated for a Best Actress Oscar) and focuses on different forms of addiction and the toll it takes on the lives of the characters. Burstyn's Sara becomes hooked on amphetamine pills to lose weight, increasing her dosages to alarming amounts, eventually leading to delusional psychosis. Harry (Leto), Marion (Connelly) and Tyrone (Wayans) are all heroin junkies who enter the drug trade, which leads to some expectedly dark places, including Harry convincing Marion to have sex with her psychiatrist for money. There are increasingly gloomy events that plague their lives, culminating in all four characters being utterly destroyed to the point of having nothing left, sinking as far as a human being can. The movie is a valuable narrative against the effects addiction can have on life, and in no way can ever be accused of glamorizing the lifestyle in any form or fashion. On screen is each character's descent into the abyss of broken nothingness, which is exactly how it should be given the dangerous subject matter of the film.