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Alcoholics or drug addicts feel wrong when they don't feel right. Eventually they feel very wrong, and must feel right, and at that point their lives spiral down into some sort of final chapter--recovery if they're lucky, hopelessness and death if they're not.

What is fascinating about "Requiem for a Dream," the new film by Darren Aronofsky , is how well he portrays the mental states of his addicts. When they use, a window opens briefly into a world where everything is right. Then it slides shut, and life reduces itself to a search for the money and drugs to open it again. Nothing else is remotely as interesting.

Aronofsky is the director who made the hallucinatory " Pi " (1998), about a paranoid genius who seems on the brink of discovering the key to--well, God, or the stock market, or whatever else his tormentors imagine. That movie, made on a tiny budget, was astonishing in the way it suggested its hero's shifting prism of reality. Now, with greater resources, Aronofsky brings a new urgency to the drug movie by trying to reproduce, through his subjective camera, how his characters feel, or want to feel, or fear to feel.

As the movie opens, a housewife is chaining her television to the radiator. It's no use. Her son frees it, and wheels it down the street to a pawn shop. This is a regular routine, we gather; anything in his mother's house is a potential source of funds for drug money. The son's girlfriend and best friend are both addicted, too. So is the mother: to television and sugar. We recognize the actors, but barely. Sara Goldfarb ( Ellen Burstyn ) is fat and blowzy in her sloppy house dresses; if you've just seen her in the revived "Exorcist," her appearance will come as a shock. Her son Harry ( Jared Leto ) is gaunt and haunted; so is his girlfriend Marion ( Jennifer Connelly ). His pal Tyrone is played by Marlon Wayans , who has lost all the energy and cockiness of his comic persona and is simply trying to survive in a reasonable manner. Tyrone suspects, correctly, that he's in trouble but Harry is in more.

Sara's life passes in modest retirement. She joins the other old ladies out front of their building, where they line up their lawn chairs in the sun. She's addicted to a game show whose host ( Christopher McDonald ) leads the audience in chanting "We got a winner!" She's a sweet, naive women who gets a junk phone call that misleads her into thinking she may be a potential guest on the show. She obsesses about wearing her favorite red dress, and gets diet pills from the doctor to help her lose weight.

She does lose weight, and also her mind. "The pills don't work so good anymore," she complains to the druggist, and then starts doubling up her usage. Her doctor isn't even paying attention when she complains dubiously about hallucinations (the refrigerator has started to threaten her). Meanwhile, Harry talks to Marion about the one big score that would "get us back on track." Tyrone can see that Harry is losing it, but Marion, under Harry's spell, has sex with a shrink ( Sean Gullette , star of "Pi") and is eventually selling herself for stag party gang-gropes.

Aronofsky is fascinated by the way in which the camera can be used to suggest how his characters see things. I've just finished a shot-by-shot analysis of Hitchcock's "The Birds" at the Virginia Film Festival; he does the same thing, showing us some things and denying us others so that we are first plunged into a subjective state and then yanked back to objectivity with a splash of cold reality.

Here Aronofsky uses extreme closeups to show drugs acting on his characters. First we see the pills, or the fix, filling the screen, because that's all the characters can think about. Then the injection, swallowing or sniffing--because that blots out the world. Then the pupils of their eyes dilate. All done with acute exaggeration of sounds.

These sequences are done in fast-motion, to show how quickly the drugs take effect--and how disappointingly soon they fade. The in-between times edge toward desperation. Aronofsky cuts between the mother, a prisoner of her apartment and diet pills, and the other three. Early in the film, in a technique I haven't seen before, he uses a split screen in which the space on both sides is available to the other (Sara and Harry each have half the screen, but their movements enter into each other's halves). This is an effective way of showing them alone together. Later, in a virtuoso closing sequence, he cuts between all four major characters as they careen toward their final destinations.

Burstyn isn't afraid to play Sara Goldfarb flat-out as a collapsing ruin (Aronofsky has mercy on her by giving her some fantasy scenes where she appears on TV and we see that she is actually still a great-looking woman). Connolly, who is so much a sex symbol that she, too, could have disgraced herself in " Charlie's Angels ," has consistently gone for risky projects and this may be her riskiest; the movie is inspired by Hubert Selby, Jr.'s lacerating novel of the same name, and in her own way Connolly goes as faras Jennifer Jason Leigh did in " Last Exit to Brooklyn " (1989), an equally courageous, quite different, film based on another Selby novel. Leto and Wayans have a road trip together, heading for Florida, that is like a bleaker echo of Joe Buck and Ratso Rizzo's Florida odyssey in " Midnight Cowboy ." Leto's suppurating arm, punished by too many needles, is like a motif for his life.

The movie was given the worthless NC-17 rating by the MPAA; rejecting it, Artisan Entertainment is asking theaters to enforce an adults-only policy. I can think of an exception: Anyone under 17 who is thinking of experimenting with drugs might want to see this movie, which plays like a travelogue of hell.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Requiem for a Dream (2000)

Rated NR Intended For Adults

102 minutes

Ellen Burstyn as Sara Goldfarb

Jennifer Connelly as Marion Silver

Louise Lasser as Ada

Marlon Wayans as Tyrone C. Love

Jared Leto as Harry Goldfarb

Christopher McDonald as Tappy Tibbons

Written and Directed by

• Darren Aronofsky

Based On The Novel by

• Hubert Selby Jr

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'Requiem for a Dream': EW review

Darren Aronofsky’s Requiem for a Dream may be one of the most disturbing movies ever made (it could upset some viewers even more than A Clockwork Orange or Natural Born Killers did), yet it’s impossible to take your eyes off it. Based on the 1978 novel by Hubert Selby Jr., the movie, a full-throttle mind- bender, is hypnotically harrowing and intense, a visual and spiritual plunge into the seduction and terror of drug addiction. Aronofsky interconnects the tales of four desperate, outer-borough New York nobodies who fall prey, in different ways, to the slavery of substance abuse. Three of them are hipster junkies, but the movie, in all likelihood, will be best remembered for Ellen Burstyn’s role as a sad, matronly Brighton Beach yenta who gets hooked on diet pills. Aronofsky, in a virtuoso act of bad-trip perversity, literally turns her world inside out, fusing the audience with a soul that has lost its contours (but not its desire to be loved).

So much for the youth-chic glamour of drugs! Some viewers, and more than a few critics, are likely to accuse Requiem for a Dream of being ”manipulative,” of dressing up primal-kick exploitation voyeurism as gutter art. In a year, however, when American pop culture is being called on the carpet for its violence and extremity, Aronofsky has made one of the rare dark-as-midnight movies that finds its unholy essence — and, in a strange way, its morality — by going ”too far,” by depicting the unspeakable without a safety net of restraint. As Requiem unspools, one’s dread surges forward with a kind of cathartic and terrified amazement. Those willing to take the journey may feel as if they’re not so much trapped as hooked — addicted to the images that are addling the characters’ brains.

This is only Aronofsky’s second feature, after [ Pi ] (1998), the low-budget indie novelty hit of flashy, Kafka-goes-downtown paranoia, but as a filmmaker he has now made a dazzling, bravura leap. He has developed a powerfully unsettling style of freakout sensuality, complete with it-came-from-the-id hallucinations, nerve-twitching spatial-temporal zigzags, stroboscopic montages of ritual drug use ( syringe!/sigh!/dilated pupil! ), and a clinical shock-cut intensity that makes you feel as if the characters’ psyches had merged with your own. Aronofsky was recently tapped to direct the fifth Batman film; if he brings anything approaching this level of creative ferocity to the reimagination of that series, he could help reenergize mainstream movies.

Jared Leto, all sinew and pale skin, has the pivotal role of Harry Goldfarb, a Brooklyn thrill seeker in his early 20s whose only ambition is to shoot up as often as possible. There’s an authentic scruffy anonymity to the way that Harry and his buddy Tyrone (Marlon Wayans) laugh and shimmy to a hip-hop groove as the heroin gets a grip on their blood. The two hatch a plan to hustle dope on the street, all so they can purchase a stash of pure heroin, and the film gets us right on their wavelength of snaky, urban-underworld pleasure and deceit. Harry also has a girlfriend, Marion, played by Jennifer Connelly, whose flash-eyed voluptuous beauty is, for the first time, matched by her radiant command as an actress. Marion, a pampered girl who wants to design clothes, gets hooked on smack as well, and the gradual transformation she undergoes, from caressing lover to selfish, clawing dope fiend to dead-hearted prostitute willing to do anything, is a slow descent into pure degraded madness.

At crucial points, each of the three figures is viewed — pinned — by a fixed camera as they scramble, against a herky-jerky background, to escape some awful destiny. The technique may look familiar (from videos, Spike Lee films, a drunken-party shot in Mean Streets ), but I’ve never seen it used the way that Aronofsky does — to suggest that the characters, through drugs, are severed from their identities, to the point that they appear to be surveying their own self-destruction, as if they were figures in a live video- game. Requiem for a Dream may be the first movie to fully capture the way that drugs dislocate us from ourselves.

It’s that perception that powers the extraordinary tale of Harry’s mother, Sara Goldfarb (Burstyn). Eager to fit into her old red dress, the one her late husband once mooned over, Sara goes to a quack diet doctor, who gives her multicolored pills, and the tangled power surge of uppers and downers begins to interact with her hopes and desires, her fixation on the refrigerator, her habitual viewing of a rah-rah TV infomercial guru. The spiral of surreal paranoia becomes almost too much to bear. Yet Burstyn, in a fearless performance, never lets us forget how deeply Sara’s addiction is rooted in the piercing cul-de-sac of her empty-nest loneliness.

