MOVIE · 2000

Requiem for a Dream

CrimeDrama102 min

A group of people chase the lives they imagine they deserve, only to get trapped by addiction and the fantasies it feeds. In Brooklyn, a young man and his girlfriend see drugs as a way to get ahead, while his friend follows the same hustle toward quick money and a better future. At the same time, his mother, played by Ellen Burstyn, grows obsessed with a television dream and turns to pills to remake herself for it. What begins as ambition and escape turns into dependence, paranoia, and physical collapse. As each plan narrows into need, their lives break apart in different but equally brutal ways.