15 Best Movies About Drugs And Addiction In Cinema History

8. Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas

Hunter S. Thompson's famously chaotic novel Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas was given further lurid life in 1998, with Terry Gilliam pulling the strings of a maniacal drug-riddled showcase that had been peculiar enough on paper. With Johnny Depp in the lead role as Raoul Duke and Benicio del Toro as his buddy Gonzo, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is a deliberate mess of a movie that manages to be handsome, haunting, and terrifying all at once. Like Thompson's novel, the film blurs the line between truth and fiction, as Duke and Gonzo consume every drug imaginable during a trip to Vegas. The plot becomes more warped after each huff of ether and acid sheet that the characters take, with the two being attacked by bats, experiencing a lizard orgy, and waking up in a variety of trashed hotel suites across Vegas. Written by Thompson after his own experiences taking one stunning trip in Southern Nevada, Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas feels like it has been dipped, rinsed and dried in sheets of LSD. Wild, incoherent, and dizzy, the film certainly isn't for everyone, but as an investigation into the lunacy of hallucinogenics it's a rather captivating watch.