Does the movie go too far? In the final montage of devastation, which intercuts the characters’ horrific fates, Aronofsky lays on his art with didactic brutality. (I truly could have lived without the electroshock.) In at least one of these segments, however, the movie attains a kind of queasy greatness: We watch as Marion performs at a private sex show, and her willing dehumanization is dramatized, in discreet flash cuts, with a present-tense nightmare intimacy that leaves us speechless. At that moment, we see a character, once alive, who has now abandoned the dream of herself. A

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Requiem for a Dream Reviews

I think it’s a masterpiece; gut-wrenching and soaked in a hellscape of realistic proportions. Requiem for a Dream is a tough watch, but an essential one.

Full Review | Mar 12, 2023

If anything, Aronofsky’s doomy, freaky, humorless style defeats his own purpose: It re-animates the dark romance of dissolution — it makes addiction look cool.

Full Review | Original Score: C- | Sep 3, 2022

Though all aspects of the film are excellent from story to cinematography to directing it is the acting which holds the whole thing together. The three leads are amazing.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 14, 2020

While a whiff of symbolism softens the horror elements in Pi, no such escape is provided in Requiem for a Dream (2000)...

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Nov 3, 2018

At times disturbing and always intense, this flick offers its own acid trip for viewers and is a first-hand look at four people who become trapped by their own hell.

Full Review | Original Score: A | Sep 12, 2017

As uncompromising a work of art as you can ever view.

Full Review | Original Score: A | Feb 20, 2014

A staccato narrative parallels the experiences and hallucinations of a woman on drugs with those of her son and his friends.

Full Review | Sep 20, 2011

Aronofsky's second feature is an emotionally intense, relentlessly grim tale of forms of addiction that may rely too much on montage to achieve real dramatic impact.

Full Review | Original Score: B | Jul 18, 2011

Translating this into a music video would make a lot more sense than the film does in present form

Full Review | Original Score: C- | May 14, 2011

"Dream" glamorizes nothing en route to a near-nauseating finale, which feels like a rollercoaster car hitched off the track and hurtled into hell's depths. A decade later, it still follows through with full force on its cautionary stomach punch.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/4 | Sep 17, 2010

Unfortunately, about halfway through, the film takes a (deliberate) nosedive into the depths of human degradation from which it never emerges.

Full Review | Jul 6, 2010

A gut-wrenching, formally adventurous masterpiece or an ugly, flashy piece of empty-headed propaganda?

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Sep 8, 2009

"Requiem For A Dream" is a movie about drug addiction, but that's only where the plot resides so the thoroughly drawn characters can work toward their imperfect dreams. Cinema history has been made with this

Full Review | Original Score: A- | May 16, 2009

One of the most powerful I have ever seen. The film's score and editing will haunt you for years to come.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 2, 2008

Yes, visually this is an exhilarating, unique film. But it is also a singularly difficult and challenging film to watch.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Jul 14, 2007

Seldom has a film so powerfully affected me as Requiem for a Dream has -- affected, in this case, as if my eyes and psyche have been bludgeoned.

Full Review | Original Score: A | Jun 21, 2007

If Aronofsky set out to make Trainspotting look like Teletubbies, he succeeded. Recommended only for those with extremely strong stomachs.

Full Review | Dec 30, 2006

Requiem for a Dream is meant to have a hallucinatory, mesmerizing quality, but it manages to be about as enlightening as a bad acid trip.

Full Review | Original Score: C | Jul 24, 2006

Burnished camerawork and ex-Pop Will Eat Itself head Mansell's part-punchy, part-elegiac score reinforce and counterpoint the increasingly nightmarish visuals.

Full Review | Jun 24, 2006

Requiem for a Dream is a great movie, and the few of us who see it will be acutely affected.

Full Review | May 26, 2006

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Requiem for a dream, common sense media reviewers.

Shocking, grim addiction saga worth discussing.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Principal characters are all doomed addicts and dr

Shootings, some at close range. Jailhouse beatings

Brief, full-frontal female nudity (in some version

Frequent use of the F-word/MF-word, the S-word, "b

One character's mad devotion to a TV game show is

Heroin use, cigarette smoking, and abuse of diet p

Parents need to know that drug abuse permeates this downbeat drama about people in seemingly hopeless descents. As a final descent into degradation one girl performs in a grotesque lesbian stage-sodomy act to continue getting her heroin -- the "edited version" only cuts out a few microseconds of this. Both versions of…

Positive Messages

Principal characters are all doomed addicts and drug users, and their ethnicity and circumstances seem to cut across all genders and ages -- it could happen to anyone, is the implicit message. Nobody here makes a move to save themselves either, though their personal goals are empowerment, not the inevitable self-destruction. Ironically, drug dealer-addict Harry disapproves (quite rightfully) his mother taking diet pills.

Violence & Scariness

Shootings, some at close range. Jailhouse beatings. A violent fantasy about stabbing a character through the hand with a fork. One character's arm develops ghastly, oozing wounds from his IV drug-use needle injections. Another is strapped, force-fed, and electrocuted in a hellish medical environment.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Brief, full-frontal female nudity (in some versions). One character is sexually active with her therapist, her boyfriend, and her pusher. In the unrated version she ultimately descends into full-blown prostitution and performs degrading sex acts -- which aren't shown in clear detail, but you get the idea --- with other women before a live audience. Another couple seen naked having intercourse in profile.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Frequent use of the F-word/MF-word, the S-word, "bitch," and "ass."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

One character's mad devotion to a TV game show is key to the plot, though the show is not real.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Heroin use, cigarette smoking, and abuse of diet pills (amphetamines) are the central subject. Quick, punchy editing, macrophotography, and rhythmic cuts try to convey the jittery exhilaration of the narcotics. It's hardly intended as a favorable portrayal, of course.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that drug abuse permeates this downbeat drama about people in seemingly hopeless descents. As a final descent into degradation one girl performs in a grotesque lesbian stage-sodomy act to continue getting her heroin -- the "edited version" only cuts out a few microseconds of this. Both versions of this film have enough language, explicit sex, violence, blood, and nudity (included female full-frontal) to merit an R. Both versions try with hypnotic imagery and music to capture both the allure and the insidious damage of intoxicants. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Community Reviews

• Parents say (16)
• Kids say (55)

Based on 16 parent reviews

This movie should be mandatory for every teenager.

It isn’t necessary to be that explicit to show drugs are bad, what's the story.

In the Coney Island neighborhood of New York City, four interrelated characters fall prey to chemical addiction over a year. Harry (Jared Leto) and Marion (Jennifer Connelly) are childhood sweethearts, he from the lower classes, she from a rich family, but both are addicted to heroin. Harry nurtures Marion's career goal to open a designer-dress emporium and tries with his friend and fellow addict Tyrone (Marlon Wayans) to peddle drugs to finance the venture. Soon their own cravings and gang-turf wars deplete their supply, and the men go on a disastrous trip to Florida in search of a fresh pipeline, as Marion loses herself in addiction. An unlikelier addict is Harry's middle-aged mother Sarah (Ellen Burstyn) who becomes obsessed with shedding weight to appear slim and pretty on TV. She herself gets hooked on diet pills that alter her thinking and perceptions of reality.

Is It Any Good?

There's no question this is a movie of extremes; it uses punchy editing and camera tricks to convey the rush of drugs of the characters, right down to the cellular level. By the end the protagonists are literally curled in fetal positions, robbed of everything by their habits (bad drugs, bad!). The conundrum for filmmakers trying to depict the seductive power and destruction wrought by drugs is walking that fine line between making "getting high" look too good on one hand, and on the other hand going too far with the Message Stuff and preaching a finger-wagging sermon.

But the skillful, surreal camerawork, and the sympathetic characters -- none of them want to be Scarface, they just want to be happy -- make this more than just the proverbial "classroom scare film." Perhaps the most important story, in fact, is Sarah's, who breaks no law in her addiction to amphetamines (diet pills) but ends up as brain-damaged and ruined as any junkie thanks to an impersonal medical-institutional establishment that hands out pills like candy.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the effects of drug addiction, in real life and in the media, running the gamut from The Man With the Golden Arm to Trainspotting to countless preachy After-School Specials and even superhero comic books. How effective is Requiem for a Dream as a cautionary tale? Do you think any mere film has the power to change or dissuade an addict? What do kids think of Sarah's "legal" addiction compared to the unlawful activities of the reckless Harry, Marion, and Tyrone? Why do so many real-life celebrities fall into traps of drug habits? You could try to get adventurous readers to tackle the difficult source novel by Hubert Selby Jr. -- but watch out, it's rough, raw stuff too.

Movie Details

• In theaters : October 27, 2000
• On DVD or streaming : August 8, 2001
• Cast : Ellen Burstyn , Jared Leto , Jennifer Connelly
• Director : Darren Aronofsky
• Inclusion Information : Female actors
• Studio : Artisan Entertainment
• Genre : Drama
• Run time : 102 minutes
• MPAA rating : R
• MPAA explanation : extensive depiction of drug addiction, graphic sexuality, strong language and some violence
• Last updated : May 11, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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Movieman's Guide to the Movies

Requiem for a dream: director’s cut 4k ultra hd review.

Requiem for a Dream — 20th Anniversary | Director’s Cut — (2000)

Genre(s): Drama Lionsgate | Unrated – 102 min. – $22.99 | October 13, 2020

Date Published: 10/05/2020 | Author: The Movieman

Lionsgate provided me with a free copy of the Blu-ray I reviewed in this Blog Post. The opinions I share are my own.

Note: The screen captures were taken from the Blu-ray disc and  do not represent the 4K Ultra HD transfer.

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Requiem For A Dream Ending Explained: The Many Faces Of Addiction

Anything can be an addiction. People sometimes casually throw around the word "addicted" when talking about shows they're hooked on and other likes and loves, but in "Requiem for a Dream," television is but one of many things that can be habit-forming for humans in all the wrong ways. Darren Aronofsky's 2000 film descends into a cacophony of cross-cutting and nightmarish images as its four central characters plunge deeper into addiction and self-destruction. The ending is an assault on the senses that leaves the viewer reeling, and 20-plus years have not diluted its power.

