This is part two of my two-part series on the best drug movies of all time. Part one was all about pro-drug movies to get stoned to. This one takes the opposite tack, presenting the viewer with a rather bleak picture of the depths to which drug addicts can sink. Enjoy!

1) Pink Floyd's The Wall. I can hear a lot of griping already. Why am I including this film here instead of on the pro-drug list, you ask. Simple. The depiction of Pink (played by Bob Geldof), a rock star--though not that aggressive chick with pink hair--who uses and abuses various illicit substances and then falls prey to madness, isolation and destruction is at times moving, shocking and horrific. It is not glamorous. It does not look like a fun ride. It looks hellish, like a boschian nightmare by way of Adolf Hitler. Granted Pink's psychological breakdown has more to do with his life up to that point than it does on the drugs he has been ingesting, but obviously those drugs are not helping his psychic state any. Great cameo performances by Bob Haskins as a slimy manager and Alex McAvoy as the teacher are included.

2) The Basketball Diaries. Best role Matt Damon has ever played, and probably will ever play. This film is the autobiography of Jim Carroll, a teenage basketball star turned dope fiend. Jim and his friends (including Mark Wahlberg, also in the best role of his career) turn to a life of crime in order to fuel their drug habits, culminating in a murder. Great supporting roles by Lorraine Bracco (as Jim's mom) and Juliet Lewis.

3) Drugstore Cowboy. Gus Van Sant's excellent meditation on the life of junkie theives and the role of superstition and rules that play into their way of thinking. Matt Dillon and Kelly Lynch are the husband and wife team behind a drug-stealing ring (comprised of them and two others, played by James LeGros and Heather Graham). The film delves into the delusions and superstitious fears of its protagonist as he lives the high life, keeping an eye out for signs that things are going south. The hat on the bed, rather than the overdose of one of their inner circle, is just that sign. Excellent cameo by William S. Burroughs, junkie poet extraordinairre, as an ex-junkie priest.

4) Trainspotting. An at-turns harrowing and humorous film about Scottish heroin addicts. Ewan McGregor plays Renton, the unreliable narrator who, along with his buddies, ingests copious amounts of heroin, steals, and ultimately sells two kilos worth and then absconds with the profits. A great cast (including Ewen Bremner as "Spud" and Johnny Lee Miller as "Sick Boy") heads up what is ultimately a character study detailing the sad, the depraved and the hopeless.

5) Barfly. Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway star in this autobiographical film by author Charles Bukowski and directed by Barbet Schroeder. Henry Chinaski is a poet and an alcoholic. He likes to get drunk, get into very one-sided bar brawls, and possibly get laid when he isn't too s--- faced or beaten up. Tully Sorenson, played by Alice Kruger, offers to publish some of his poems. Chinaski suddenly finds himself a minor celebrity, but all he really wants to do is get drunk.

6) The Lost Weekend. Another classic study of an alcoholic, this one starring Ray Milland as Don Birnam, a frustrated novelist suffering from writer's block who goes on a weekend drinking binge which descends into freakish D.T. infested nightmares, criminal activities and finally mental breakdown. Even ravishing Jane Wyman as his girlfriend Helen St. James cannot save him from the bottle. The rats in the wall sequence is absolutely classic.

7) Sid & Nancy. Whoever thought up "heroin chic" should be forced to watch this film over and over again. Gary Oldman plays Sid Vicious, bassist for the punk band The Sex Pistols (ever heard of em?), and Chloe Webb is his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen. Forget the idea that this film is somehow an accurate biography of the real events surrounding their life and the death of Ms. Spungen, and just view this as a character study of two misfits who find solace in each other, yet just can't manage well enough in the world to keep from going under. Needy and naive, almost childlike in their lack of understanding of the world around them, they turn to junk in order to hide from the world around them. Their relationship is at times volatile, obsessive and heartbreaking. The final scenes realistically depict the squallor in which heroin addicts willingly live, their motivation and willpower drained away by the syringe.

8) Scarface (1983). The rise and fall of a drug kingpin, Tony Montana--played by Al Pacino, is realistically revealed in this cocain-saturated picture. After arriving in Florida as a Cuban refugee, Tony and some of his prison buddies, including Manny Ribera (portrayed by Steven Bauer), find work as hitmen and move their way up the crime syndicate hierarchy. Tony soon turns to dealing cocain after killing off a former boss. As he becomes more and more addicted to the substance that he is selling in large quantities, his life spirals further and further out of control. He has everything, yet it is a castle built on sand. Or rather tons of powder, as it were. It eventually all comes crashing down around him.

9) Leaving Las Vegas. Nicholas Cage and Elisabeth Shue star in this film about a depressed screenwriter, Ben Sanderson, who decides to commit suicide by drinking himself to death under the haunting neon lights of Las Vegas. Soon after arriving in Vegas, Ben meets Sera, a prostitute... *mumble*withaheartofgold*mumble*... whom he strikes up a relationship with and who ultimately tries to save him from his drink and depression. It fails miserably, and both end up broken and alone. (There's more but I won't reveal the rest of the plot.)

10) Requiem For A Dream. If you thought any of the other nine films was too brutal to watch, then do not even think of renting this flick. This has to be the most vicious, disgusting, harrowing, downright horrible film to tackle the subject of substance abuse and addiction in general. Ellen Burstyn portrays Sara Goldfarb as she becomes addicted to weight loss pills which probably contain a form of methamphetamine. Her son, Harry (Jared Leto), is a heroin addict, as is his girlfriend, Marion Silver (Jennifer Connelly). As Sara takes more and more pills and begins to have horrific hallucinations as a result, Harry and Marion, along with Harry's friend Tyrone C. Love (Marlon Wayans), go out in search of clean, uncut heroin to score. You know this is going to end badly, but not just how horribly it turns out. Definitely one of the most shocking anti-drug films ever produced. If this isn't enough to scare a person straight, then nothing is.