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Movies / Upcoming / Requiem for a Dream
Requiem for a Dream

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Requiem for a Dream (2000)

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Reviews Counted:122

Fresh:97

Rotten:25

Average Rating:7.3/10

Consensus: Though the movie may be too intense for some to stomach, the wonderful performances and the bleak imagery are hard to forget.

Runtime: 1 hr 42 mins

Genre: Dramas

US Box Office: $2,546,851

Synopsis: For his follow-up to his darkly brilliant debut, PI, director Darren Aronofsky chose to adapt a tough and meaty piece of work: Hubert Selby's 1968 novel REQUIEM FOR A DREAM, a dark spiral into the... For his follow-up to his darkly brilliant debut, PI, director Darren Aronofsky chose to adapt a tough and meaty piece of work: Hubert Selby's 1968 novel REQUIEM FOR A DREAM, a dark spiral into the abyss of barren fantasies doomed to extinction. However, in Aronofsky's frenetic, visionary, unique, and disturbing style lies the perfect setting for this story of four people whose intertwined lives are filled with eternally hopeful despair. This is a different sort of horror film. Harry Goldfarb (Jared Leto) and Marion Silver (Jennifer Connelly) are lovers in Brooklyn with dreams of setting up a small business and spending the rest of their lives in love--their version of the American dream. The two are also desperate heroin addicts, a compulsion that darkens their lives and leads Harry to repeatedly pawn his mother's television. His mother, Sara Goldfarb (Ellen Burstyn), is addicted to television, which is why she keeps replacing the stolen set. One day she receives a call from her favorite show, the surreal TAPPY TIBBONS SHOW, and learns that she has been selected to appear on an upcoming broadcast. When she can't fit into her best red dress, her doctor prescribes diet pills (uppers), to which she swiftly and painfully becomes addicted. Harry's cohort, an intelligent hustler named Tyrone (Marlon Wayans), completes the foursome. With its unflinching dissection of addiction, REQUIEM FOR A DREAM is a psychologically disturbing, visually captivating depiction of lost hope. The last half hour of the film is among the most harrowing of any film ever made. [More]

Starring: Ellen Burstyn, Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly, Marlon Wayans

Starring: Ellen Burstyn, Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly, Marlon Wayans, Christopher McDonald, Keith David, Sean Gullette, Louise Lasser

Director: Darren Aronofsky

Director: Darren Aronofsky
Screenwriter: Darren Aronofsky, Hubert Selby, Jr.
Composer: Clint Mansell
Studio: Artisan Entertainment

[See More Credits]

Reviews for Requiem for a Dream

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1 - 20 (sorted by date; Australian critics are listed first)
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Requiem for a Dream can feel like government funded shock therapy for anybody considering picking up a needle or swallowing pills or idealizing false dreams.

Full Review Source: In Film Australia | comment Comment
04/02/01
Luke Buckmaster
Luke Buckmaster
In Film Australia
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Requiem For A Dream is the first great film of the year.

Full Review Source: Urban Cinefile | comment Comment
02/09/01
Urban Cinefile Critics
Urban Cinefile Critics
Urban Cinefile
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

"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 Source: ColeSmithey.com | comment Comment
05/16/09
Cole Smithey
Cole Smithey
ColeSmithey.com

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

comment Comment
08/02/08
Kevin McCarthy
Kevin McCarthy
BDK Reviews

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

Full Review Source: Big Picture Big Sound | comment Comment
07/14/07
Joe Lozito
Joe Lozito
Big Picture Big Sound

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

Full Review Source: Flick Filosopher | comment Comment
12/30/06
MaryAnn Johanson
MaryAnn Johanson
Flick Filosopher

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 Source: One Guy's Opinion | comment 2 Comments
07/24/06
Frank Swietek
Frank Swietek
One Guy's Opinion

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 Source: Time Out | comment Comment
06/24/06
Geoff Andrew
Geoff Andrew
Time Out

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

Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid | comment 2 Comments
05/26/06
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Combustible Celluloid

There's a wholehearted commitment in every frame toward synthesizing the feeling of hopeless addiction. It's in the writing. It's in the chaotic cinematography. It's in the actors' eyes.

Full Review Source: Arizona Daily Star | comment Comment
02/24/06
Phil Villarreal
Phil Villarreal
Arizona Daily Star

With this movie, Aronofsky sends a couple of messages. One, of course, is about how much habitual drug use can fuel your delusions and what that combination can take away from you. The other message is that the director is now a major American filmmaker.

Full Review Source: Film Threat | comment Comment
12/06/05
Ron Wells
Ron Wells
Film Threat

It's the type of experience that you will never cry at in the theater, but will cry at long after, as the message fully sinks in.

Full Review Source: Zertinet Movies | comment Comment
10/01/05
Steven Snyder
Steven Snyder
Zertinet Movies

An unordinary, highly stylized, gritty hyperkinetic junkie movie -- unlike anything you've seen before.

Full Review Source: eFilmCritic.com | comment Comment
02/21/04
Greg Muskewitz
Greg Muskewitz
eFilmCritic.com
N/R

Click to read the article

Full Review Source: Senses of Cinema | comment Comment
06/08/03
Megan Ratner
Megan Ratner
Senses of Cinema
Top Critic Icon Top Critic

Never have we been taken this close to the edge and never have the characters teetering over it elicited so much sympathy. Requiem is difficult to watch but it richly rewards those who stay with it.

Full Review Source: Film Blather | comment Comment
05/22/03
Eugene Novikov
Eugene Novikov
Film Blather

Regulation viewing for people who think they know better, and the most chilling fix of genius in years.

Full Review Source: RTE Interactive (Dublin, Ireland) | comment Comment
04/08/03
Harry Guerin
Harry Guerin
RTE Interactive (Dublin, Ireland)

This harrowing look at the perils of addiction -- whether it be food, television, fame, sex, or drugs and alcohol -- has to rank as one of the year's most genuinely disturbing films.

Full Review Source: Hollywood.com | comment Comment
02/17/03
Ted Murphy
Ted Murphy
Hollywood.com

I found it appropriate that I had trouble looking away.

Full Review Source: CinemaBlend.com | comment Comment
11/20/02
Joshua Tyler
Joshua Tyler
CinemaBlend.com

Brilliantly shot, uncompromising film, with career-best performances from its stars -- the ‘feel-bad’ movie of the year, this demands to be seen.

Full Review Source: ViewLondon | comment Comment
10/30/02
Matthew Turner
Matthew Turner
ViewLondon

As he did in his stunning debut, director Darren Aronofsky shows himself to be keenly tuned into the imagery of the living hell.

Full Review Source: Cincinnati Enquirer | comment Comment
10/15/02
Margaret A. McGurk
Margaret A. McGurk
Cincinnati Enquirer
 
 
1 - 20 (sorted by date; Australian critics are listed first)
Text View | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 >> >|
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Latest News for Requiem for a Dream

August 25, 2009: EW Lists 16 Classic "Dare You to Look" Scenes Opens in new window
All the Nazi-scalpin' action in "Inglourious Basterds" has got the EW staff to thinking about some of the most hard-to-watch scenes in film -- and to that end, they've assembled... More...

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July 24, 2006: Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz Get Real Close in a New Trailer for "The Fountain"
Armed with a love story taking place at three times over a thousand years, flawless special effects, and more period costumes than you can shake a stick at, the man who brought... More...

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