In the Catholic Church, a requiem is a Mass for the dead, with Mozart's "Requiem," as seen in "Amadeus," for instance, being the music that would accompany such a Mass. This frames the title of "Requiem for a Dream" as a more elegant spin on "Death of a Dream." Co-written by Aronofsky and Hubert Selby, Jr. and based on Selby's novel, the film uses heroin and amphetamine dependency to depict, more broadly, how any form of addiction can derail a person's life and turn dreams to delusions.

Ellen Burstyn gives a powerhouse, Oscar-nominated performance as Sara Goldfarb, an aging widow with an empty nest who latches onto the idea of losing weight and appearing on TV as something that will give her life meaning. While watching her favorite self-help infomercial/game show, she receives a literal phone call to adventure, telling her she's "already been chosen" as a show contestant.

As yet, no drugs are involved in Sara's storyline, which separates her from her son, Harry (Jared Leto), and his girlfriend, Marion (Jennifer Connelly), and friend Tyrone (Marlon Wayans). As the movie progresses, however, the lines between her and them and the audience's own possible everyday addictions grow increasingly blurred. Spoilers follow.

Drugs of choice

"Requiem for a Dream" ends with Sara, Harry, Marion, and Tyrone curled up in the fetal position on separate beds, couches, and cots, as if to retreat to the safety of the womb. Sara is in a psych ward, Harry is in the hospital, Marion is left traumatized, and Tyrone is in prison, while all their dreams have fallen by the wayside. Each character has their drug of choice, but the end result for all of them is the same.

This is a world where everyone has an addiction to something. Christopher McDonald's infomercial guru, Tappy Tibbons, says sugar was his medicine. "It nurtured my spiraling brain," he tells his at-home viewers and live studio audience. Prior to her downward spiral into amphetamine psychosis, Sara had been one of the viewers. Earlier in the film, Harry paints her relationship with TV as one that is not so different from his own relationship with heroin. He says to Marion, "What's her fix? Television, right? I mean, if ever there was a TV junkie, it's the old lady."

We're elsewhere told that Keith David's character, Big Tim, is "hooked on p****" instead of drugs, implying he has a sex addiction. The movie opens with Harry stealing Sara's TV and him and Tyrone wheeling it across Coney Island to pawn it for drug money. Later, when Harry pays Sara another visit at her Brighton Beach home, he recognizes the telltale signs of addiction in her with the way she's hyperactive and grinding her teeth.

This is a crucial scene where Sara admits that her dream stems from loneliness and a desire to be seen. The idea of fitting into her old red dress, being on television, seen by "millions of people," is her "reason to get up in the morning."

The dream at the end of the pier

Sara pins all her hopes on her dream of 15 minutes of TV fame, while Harry and Tyrone have their own warped dream of being successful drug dealers instead of just users. "This is our chance to make it big," Harry says as they begin to fill a shoebox with cash. Tyrone fantasizes about making his mother proud, and Harry wants to help Marion realize her dream of doing fashion designs by opening her own store. He has a recurring vision of walking toward Marion at the end of a pier; it suggests the dream is always out of reach and can itself be an addiction.

In the same way Sara experiences hunger cravings as she embarks on her crash diet with prescription pills, Harry, Marion, and Tyrone have formed a physical dependency on heroin that keeps them dipping into their stash and puts them in desperate straits when the local supply dries up. Throughout the movie, Darren Aronofsky, cinematographer Matthew Libatique, and editor Jay Rabinowitz use a variety of tricks like split screen, fast cuts, and spinning God's-eye shots to show their hyperkinetic state of mind.

In one scene, Sara's hallucinations play like a cross between "Ringu" and "The King of Comedy," as she sees Tappy and an idealized guest-of-honor version of herself cross over from the television into her living room. Her woman-eating fridge drives her out of her apartment and into the streets, with her trip to the casting agency serving as a reality check that shows just how far gone she is. At the same time, Harry has neglected the gangrene on his arm, so Tyrone is shocked when they pull over on their drug run to Florida and he sees how bad it has gotten.

Dopamine dangers

Each character in "Requiem for a Dream" is dehumanized as they reach rock bottom. Marion sells her body to finance her drug habit, becoming a sex object for a circle of men at a wild party. Sara gets manhandled and force-fed by orderlies as they discuss gambling (yet another addiction) and put her through electroshock treatments. Harry has his arm amputated, while Tyrone is subjected to racist abuse from prison guards. (Hubert Selby cameos as the one ranting about "New York dope fiends.")

"Requiem for a Dream" hit theaters in 2000, before the rise of social media, and its theme music, "Lux Aeterna" by Clint Mansell, has often been used in movie trailers. Even today, you don't have to be a drug user to see yourself in the film's characters or recognize the dangers things besides narcotics can pose.

Early in the movie, we see Sara eating chocolate, which can trigger brain chemicals like serotonin and dopamine that make a person feel good. It's just one example of a potential addiction that surrounds us. Facebook's first president, Sean Parker (played by Justin Timberlake in "The Social Network" ), revealed that the social media platform was designed to take advantage of a "vulnerability in human psychology" and give people "a little dopamine hit" every time they receive a like or comment.

In "Requiem for a Dream," each character is left a moribund shell of a person, with Harry falling backward off the pier into a black abyss and Sara escaping into a fantasy where he is successful, and she has his love and everyone's adoration. The ending is not a happy one, but it functions as a cautionary tale about wasted lives and the perils of losing one's hopes to addiction in whatever it form it might take.

Requiem For A Dream Review

08 Dec 2000

Requiem For A Dream

The "drug movie" has a less than distinguished history. 'Reefer Madness' warned kiddies of the hellish dangers of marijuana way back in the '30s. By the '60s it was LSD, with 'The Trip', and in the '80s and '90s, cocaine attracted the horrified gaze of Hollywood with movies like 'Bright Lights, Big City' - or at least it did when Hollywood managed to drag itself out of the toilet cubicle rubbing its nose.

Sadly, despite reproducing the technical flair he showed with his daring debut, 1998's 'Pi', Darren Aronofsky's adaptation of Hubert Selby Jr.'s novella adds little to the preachy sub-genre. Here it's heroin that's the subject substance, and Harry and girlfriend Marion who perform the requisite "descent into drugs hell", treating the audience to the usual, ill-advised "maybe we'll just try the merchandise...", through the inevitable spiral of rooting behind the sofa for cash to buy smack, and, in a real crowdpleaser of a moment, shooting up into a gangrenous vein.

More promisingly, there's mom (Burstyn) who receives a telephone call inviting her on telly, and turns to diet pills to squeeze into a little red number she hasn't worn for years. She too embarks on a lazy plot of catastrophic collapse, winding up confined in a local booby hatch.

Some commentators have taken Aronofsky's striking sophomore effort to herald the birth of a real filmmaker, but while the 29 year-old certainly knows every visual technique in the book, at times he is so busy getting high on his own style that he smothers the few moments when his actors attempt to develop character in a miasma of crash cuts, undercranking and stop motion.

The director isn't helped by the source material - Selby's work is deeply dated anyway - and Aronofsky's own script has inherited a lot of the more superficial elements. The end result is incredibly depressing, not just because of the subject matter but due to the relentless predictability, descending into a montage of misery - electric shock therapy, arm amputations, and a sex show involving a terrifying double-headed dildo. You will want to look away, you may want to laugh.

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The Ending Of Requiem For A Dream Explained

Darren Aronofsky 's second feature film, "Requiem for a Dream," premiered in 2000. Since then, the movie has become known as one of the provocative director's greatest achievements, despite some critics at the time calling it "the end of Aronofsky's career," as told by The A.V. Club .

On the surface, the film is often said to be about heroin. But Aronofsky himself told Salon  that "'Requiem for a Dream' is not about heroin or [other] drugs." Instead, the film explores the broader themes of addiction and loneliness. The fulfillment that Harry Goldfarb (Jared Leto), Marion Silver (Jennifer Connelly), Tyrone C. Love (Marlon Wayans), and Sara Goldfarb (Ellen Burstyn) are truly seeking is set up early in the film. All of them are seeking a way to fill a void in their lives, and alter their realities to fit the dreams they've made up for themselves in their head.

We may know the heart-wrenching fates of our four heroes, but for a deeper look into what it all means, this is the ending of "Requiem for a Dream" explained.

Harry and Tyrone think they have the best intentions

When "Requiem for a Dream" begins, we're planted smack dab in the middle of a New York summer, a hopeful time for the three younger protagonists. Already dabbling with heroin , Harry and Marion are in a budding relationship, infatuated with each other and making plans for their future. Harry and his friend Tyrone concoct a plan that will move them up in the world of drug dealing, convinced they are doing so with the best intentions.

Obtaining a "pound of pure" and selling it means Harry can help Marion sell her fashion designs, and pay back his mother for all the trouble he's caused. But Harry's addiction has had a hold of him for quite some time. As he once again steals his mother Sara's television set, he ignores the utter fear and pain he's causing her. As a result of his well-intentioned, yet illegal actions, Harry ends up imprisoned and near death, and the loved ones he wanted to help have no chance of visiting him.

Tyrone, on the other hand, seeks the comfort and safety that his mother provided when he was a child. She's gone, and in her place is the safety blanket that heroin provides. For the film's 20th anniversary, Wayans reflected on "Requiem for a Dream" with Vulture .

"Everybody has a deficiency," he said. "Everybody has a deep-seated pain that allows them to seek drugs and artificial elation. At the end of the day, I think [the movie is] about really coping and dealing with what's hurting you ... It was a lesson for me, especially right now in my life after losing my mom. I understand that there's never going to be anything to replace her. The only thing I can seek is a different kind of love, a healthy kind of love."

Marion loses herself

In the same vein as Tyrone, Marion seeks the acceptance she can't find in herself. At first, Harry, who provides both drugs and affection, seems like enough. But as fall and winter descend, so does Marion. While summer was full of great times with Harry, creativity with her designs, money, and hope for the future, by winter, Marion is left alone, addicted, and broke. Willing to do anything for her fix, she gives herself up to a world of prostitution.

