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.
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04/02/01
Requiem for a Dream (2000)
80
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Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:123
Fresh:98
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... [More]
Starring: Ellen Burstyn, Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly, Marlon Wayans
Director: Darren Aronofsky
Reviews for Requiem for a Dream
Top CriticRequiem For A Dream is the first great film of the year.
02/09/01
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
05/16/09
One of the most powerful I have ever seen. The film's score and editing will haunt you for years to come.
08/02/08
Yes, visually this is an exhilarating, unique film. But it is also a singularly difficult and challenging film to watch.
07/14/07
If Aronofsky set out to make Trainspotting look like Teletubbies, he succeeded. Recommended only for those with extremely strong stomachs.
12/30/06
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.
07/24/06
Burnished camerawork and ex-Pop Will Eat Itself head Mansell's part-punchy, part-elegiac score reinforce and counterpoint the increasingly nightmarish visuals.
06/24/06
Requiem for a Dream is a great movie, and the few of us who see it will be acutely affected.
05/26/06
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.
02/24/06
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.
12/06/05
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.
10/01/05
An unordinary, highly stylized, gritty hyperkinetic junkie movie -- unlike anything you've seen before.
02/21/04
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.
05/22/03
Regulation viewing for people who think they know better, and the most chilling fix of genius in years.
04/08/03
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.
02/17/03
I found it appropriate that I had trouble looking away.
11/20/02
Brilliantly shot, uncompromising film, with career-best performances from its stars -- the ‘feel-bad’ movie of the year, this demands to be seen.
10/30/02
As he did in his stunning debut, director Darren Aronofsky shows himself to be keenly tuned into the imagery of the living hell.
10/15/02
What an inappropriately drowsy title for such an explosive film.
09/10/02
Latest News for Requiem for a Dream
August 25, 2009:
EW Lists 16 Classic "Dare You to Look" Scenes 
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...
January 09, 2008:
Lorenzo di Bonaventura Talks G.I. Joe, Transformers 2
You think G.I. Joe and Transformers producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura doesn't hear your grousing, film fans? Well, he does -- and fortunately for you, he isn't the type of... More...
March 28, 2007:
Aronofsky to "Fight" with Mark Wahlberg and Matt Damon
Last seen together in Martin Scorsese's "The Departed," Matt Damon and Mark Wahlberg will reunite for Paramount's period piece boxing drama "The Fighter,"... More...
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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