There are a number of scenes in which Marion is looking at herself in the mirror, normally before she spirals deeper into her addiction by way of her actions with other men. These moments are symbolic of the internalization of judgment Marion feels from those around her. She mentions her detached parents, and we see the corrupt relationship she has with her therapist, another caretaker who hurts her instead of helping her. 

Harry goes to Florida in hopes of scoring more dope, and when Harry is imprisoned, the last bastion of dignity Marion held onto is gone. We last see her curled up with a sack of heroin, having completely lost herself to her drug addiction instead of finding the validation she craves.

Sara Goldfarb wants to feel young again

Sara Goldfarb has the most heartbreaking existence of the four even when summer begins. A widow with a junkie son, Sara's only constant companions are daytime television and her neighborhood acquaintances. She receives a glimmer of hope when she receives a scam call that promises an appearance on TV. Now with something to look forward to, she believes that being on the show and fitting into her old red dress will bring her happiness again. She's reminded of a time when her husband was alive and when she looked youthful. She is filled with the hope that both Harry and a nationwide audience will come around to fill the empty holes in her life with love and acceptance.

Her desires are unattainable, but much like the dress that doesn't fit, Sara refuses to accept this. She's prescribed diet pills (amphetamines) to fit into the dress, dyes her hair to look younger, and gets the best spot in the sun with her friends. But come fall, Sara has fallen into a deep addiction with appetite suppressants while increasingly ignored by everyone around her. Aronofsky points to Sara's addiction as the crux of his argument against "Requiem for a Dream" being labeled a movie simply about drugs. He told Salon he wanted viewers to see Sara's downfall and ask themselves "Oh, my God, what is a drug?"

By winter, Sara has been completely abandoned in a mental hospital, treated callously by everyone. Instead of being surrounded by the people she loves, she only has her dreams to cling to, and as she curls up into a fetal position, she regresses further into herself, forever trapped in her alternate reality. 

When speaking to FilmThreat , Aronofsky said that he considers "Requiem for a Dream" a monster movie, explaining that the monster in question "lived inside" the characters' heads.

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Requiem for a Dream

• The drug-induced utopias of four Coney Island people are shattered when their addictions run deep..
• Sara Goldfarb (Ellen Burstyn) is a retired widow, living in a small apartment. She spends most of her time watching TV, especially a particular self-help show. She has delusions of rising above her current dull existence by being a guest on that show. Her son, Harry (Jared Leto) is a junkie but along with his friend Tyrone (Marlon Wayans) has visions of making it big by becoming a drug dealer. Harry's girlfriend Marion (Jennifer Connelly) could be fashion designer or artist but is swept along in Harry's drug-centric world. Meanwhile Sara has developed an addiction of her own. She desperately wants to lose weight and so goes on a crash course involving popping pills, pills which turn out to be very addictive and harmful to her mental state. — grantss
• Four character studies of the evolution into addiction and the manifestations of that addiction are presented, they all in the quest for acceptance on their own terms. Brooklynite friends Harry Goldfarb and Tyrone C. Love are aimless and somewhat shiftless, they making what little money by continually stealing and pawning Harry's widowed Brighton Beach mother Sara Goldfarb's aged television set, which she always buys back in not wanting to get her dear son in trouble in he being the only person in her life on who she can count. Seizing upon an opportunity, Harry and Tyrone decide to start dealing in heroin, Tyrone seeing the money as an escape from his ghetto life and a means for approval from his mother. Also along for their ride is Harry's privileged girlfriend, Marion Silver, who rebels against that privilege in needing something other than money from her family. But she does see the money from the drug deals as a future for her and Harry in being able to launch her fashion design career. That dealing doesn't work out quite the way they plan, while they start using just to make sure the product is all right. Meanwhile, Sara, whose best friend is arguably that television set in she watching it continually when she has it in her possession, learns that she *is* going to appear as a contestant on her favorite television game show, something she misconstrues. In wanting to reclaim her youth for the viewing public, her goal, in part, is to fit back into the red dress she wore at Harry's graduation, which would require her to lose about fifty pounds. It is all in an effort to gain acceptance, including among her fellow Jewish housewife friends. Finding the dieting too arduous a process, she takes the advice of one of those friends to visit a weight loss doctor, he prescribing appetite suppressants which does result in that weight loss but a whole lot more on which she wasn't bargaining in her naiveté and tunnel-vision on that singular goal. — Huggo
• Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. In the shadow of the decaying dreamland of Coney Island, four interrelated lost souls fall prey to chemical addiction over a year. Intrigued by a random telephone call, sweet Sara Goldfarb, a lonely widow glued to her television, believes she will be on TV--all she has to do is drop a few pounds. Instead, Sara becomes addicted to diet pills. In the meantime, her heroin-shooting son, Harry, and his ecstasy-hooked pal, Tyrone, push drugs on the neighbourhood's mean streets, risking everything to escape poverty and support their unbreakable, ever-increasing addictions. And amid false promises and a perpetual dependency loop, Harry's talented girlfriend, Marion, aspires to make it big in the fashion industry. However, she, too, is about to plunge headlong into hell and explore the dark depths of human misery. — Nick Riganas
• Drugs. They consume mind, body and soul. Once you're hooked, you're hooked. Four lives. Four addicts. Four failures. Despite their aspirations of greatness, they succumb to their addictions. Watching the addicts spiral out of control, we bear witness to the dirtiest, ugliest portions of the underworld addicts reside in. — Jeff Mellinger <[email protected]>
• Harry Goldfarb ( Jared Leto ) and Tyrone Love ( Marlon Wayans ) are two friends who live in Brooklyn, New York. They regularly do various drugs paid for by such petty thefts as Harry pawning his mother's TV set. Sara Goldfarb ( Ellen Burstyn ), Harry's mother, is a widow living alone in Brighton Beach who must regularly buy back her TV set from the pawn shop owner, Abe Rabinowitz ( Mark Margolis ). Abe tries to get Sara to turn Harry in, but she doesn't have the heart for it, as Harry is all she has left after the death of her husband, Seymour, twenty years prior. Harry and Tyrone eventually come up with a plan to make money by reselling heroin on the street so that they can get away from their dead-end lives. Over the summer, they make a fair amount of money. They talk regularly about buying a pound of extremely pure heroin as their 'big score' that will give them comfortable lives when they invest that money in a legal business. Marion Silver ( Jennifer Connelly ), who is Harry's girlfriend, has a distant relationship with her parents (who are never seen on camera), but sometimes goes out with Arnold ( Sean Gullette ), her psychiatrist, in order to appease them. She, along with Harry and Tyrone, snort and shoot heroin and cocaine, drop speed, and talk a lot about their dreams for a better future. As Harry starts earning money, he and Marion talk about opening a clothing store where Marion can earn a living as a clothing designer. Meanwhile, Sara is a TV junkie, obsessed with an infomercial hosted by self-help guru Tappy Tibbons ( Christopher McDonald ), based on the acronym JUICE (Join Us In Creating Excitement). One day she receives a mysterious call from someone who claims that she has been selected to appear on a TV show. Thinking she's being invited to appear on the Tappy Tibbons infomercial, Sara is suddenly obsessed with the idea of flaunting Harry on the show before a national audience. She wants to wear a particular red dress that she wore at Harry's high school graduation; a dress that Seymour loved to see her in. However, she is now too overweight to fit into it. One of Sara's friends, with whom she sometimes sits outside her apartment, gives her a diet book; but of course the "grapefruit and coffee" diet leaves her constantly hungry. She then hears about a way to lose a lot of weight by taking certain medications from a doctor, so she decides to try it. Tyrone and Harry have made a lot of money by dealing drugs, gradually filling up a shoe box Tyrone hides in a wall in his apartment. Gazing at the money in the shoe box, he reminisces about running home and into his mother's arms before making love to his girlfriend. As summer progresses to fall, so do the debilitating effects of the drugs that Harry, Tyrone, Marion, and Sara use. The money that Harry and Tyrone had saved starts to dwindle. First, Harry buys Sara a large, new TV/entertainment set. Tyrone gets caught in the middle of a drug gang assassination, lands in jail and needs to be bailed out. While visiting Sara to tell her about the new TV set he's gotten her, Harry finds out that the diet pills that Sara is taking are methamphetamine 'uppers,' or 'speed,' and warns her of the dangers involved. However, Sara delivers a passionate monologue about how her upcoming television appearance is giving her a new lease on life. Harry leaves in a taxi, shattered emotionally by his mother's situation, but he won't do anything to prevent her addiction growing. Eventually, Tyrone, Harry and Marion all run out of both drugs and money. Without money they cannot buy more drugs. Harry pleads with Marion to ask Arnold for $2,000 so that Harry and Tyrone can make a purchase from a notorious mob figure. As Marion fears, Arnold wants her to sleep with him in return, and she reluctantly complies with Harry's acceptance. At the site of the drug deal, a scuffle breaks out among buyers trying to push ahead in the line, and the supplier opens fire before driving away, leaving several people -- Harry included -- without any drugs. Sara loses weight gradually, the zipper on her dress coming tantalizingly closer to zipping up completely. But she also develops a tolerance for the pills that lead her to continually increase her dosage without consulting her doctor, and she slips into drug-induced psychosis that causes her to experience hallucinations involving her refrigerator, which get more and more intense. Sara begins to regularly hallucinate that she is the guest of honor on Tappy Tibbons' infomercial and gets to speak with the man himself. Harry's relationship with Marion starts to crumble when the need for drugs starts to overcome their sensibilities and the love they have for each other. Marion blames Harry for the failed purchase from the mob figure. After one major fight, Harry gives her a phone number for a major dealer named Big Tim (Keith David), who he heard about from Tyrone. Harry and Tyrone couldn't buy from Tim because he was more interested in 'pussy' than money. Harry also discovers a black spot on his arm where he injects the heroin. Fall fades into winter. As a result of increasing drug gang violence and police crackdowns, Harry and Tyrone cannot find any heroin in the city, so they decide to drive to Florida to make a purchase. Marion goes through severe deprivation withdrawal and she tearfully begs Tyrone and Harry's regular contact, Angel, for help, but he rebuffs her because she is broke. In desperation, she calls Big Tim and goes to his house. Although she is hesitant for a moment, she gives him a blow job in return for a fix. Pleased with her performance, Big Tim invites her to a big orgy event at his house later in the week. The invitation for Sara to appear on TV has not arrived, and her hallucinations with the refrigerator reach a climax as she takes more and more pills, thinking they will make the refrigerator stop. But instead, she finally hallucinates that the refrigerator lurches through the kitchen straight towards her and opens a wide toothy mouth. Sara runs from her apartment in fear, wearing no winter coat even though shoveled snow lines both sides of the streets. She wanders in a stupor, gets on the subway and finds her way to a Manhattan television station, begging to know when she will be on television. The receptionist and TV executives stall for time so they can contact paramedics who take her to a mental hospital. As Harry and Tyrone are headed to Florida, the black spot on Harry's arm grows to an alarming size and he begins complaining about the pain. Tyrone drives Harry to a hospital. One look at Harry's arm and the triage doctor knows that Harry is a drug addict. He discreetly excuses himself taking all drugs with him and calls the county sheriff's department, taking the medicine and drugs which were previously lying around with him, just in case. Tyrone and Harry are arrested and sent to jail, where Tyrone is subjected to racist guards and punishing work detail. Harry uses his phone call to contact Marion. She begs him to come home right away, and he promises her he will, but she knows he is lying. As they speak on the phone, Marion is getting dressed up to attend Big Tim's party. At the mental hospital, Sara refuses treatment and refuses to eat, and her psychosis only deepens. Still delusional, she unwittingly and unknowingly signs an authorization for doctors to put her through electro-shock therapy. While clearing prisoners for work detail, a prison doctor finds Harry's arm has become almost completely black and gives off a foul odor, and the pain is too much for Harry to bear. He is sent to the prison infirmary, where the doctors quickly determine they must immediately cut off Harry's arm at the shoulder to save his life. At Big Tim's party, Marion engages in a variety of sex acts including an 'ass to ass' with another woman. Harry has a dream of running toward a smiling Marion as she waits for him on a Coney Island pier, and then awakens in a hospital ward with a beautiful, kind nurse ( Lianna Pai ) watching over him. Hearing him speak Marion's name, the nurse promises to contact her and arrange to have her come see him. But Harry knows she will not come; he knows he's lost her. Marion arrives home from Big Tim's party, clutching a large plastic bag to her breast; she's been paid very well and Big Tim likes her enough to be her supplier as long as she pleases him. She lies down on her couch and smiles blissfully. Tyrone and several other prisoners are ushered into a common cell after work detail and Tyrone lies down on a cot, exhausted, with only a pillow and no blanket. Two of Sara's friends visit her at the mental hospital, and are so horrified and shocked at the sight of her as a hollow shell of her former self that they sob uncontrollably in each others' arms while waiting for their bus back home. All four main characters are shown curling up in a fetal position: Harry in the hospital bed with his arm amputated, Marion on her couch after gaining a regular drug supplier in return for her favors, Tyrone on a cot in prison as he dreams of his childhood and his mother, and Sara in a bed at the mental hospital. The movie closes with Sara having another hallucination where she is a grand prize winner on the Tappy Tibbons show, wearing her red dress and looking beautiful; showing off Harry, who in her dreams, has become a successful businessman engaged to marry Marion, to a cheering audience.

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Requiem for a Dream (United States, 2000)

Every year, there seems to be one film that kicks you in the stomach and leaves your head reeling. In 1999, it was Tim Roth's profoundly disturbing, unforgettable The War Zone . This year, it's Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream , one of the most forceful anti-drug narratives ever to be committed to celluloid. To call this movie a cautionary tale would be to apply a label that is too tame -- Requiem for a Dream presents the darkest take imaginable on a story of hopes and dreams shattered by drug addiction. There's no preaching or sermonizing here, just an almost-clinical depiction of lives laid to waste. This is not a film for the weak of mind or soul. Even in the midst of the whirlwind of a film festival, when I was seeing four films a day and the tendency was for everything to blur into a continuum, this one stuck out, demanding attention and rumination. It is a force to be reckoned with.

As he proved with his art house success, Pi , Aronofsky is not afraid to take chances, and Requiem for a Dream represents a big one. Based on the novel by Hubert Selby Jr., this movie was granted the MPAA's NC-17 "kiss of death" for its uncompromising portrayal of the depths to which some people will sink to get their fix. No punches are pulled, no images "prettied up". Undaunted by the MPAA's hypocritical and senseless stance, Aronofsky appealed the rating, rightfully claiming that cutting any portion of the film would dilute, if not outright destroy, its message. The appeal was denied, but Artisan, in a move that affirms their commitment to art over commercialism (at least in this case) has decided to release the film unrated.

Every actor with a major role - Ellen Burstyn, Jennifer Connelly, Jared Leto, and Marlan Wayans - should be commended not only for their strength of performance but for the courage they exhibit in putting themselves on the line the way Aronofsky requires. They are artists in the truest sense of the word, sublimating their egos and committing themselves fully to the needs of the project. Each of them is shown in a state of physical and mental degradation. They are depicted doing the kinds of things that many higher profile celebrities would not permit. Connelly especially goes all out, appearing naked from the waist down in one shot and participating in a lesbian orgy scene. (Those looking for an erotic charge from Connelly's nudity should see one of her previous outings - Requiem for a Dream is far too disturbing to do anything for the libido.)

The movie starts slowly, introducing each of the characters and establishing their relationships. Visually, Aronofsky tries for something a little different here, employing a split-screen approach that neither enhances nor detracts from the narrative. (It isn't around long enough to become distracting.) The central figure is Harry (Jared Leto), a young man who lives hand-to-mouth because nearly every cent he saves, earns, or steals goes towards buying something he can inject into his veins. His best friend and business partner is Tyrone (Marlon Wayans, playing it straight and doing so effectively), who shares many of Harry's aspirations. His girlfriend is Marion (Connelly), who, like Harry and Tyrone, is an addict. The fourth significant player is Harry's widowed mother, Sara (Ellen Burstyn), who is as addicted to television as Harry is to drugs. When she learns that a marketing company may be able to offer her a spot in the studio audience of a live TV broadcast, she decides to lose weight. Following a visit to the doctor's, she is on her way to dropping 30 pounds and becoming hooked on the uppers and downers that comprise her diet.

For these characters, drugs gradually take the place of everything else - food, sex, aspirations, and even the day-to-day impulse to live. They become the sole sources of pain and pleasure. They form the core of relationships. Would these people have anything to do with one another if they weren't bound by the ceremony of the injection? Perhaps it's not that way in the beginning, but the life-destroying power of drugs is insidious and undeniable, and the spiral of all-consuming addiction is what Aronofsky has captured with unnerving effectiveness.

Everyone in this film has their own dreams - or at least they do before their gut-churning, animalistic need for the next fix has destroyed their capacity for reason. These aren't grandiose dreams - they're the kinds of things we all hope for during the small hours of the night when we lie awake wondering how our lives might change for the better. For Harry and Tyrone, it's to be able to make one big score and build a financial nest egg. For Marion, it's to start her own dress business and live with Harry. And for Sara, it's to appear on her favorite TV show and to be proud of her son. When the movie opens, each of these dreams can be realized. No one has progressed beyond the point of no return. However, by the time the end credits roll, they have become nebulous and unfulfillable. Requiem for a Dream is bleak, offering little in the way of respite in its depiction of the consequences of addiction (chief of which is the unwillingness of addicts to seek help). Like Trainspotting , its portrait of the effects of drugs on the mind and body is uncompromising. Unlike the British film, there is minimal grim humor for comic relief purposes.

Requiem for a Dream certainly isn't the first recent motion picture to offer an unpleasant picture of what happens when an individual becomes hooked on drugs, but its quadruple character study is unsparing. This is in large part because of the brilliant final fifteen minutes, which is a tour de force of direction and editing. Employing hundreds of cuts, Aronofsky careens back and forth between his four main players, showing their increasingly dire circumstances and allowing those to escalate to a brutal climax. This is easily the most startling and memorable extended sequence in any film this year, and, for raw power, it exceeds any scene I can recall from other films about addiction. Don't be fooled by the passively poetic title; there's nothing serene or restful about this motion picture. Requiem for a Dream gets under your skin and stays there.

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Requiem for a Dream

By Peter Travers

Peter Travers

Requiem for a Dream is directed by Darren Aronofsky, who scored a stunning 1998 debut with Pi , a low-budget indie flick with a restless camera that bent the world into new shapes. Requiem for a Dream, adapted from a 1978 novel by Hubert Selby Jr. ( Last Exit to Brooklyn ) by the author and Aronofsky, may be a bummer to some audiences, so harsh is its view of the drug culture. But no one interested in the power and magic of movies should miss it. Set in Brooklyn, on the streets of Aronofsky’s native Coney Island, the film stars Jared Leto as Harry Goldfarb, a dreamer who wants to go into business with his pal Tyrone (Marlon Wayans). But when the business becomes drugs, the two men get hooked along with Harry’s girl, Marion (a shockingly good Jennifer Connelly), who sells herself as a sex slave for a fix. Aronofsky, cinematographer Matthew Libatique and editor Jay Rabinowitz assault the senses with jump cuts, split screens and jarring, distorted images to show lives spiraling out of control. Leto, who lost twenty-five pounds for the role, excels by going beyond Harry’s gaunt look to capture his grieving heart. His scenes with Ellen Burstyn as Sara, Harry’s widowed mother, achieve a rare poignancy as son and mother drown in delusions. Fixated on appearing on a TV game show, Sara stuffs down diet pills so she can fit into a red dress she wore in her youth. The speed leaves her crazed by hallucinations — the scene in which Sara’s refrigerator seems to break free of the wall to crush her is scarier than anything in The Exorcist. Burstyn gives an award-caliber performance that is as raw and riveting as the movie that contains it.

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• Films like A Clockwork Orange showcase brutal violence once was enough to leave a lasting impact.
• Directors like Stanley Kubrick and Ruggero Deodato created movies pushing the boundaries of dark themes.
• Movies like Requiem for a Dream and 12 Years a Slave told gripping stories with graphic brutality.

This article discusses films that depict extreme violence and sexual assault.

There were occasionally incredible movies that were just so insanely brutal that they could only be endured once. From graphic depictions of violence, excruciating psychological torment, and horrifying instances of sexual assault, the cinematic landscape was filled with great movies that were so callous and ruthless that watching them just one time was enough to sear them in an audience’s memory for eternity. These kinds of films were worth watching, but after the credits rolled, viewers knew they would never willingly decide to see them again.

The kind of movies that were so brutal they could only be endured once have been produced by directors worldwide, some of whom were household names like Stanley Kubrick and others lesser-known, such as Ruggero Deodato. Truly brutal movies have pushed the boundaries of what can be depicted on screen and have tested audiences' limits with their intensity and voracity. These films were so brutal that very few would choose to rewatch them , but that did not mean they were without merit.

10 A Clockwork Orange (1971)

A clockwork orange featured brutal depictions of graphic violence, a clockwork orange.

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Directed by Stanley Kubrick, the film adaptation of Anthony Burgess's 1962 dystopian novel A Clockwork Orange presents a dark future where violent gangs roam the streets. Alex DeLarge (Malcolm McDowell) is a sadistic gang member who gets arrested and subjected to a controversial form of behavior therapy.

Stanley Kubrick’s highly polarizing adaptation of Anthony Burgess's novel A Clockwork Orange was infamous for its graphic depiction of violence. As a story initially focused on juvenile delinquents who ran rampant, sexually assaulted victims, and caused carnage on a horrific crime spree, the opening act of A Clockwork Orange was brutal enough that one viewing was good enough to last a lifetime. However, in the latter part of the film, the leader of the droogs, Alex DeLarge, was captured and underwent equally horrific psychological experimentation.

The brutal reputation A Clockwork Orange has not diminished in the more than 50 years since its release, and after it inspired acts of copycat violence, Kubrick requested the film be withdrawn from British cinemas (via The Guardian .) While the shocking depictions of violence in A Clockwork Orange have become more common since its release, the film has maintained its power to disturb as its reflection of dystopian society mimics the percieved degradation of cultural values seen throughout the 20th century. While A Clockwork Orange has an acclaimed legacy, just one viewing will suffice for most viewers.

9 Requiem For A Dream (2000)

Requiem for a dream tracked character’s brutal descend into addiction, requiem for a dream.

Darren Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream follows the lives of four drug addicts as they fall deeper into their addiction and pull their loved ones on a downward spiral along with themselves. The 2000 psychological drama is an adaptation of Hubert Selby Jr.'s eponymous novel and counts with a star-studded cast that includes the likes of Ellen Burstyn, Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly, Marlon Wayans, Christopher McDonald, and Mark Margolis.

The brutality of Requiem for a Dream was primarily psychological, as it depicted its character's existence spiraling due to the adverse effects of drug addiction. Based on a novel by Hubert Selby Jr., director Darren Aronofsky took viewers on a journey to the heart of human suffering in a brutal and vulnerable look at the grueling depths of addiction that audiences could only truly bear to watch once. With strong performances from Jared Leto , Jennifer Connolly, and Ellen Burstyn, each storyline was uniquely brutal in its own way.

Leto played Harry Goldfarb, a heroin-addicted son whose need to fuel his habit ensured that he betrayed and disappointed everyone important in his life. Connolly was Marion Silver, the girlfriend whose life was destroyed by drugs, and she soon found herself forced into sex work. Finally, Burstyn delivered a career-best performance as Sara Goldfarb , the widowed mother who unwittingly found herself addicted to amphetamines her doctor prescribed her for weight loss. Together, these three stories provided a three-dimensional look at the horrors of dependency and the dark paths those caught in its grasp endured.

8 The Passion Of The Christ (2004)

The passion of the christ was a brutal depiction of jesus’s crucifixion, the passion of the christ.

Directed by Mel Gibson, The Passion of the Christ is a biblical drama that follows Jesus Christ in his final 12 hours before and during the crucifixion. Starring Jim Caviezel as Jesus of Nazareth, the 2004 film was highly controversial for its graphic violence, but it was a box office success.

The sheer brutality of cruxification was merely hinted at in most movies that depicted the life of Jesus Christ. However, Mel Gibson’s biblical epic The Passion of the Christ took an unflinching view of this horrific practice as it covered the final 12 hours in the life of Jesus, largely according to the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The Passion of the Christ was a controversial box-office hit that Roger Ebert described as “ the most violent film I have ever seen ” in a four-out-of four-star review.

By depicting the crucifixion of Jesus with a level of realism and detail that no film before had ever attempted, The Passion of the Christ was a movie that many wanted to see but could only endure once. There was nothing enjoyable about witnessing such graphic depictions of pain, suffering, and violence, which made The Passion of the Christ a highly emotionally draining film experience. With the impending release of The Passion of the Christ 2 , it remains to be seen if Gibson will continue the brutality in the sequel.

7 12 Years A Slave (2013)

12 years a slave was the true story of a man’s brutal experiences with slavery, 12 years a slave.

Directed by Steve McQueen and based on the 1853 memoir by Solomon Northup, 12 Years a Slave tells the story of Northrup, a free black man from New York who, in 1841, is captured and sold into slavery in the south. Separated from his family, and forced to endure intense brutality at the hands of his new masters, Northrup works tirelessly to stay alive and regain his freedom. The film stars Chiwetel Ejiofor as Northrup, with a cast that includes Lupita Nyong'0, Michael Fassbender, Paul Dano, and Benedict Cumberbatch.

Movie viewing experiences became even more difficult to watch with the knowledge that what was being depicted was a true story. This was certainly the case for 12 Years a Slave , which was a biographical drama about Solomon Northup, a free man who was captured and sold into slavery in 1841. The grueling years of torture that Solomon endured acted as a horrific reminder of the shameful history of slavery in the United States and all that those who were subjected to it were forced to endure.

12 Years A Slave received widespread critical acclaim and even earned the Academy Award for Best Picture, making Steve McQueen the first black British director to gain that honor. As a brutal look at American slavery, 12 Years A Slave was essential viewing , although its difficult subject matter made it hard to watch more than once. With strong performances, an incredible director, and a story that needed to be told, 12 Years a Slave deserved all the acclaim it received, although it made for difficult viewing.

6 I Spit On Your Grave (1978)

I spit on your grave contained extreme depictions of sexual violence, i spit on your grave (1978).

I Spit on Your Grave was a highly controversial and divisive rape-and-revenge film known for its extreme depictions of sexual assault and violence. Telling the story of a woman exacting revenge on the men who tormented her and left her for dead, I Spit On Your Grave did not hold back when it came to sheer brutality and was banned in many countries for its perceived glorification of violence against women. Despite this controversial reputation, I Spit on Your Grave was also a cult classic that spawned a remake and a direct sequel.

Written and directed by Meir Zarchi, this film was so brutal that it has been described by film critic Roger Ebert as the worst movie ever made, who called it “ a vile bag of garbage ” that was “ without a shred of artistic distinction .” The debate has raged for decades about whether or not I Spit on Your Grave could be considered pro- and anti-women due to its story of Jennifer Hills tracking down and killing her tormentors. But one thing was for certain: The brutality of I Spit on Your Grave could only be stomached once.

5 Cannibal Holocaust (1980)

Cannibal holocaust was so brutal some believed it had to be real, cannibal holocaust.

Cannibal Holocaust is a controversial 1980 horror film directed by Ruggero Deodato. It follows anthropologist Harold Monroe (Robert Kerman) and his rescue team as they venture into the Amazon jungle to investigate the disappearance of documentary crew that went missing while researching a cannibalistic tribe.

Cannibal Holocaust was an innovative horror movie that was so brutal that many thought it had to be real. This belief led to the director, Ruggero Deodato, being arrested for obscenity and even being charged with murder due to the rumors that cast members were killed on camera (via Collider .) As an Italian exploitation film, Cannibal Holocaust, followed a rescue team trying to find a crew of filmmakers who went missing while filming a documentary on local cannibal tribes.

As one of the very first found-footage horror movies ever made, it was no surprise that the realism of its style made viewers believe that Cannibal Holocaust was real . With truly impressive gore effects, the perspective of Cannibal Holocaust was so engrossing that it really could only be watched once. As a movie full of truly repugnant imagery throughout, Cannibal Holocaust was a film to be endured rather than enjoyed.

4 Antichrist (2009)

Antichrist was a brutal examination of death, life, love, and se, antichrist (2009).

Antichrist is a psychological horror film directed by Lars von Trier, starring Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg. Following the devastating loss of their child, a grieving couple retreats to their cabin in the woods, where they encounter strange and terrifying events. The film explores themes of grief, trauma, and the human psyche, set against an unsettling forest backdrop.

When thinking about movies that were so brutal they could only be watched once, many of the works of Danish director Lars von Trier came to mind. However, one stood above the rest, and that was Antichrist , von Trier’s terrifying story about a couple (Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg) who experienced the accidental death of their infant child and retreated to the woods to grieve. As if this theme weren’t difficult enough, Antichrist's forbidding aesthetic made every scene truly creepy .

The psychological brutality of Antichrist was difficult to endure, and different cuts of the film exist with some of the most explicit scenes removed. However, the uncut version of Antichrist was a grotesque masterpiece that dealt with death, love, sex, and the meaninglessness of it all. Von Trier's work has always delved into the heart of human misery, and Antichrist was no different. While Antichrist had a lot of artistic merit, it was also so brutal that it could only be watched once.

3 Evil Dead (2013)

Evil dead replaced the humor of the original with sheer brutality, evil dead (2013).

Evil Dead is a 2013 reboot of the popular horror franchise created by Sam Raimi. Ash Williams doesn't play a role in the film's plot, with the movie instead focusing on a new group of friends who stumble across the Book of the Dead in a secluded forest. The reboot stars Jane Levy as the new "Final Girl" of the franchise.

As one of the greatest horror remakes ever made, the 2013 version of Evil Dead reimagined the series not as a comedy-horror fueled by Bruce Campbell's cartoonish antics but as an intensely brutal supernatural story. What Evil Dead lacked in absurd humor, it more than made up for in gory violence, unrelenting horror, and frantic scares. An impressive new direction for the long-running horror franchise, Evil Dead was packed with gleeful violence so brutal it could only be watched once.

Directed by Fede Álvarez, Evil Dead was chilling from start to finish as a group of five people were attacked by deadites in a remote cabin in the woods. Although this was a story horror enthusiasts had seen several times before, the brutality of Evil Dead made it seem entirely new. A hit at the box office, Evil Dead led to the sequel, Evil Dead Rises , which also received critical acclaim.

2 Martyrs (2008)

Martyrs was a brutal depiction of graphic violence, martyrs (2008).

Martyrs is a French-Canadian horror film directed by Pascal Laugier. The movie follows Lucie and Anna, two women who are entangled in a harrowing journey of revenge and unimaginable torment. The film explores themes of suffering and the quest for transcendence, presenting a stark narrative that challenges both its characters and viewers.

Martyrs often ranked among the greatest horror movies ever made, but it was also such an intense viewing experience that it could only be endured once. It followed the story of a young woman’s quest for revenge against those who tortured her as a child, and the brutality of its depiction cannot be understated. Made by French director Pascal Laugier, Martyrs was an example of the New Extremity film movement, whose films were notable for graphic violence and explicit depictions of sexual assault.

Martys was highly controversial at the time of its release, and it was reported that viewers collapsed and vomited during early screenings (via Total Film ). The controversy around the movie was captured in the documentary Martyrs vs. Censorship , which highlighted just how brutal the movie was and its reception in France and worldwide. While Martyrs made for difficult viewing, it also received widespread acclaim from those who made it all the way through.

1 Come And See (1985)

Come and see was among the most brutal war movies ever produced, come and see (1985).

Come and See is a 1985 Soviet war drama directed by Elem Klimov. The film follows a young Belarusian boy named Flyora as he witnesses and experiences the horrors of World War II. Through his eyes, viewers are exposed to the brutal realities of war and its devastating impact on humanity. Renowned for its stark portrayal of violence and suffering, the film is considered a powerful anti-war statement.

The intensely brutal Soviet Belarusian anti-war movie Come and See focused on the Nazi occupation of Belarus from the point of view of the teenager Flyora. As an unrelenting depiction of atrocity and human suffering, Flyora was witness to graphic and difficult-to-face examples of the worst acts of humanity after joining the resident movement. With a mix of hyperreal and surrealist imagery, Come and See was the type of movie that viewers could only watch once.

Come and See was a war movie of such brutality that many may be able to take the full existential nightmare that it depicted. However, one thing was certain: anyone who has watched will never forget the horrors seen on screen. Come and See has rightfully been remembered as a classic of anti-war cinema , the memory of which would be searing into the audience's brain with just one solitary viewing.

Sources: The Guardian , Roger Ebert (The Passion of the Christ), Roger Ebert (I Spit on Your Grave), Collider , Total Film

32 Great Movies You Can Only Watch Once

So good, but so hard to watch.

There are just some movies, that despite how great they are, are just impossible to watch more than once. Either the subject is too heavy, like a holocaust film, or the violence is too much, like some horror movies, or any other number of reasons. This is a list of 32 of those amazing films that you just can't watch a second time. 

Schindler's List (1993)

The Steven Spielberg classic Schindler's List is one of the most difficult movies to watch ever. It's absolutely brilliant in the way it depicts the horrors and personal costs of The Holocaust, and while it's completely gripping and an amazing story, it is really hard to watch, emotionally. I've actually seen it twice after swearing to never watch it a second time, but I don't think I have it in me to watch a third time. 

Hotel Rwanda (2004)

The Rwandan genocide of the '90s is still very raw in that part of Africa. The movie Hotel Rwanda is like other movies about people trying to save people from such events, like Schindler's List, is both heartwarming and completely heartbreaking. You really feel for everyone viscerally when you watch, and because of that, it's really hard to watch a second time. 

The Green Mile (1999)

The Green Mile is a very different story than we are used to coming from the mind of Stephen King . It's not scary, in a traditional sense, but boy is it emotionally fatiguing. Michael Clarke Duncan's performance is what makes this heartbreaking movie about a prisoner on death row. The raw emotion he plays the role with is spectacular but absolutely draining.   

The Zone Of Interest (2023)

The 2024 Oscar winner for Best Sound, The Zone Of Interest , is one of the most worthy recipients of that award in history. The way that director Jonathan Glazer told the entire menacing part of the story with sound is simply incredible. It is also not for the faint of heart. Not seeing the horrors of the Holocaust depicted on screen makes it all the more powerful because it's all in your mind, making it much more real somehow. 

Uncut Gems (2013)

There is little harder than watching one man's decent in desperation and despair, like Howard ( Adam Sandler ) in Uncut Gems . You want to just reach out and hug and tell him to stop making things worse for himself. Audiences see every bad, desperate decision coming and are helpless to stop it. Sandler's performance is so good, that you completely forget this is the guy who played Billy Madison and is known for being funny more than a dramatic actor. 

12 Years a Slave (2013)

Steve McQueen 's 12 Years a Slave should be required viewing for every American. It should be taught in schools, it's that important. Chiwetel Ejiofor's depiction of the real-life Solomon Northup, a free Black man kidnapped and enslaved for 12 years in the American South. Slavery is America's original sin, one we still are grappling with a century and a half after it ended, and seeing the way Ejiofor and McQueen show it is really, really hard, but really important to do.  

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Midsommar (2019)

Horror movies are a lot of different things to different people. They can be campy and fun, or they can be psychologically terrifying. Midsommar is the latter, by a mile. There is nothing "fun" about Midsommar . It's one of the most disturbing movies made in the last decade, and it's a movie that will sit with you for a long, long time. So long, that you probably don't want to put yourself through it again. It's so good at doing what it sets out to do, you never want to see it again. Even star Florence Pugh was greatly affected by it . 

Inside (2023)

2023's Inside is one of those movies I went into knowing virtually nothing about, save for the fact that it starred Willem Dafoe . Wow was that a tough watch to see a man trapped in a gilded prison cell of his own making when Dafoe's character finds himself unable to escape a penthouse apartment he was trying to rob. Dafoe's performance of a man driven to madness is both brilliant and terrifying. 

Manchester By The Sea (2016)

Manchester By The Sea is one of those stories that just when you think things can't get worse, they do. One tragedy after another is revealed as the movie goes on and Casey Affleck 's performance is one of the all-time greats in Hollywood history as the man who just can't seem to ever get a break, and is living one of the saddest lives you've ever seen on film. It's such a good movie, but too emotionally draining to watch more than once. 

The Passion Of The Christ (2004)

Even for non-Christians The Passion of the Christ is an incredibly difficult watch. The sheer amount of violence so viscerally depicted is stomach-churning and disturbing. I do think it's worth watching once, despite the controversy that has always surrounded it and its director Mel Gibson, but once is enough. 

The Revenant (2015)

Like a few others on this list, The Revenant is here not because of the story it tells, but rather how it's depicted. It's raw and violent and bloody and disturbing. It's a (mostly) true story , which makes it almost too incredible to believe, and Leonardo DiCaprio puts in one of his finest performances, but it's not a movie you watch over and over. 

The Machinist (2004)

2004's The Machinist is worth watching - and impossible to watch again - for one reason, really, Christian Bale's performance. The actor legendarily lost 62 pounds for the role, playing an emaciated, delusional factory worker who is unable to sleep, ever. It's one of the most incredible acting jobs you'll ever see, and never want to see again. 

Requiem For a Dream (2000)

Watching a decent into drug addiction can be among the most harrowing things to see in a movie and no movie is better (and scarier) for that than Requiem For a Dream . Viewers not only watch Sara's (Ellen Burstyn) downward spiral, but they feel it with Darren Aronofsky's direction and Burstyn's amazing performance. 

Oldboy (2003)

When a movie starts out as unsettling as the 2003 South Korean masterpiece Oldboy and only gets more harrowing from there, you know it belongs on this list. Choi Min-sik is amazing as the man imprisoned in what looks like a hotel room for years. As he learns the disturbing fate of his wife on TV, he sinks further into despair. Things only get worse when he is finally freed from the room. 

Civil War (2024)

Alex Garland's Civil War has garnered huge praise that it is worthy of, but the movie's premise and action are so tough to watch, that I'll likely never see it again. That sickness in my stomach I felt as I watched is both high praise and the reason for my decision. Seeing some of the images of a country at war that you never expect to see is haunting and scary. 

The Whale (2022)

Like other examples on this list, The Whale is carried by the performance of its lead actor, Brendan Fraiser. The Academy Award-winning role is played with such raw emotion, that it's impossible to look away from, yet it's not something I ever want to relive. 

Whiplash (2014)

There was a ton of praise for Whiplash when it was released in 2014, and it's deserving of all of it. The depiction of a student learning drums from an impossible taskmaster is nothing short of fantastic, yet you can't watch the movie and not feel all the violence and mental anguish right in your gut for the runtime of the movie. JK Simmons is terrifying in his role as the sadistic conductor pushing Andrew (Miles Teller) to the brink of sanity. 

Happiness (1998)

Though it's billed as a comedy, Happiness is as dark as a comedy can get. It's praised for its bold decision to cover issues that are rarely talked about, and so disturbing I'd rather not do that here, and the cast, including Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ben Gazzara, Jared Harris, Lara Flynn Boyle, and more. Still, it's hard to watch even once, much less twice.  

Life Is Beautiful (1997)

It's rare for a movie as funny as Life Is Beautiful to be so hard to watch again, but that's exactly what is it. The movie was controversial for the comedic elements within telling a story about the Holocaust, but Roberto Benigni is so good at the tragic clown that it's impossible to appreciate the movie. Even if you never want to see it again. 

American History X (1998)

While some movies are too hard to watch a second time because they are emotionally draining, American History X is impossible to watch again because it's just too disturbing. We don't want to believe that people like Derek Vinyard (Edward Norton) exist, though we know they do and that makes it really hard to digest once, much less twice. 

Leaving Las Vegas (1995)

The level of self-destruction that Nicolas Cage's character in Leaving Las Vegas is astounding. When I saw it, it both repulsed me and made me want a drink, which is disturbing on a lot of levels. It's so heartbreaking to watch anyone so depressed and hopeless as the character is. 

The Pianist (2002)

Like other movies about The Holocaust, The Pianist is incredibly heartbreaking and hard to watch. Unlike movies like Schindler's List, it's really about one man's trials through the whole event and that makes it even more tragic to see everything happening around him. It's not just those murdered in the Holocaust, the survivors are also victims. 

Nightcrawler (2014)

Nightcrawler asks a lot of important questions and despite being almost a decade old, it's still questions we need answers to about the role of the press in our society. For that reason, it's an important movie to watch. The violence and disturbing images make it both critical and appalling to watch and for those reasons, once is enough. 

My Girl (1991)

Everything is tougher when it's kids. The death of a child is among the most heartbreaking things in the world, and My Girl is brutal in that respect. What makes it even harder is how sudden the death is in the movie, making it a wonderful movie, but one that you never want to watch again. 

The Saw Movies

The name of the company that produces the Saw franchise is Twisted Pictures and that name says it all. The horror movies are stone classics in the genre, but for anyone even a little squeamish, these movies are unwatchable nightmares . Even those of us that can stomach them once, have had enough by the end. 

Steel Magnolias (1989)

There is no question that Steel Magnolias has an amazing cast, led by the great Sally Field in one of her best roles . It's still a movie you only want to watch once. It's a little more rewatchable than some of the other movies on this list, but only due to the performances. It's truly one of the most iconic tear-jerkers in Hollywood history. 

The Act of Killing (2012)

Most of this list is fictional movies, but The Act of Killing is a documentary and that makes everything even more visceral. It's not only a true story - and a disturbing one at that - it features the real people involved. It's a naked look at the worst humanity can be and for that it's necessary viewing, but not multiple times. 

Marley & Me (2008)

There are millions of families that can directly relate to Marley & Me , which is what makes it both wonderful and sad. Many people know exactly how important dogs can be, especially to young families, and even though we know in the back of our heads that our dogs won't live forever, yet when we lose them, it really hurts. Marley & Me would be very rewatchable if it ended with the family moving the farm and Marley happily running around. But that's not how it ends and for that, it puts it in the same category as Old Yellar . Once is enough. 

Sophie’s Choice (1982)

There is no question that the role of Sophie Zawistowska in Sophie’s Choice is one of the finest performances of Meryl Streep's career, and that is really saying something. It's a revelation to watch her play this incredibly difficult role, and for that, everyone should see the movie. The "choice" she has to make wouldn't be wished on anyone's worst enemy and for that, we know we can only watch it once. 

Fruitvale Station (2013)

2013's Fruitvale Station forces the audience to confront, viscerally, some of the worst aspects of life in America for African Americans. It's not a pleasant thing to watch, though like others on this list, should be required viewing. It's hard to get through, but completely worth it in the end. It's a movie that will stick with you forever, so once is all you need. 

Mother! (2017)

There is a genre of movie, like Mother! , that are so hard to watch for mothers especially that they deserve their own sub-category of movie. That's not to say it's easy to watch for anyone else. The ending is so disturbing, that I still have nightmares about it, despite loving the movie. 

127 Hours (2017)

Danny Boyle's 2017 film about the harrowing ordeal Aron Ralston (James Franco) went through is so well told and shown that audiences can feel the scariest moments. The scene of Ralston cutting through the nerves on his arm is to this day the most squeamish I've ever felt in a movie. Another movie I absolutely loved, along with many of Boyle's movies, but the only one I never want to watch again. 

Hugh Scott is the Syndication Editor for CinemaBlend. Before CinemaBlend, he was the managing editor for Suggest.com and Gossipcop.com, covering celebrity news and debunking false gossip. He has been in the publishing industry for almost two decades, covering pop culture – movies and TV shows, especially – with a keen interest and love for Gen X culture, the older influences on it, and what it has since inspired. He graduated from Boston University with a degree in Political Science but cured himself of the desire to be a politician almost immediately after graduation.

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“The Substance” tells the story of an aging Hollywood actress-turned-aerobics-workout-host, named Elisabeth Sparkle and played by Demi Moore , who gets fired from a TV network because she is now deemed too old. In a rage of desperation, she calls a number that’s been handed to her anonymously and gets hooked up with a sinister sci-fi body-enhancement program known as The Substance. She is given a heap of medical equipment sealed into plastic bags (syringes, tubing, a phosphorescent green liquid, a gooey white injectable food product), and she’s told about the protocol regarding her new self — which, the program warns, will also be her old self. “The two of you are one,” say the instructions. What does that mean?

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Fargeat, who has made one previous feature (2017’s “Revenge”), works in a wide-angle-lens, up-from-exploitation style that might be described as cartoon grindhouse Kubrick. It’s like “A Clockwork Orange” fused with the kinetic aesthetics of a state-of-the-art television commercial. Fargeat favors super-close-ups (of body parts, cars, eating, kissing), with sounds to match, and she also vacuums up influences the way Brian De Palma once did (though he, in this case, is one of them). We’ve all seen dozens of retreads of the Jekyll-and-Hyde story, but Fargeat, in her imaginative audacity, fuses it with “Showgirls,” and even that isn’t enough for her. She draws heavily on the hallucinatory moment in “The Shining” where Jack Torrance embraces a young woman in a bathtub, only to see her transformed into a cackling old crone. Beyond that, Fargeat‘s images recall the exploding-beast-with-a-writhing-face in John Carpenter’s “The Thing,” the bloodbath prom of “Carrie,” and the addiction-turned-dread of “Requiem for a Dream.”

What makes all of this original is that Coralie Fargeat fuses it with her own stylized aggro voice (she favors minimal dialogue, which pops like something out of a graphic novel), and with her feminist outrage over the way that women have been ruled by the world of images. At first, though, the over-the-top-ness does take a bit of getting used. Dennis Quaid plays the brash pig of a network executive, in baroquely decorated suit jackets, who has decided to fire Elisabeth, and when he’s having lunch with her, shoving shrimp in his mouth from what feels like four inches away from the audience, you want to recoil as much as she does. But Fageat is actually great with her actors; she knows that Quaid’s charisma, even when he’s playing a showbiz vulgarian as reprehensible as this, will make him highly watchable.

And Demi Moore’s performance is nothing short of fearless. She’s playing, in some very abstract way, a version of herself (once a star at the center of the universe, now old enough to be seen by sexist Hollywood as past it), and her acting is rippled with anger, terror, despair, and vengeance. There’s a lot of full-on nudity in “The Substance,” to the point that the film flirts with building a male gaze into the foundation of its aesthetic. Yet it does so only to pull the rug of voyeurism out from under us. Margaret Qualley makes Sue crisply magnetic in her confidence, and the fact that Sue knows how to package herself as an “object” is part of the film’s satirical design. She’s following the rules, “giving the people what they want.” It’s clear, I think, that Qualley is going to be a major star, and you see why here. She takes this stylized role and imbues it with a hint of mystery. For “The Substance” is finally a story of dueling egos, with Elisabeth’s real self and her enhanced self going at each other in a war for dominance.

“The Substance” does indeed play off “Showgirls” and the whole history of Hollywood cat-fight melodramas. The movie, in its visceral way, is deliriously ambitious (and, at 140 minutes, easily 20 minutes too long). But as it moves into the final chapter, its relatively restrained interface with body horror erupts into something cathartic in its extremity. Sue, at this point, has taken most of the life from Elisabeth, which means that Elisabeth has turned into a body so decrepit she makes the bathtub hag in “The Shining” look like Grace Kelly. But Fargeat is just getting started. The climactic sequence is set during the taping of the network’s New Year’s Eve special, which Sue has been chosen to host, and what happens there must be seen to be believed. Even if you watch horror movies all year long, this is still one of the rare ones to come up with a true monster , not just a mass of warped flesh but a deformation of the spirit. This, the film says, is what we’re repressing. It’s what we’re doing to ourselves.

Reviewed at Cannes Film Festival (In Competition), May 19, 2024. Running time: 140 MIN.

• Production: A Mubi release of a Working Title Films, A Good Title production. Producers: Coralie Fargeat, Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner. Executive producers: Alexandra Loewy, Nicolas Royer.
• Crew: Director, screenplay: Coralie Fargeat. Camera: Benjamin Kracun. Editor: Jérôme Eltabet. Music: 000 Raffertie.
• With: Demi Moore, Margaret Qualley, Dennis Quaid, Hugo Diego Garcia, Phillip Schurer, Joseph Balderrama, Oscar Lesage, Gore Abrams, Magtthew Géczy.

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