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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
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54
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79
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64
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69
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You, the Living
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Requiem for a Dream
EMAILPRINTArtisan Entertainment

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 33 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 140 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama
Written by:
Darren Aronofsky
Hubert Selby Jr. (novel)
Directed by: Darren Aronofsky
Release Date:
Theatrical: October 6, 2000
DVD: May 22, 2001
Running Time: 102 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: Not rated
Starring Ellen Burstyn, Jared Leto, Jennifer Connelly, Marlon Wayans, Christopher McDonald, Louise Lasser, Marcia Jean Kurtz, and Janet Sarno
This modern-day fable is set on the rusted mean streets of Coney Island, Brooklyn. The dual storyline parallels four people who set out in pursuit of a better life. (Artisan Entertainment)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Pi The Fountain
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Rolling Stone Peter Travers
No one interested in the power and magic of movies should miss it.
Philadelphia Inquirer Desmond Ryan
Aronofsky has fashioned a chilling vision that lives up to the caustic irony of its title and gives us a nightmare that is not lightly forgotten.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
May be the first movie to fully capture the way that drugs dislocate us from ourselves.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Bob Graham
He (Aronofsky) has put together a phantasmagoria of self-destructive obsession that is so visually astounding it becomes its own saving grace. Otherwise, we might not be able to bear it.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
Burstyn is astonishing, forsaking all vanity to make silly biddy Sara a fully dimensioned human being.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Bill Gallo
A fluent, intelligent piece of work whose sex and violence are anything but gratuitous, and exactly the kind of highly personal, no-holds-barred vision of life on the ragged edge that independents always aspire to but rarely have the goods to achieve.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas
A work of art whose beauty has the eternal power of redemption.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach
An unrelentingly dark vision that's as hard to watch as it is impossible to walk away from.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
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.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
Locks in on its self-destructive subjects so precisely, it's almost unbearable to watch.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
Easily the most searing movie-going experience of the year.
Read Full Review >New York Post Jonathan Foreman
A powerful fable about love and addiction that manages to be darkly humorous when it isn't graphic or harrowing in the extreme.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir
The tremendous power of Aronofsky's filmmaking -- its omnivorous omnipotence, if that makes any sense -- has the curious effect of diluting its emotional impact.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Sarah Hepola
Haunts the memory long after you've left the theatre.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
Often, Requiem for a Dream is as technically inventive and daring as the Scottish heroin film "Trainspotting," but it has more resonance and feeling. And when Burstyn is on screen, it often becomes heartbreaking.
Read Full Review >Variety Todd McCarthy
It’s technically striking filmmaking, to be sure, but what it’s presenting is nothing that many people will want to look at.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector
This bleak vision directed by Darren Aronofsky ("Pi") is pointless with good reason.
Read Full Review >Film.com Peter Brunette
Love it or hate it -- and I suspect, frankly, most people are going to hate it -- this is like no other film you've ever seen.
Read Full Review >Slate David Edelstein
Becomes increasingly unwatchable -- not just bleak but punishing, as if the director wants to fry your circuits along with his characters'.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Michael Atkinson
May be an elaborate stunt, a bungee jump, but even so, it's forceful enough to leave a rare palpitating residue.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Examiner Wesley Morris
It's one of the most beautifully unpleasant movies ever made - its reverse charge being that it is no fun at all.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Ken Fox
Aronofsky has given us a well-acted, gorgeously overwrought and luridly entertaining exploitation flick -- a midnight movie for future generations.
Read Full Review >TNT RoughCut J. Rentilly
Chilling and technically proficient and, also, fairly hollow.
Read Full Review >TNT RoughCut J. Rentilly
Chilling and technically proficient and, also, fairly hollow.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold
To be fair, Aronofsky has a knack for stylistic overkill, and his hammering onslaught is undeniably riveting, at first anyway.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
Solid acting helps the story stay earthbound when Aronofsky's filmmaking gets addicted to its own flashy cynicism, but the picture sometimes seems as dazed and confused as the situations it wants to criticize.
Read Full Review >Mr. Showbiz Kevin Maynard
Never the heart-wrenching emotional experience it seems intended to be.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Jay Carr
It's two hours of slumming in a vision of hell hatched from bourgeois comfort. That, and not its unsavory subject matter, is what makes it bummer theater.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Desson Thomson
While director Aronofsky pistol-whips your attention with his style, the characters (mostly relegated to human mannequins in Aronofsky's visual schemes) suffer big time.
Read Full Review >Film.com Ernest Hardy
Too self-consciously dark, too aware of its long, murky, art-designed descent into the underbelly of America's addictive personality.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Stephen Hunter
In the end the movie goes nowhere a hundred movies haven't already been and tells us nothing we don't already know. It does so with so much violent energy, however, it's like four brutal years at film school crammed into an hour and a half.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 8.8 (out of 10) based on 140 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Kevin C gave it a10:
I cant find words for this movie. One the one side a beautiful work of art and at the other site cruel reality. There are some small negatives but without them this movie wouldn't be THAT good! You have to see it to understand.
Ashley M. gave it a7:
It was a very dark and depressing movie that left me feeling very depressed after watching it.However its a movie that dares to show the much darker side to drug abuse.I though it was well put together and the soundtrack was amazing.
joe s. gave it a10:
This movie blew my mind....I've never seen a more powerful and disturbing movie, but it was great...just unspeakably disturbing.
Markus R gave it a10:
This film was amazing. I loved every second of it and was thinking about it days after watching it. The music was perfect through the whole thing.
Jenny L gave it a10:
Brilliant-honest and artfully put together.
Garvin Van G gave it a10:
Greatest use of audio and visual technology of any film ever. Engrossing to the bitter end, building into a sensual crescendo metaphorically described as a classical rapsody of soundtrack and cenematics that overwhelms the senses into submission, leaving only the body to sink into the comfortable couch of emotion and stimulation. Perfectly cast, brilliantly edited, genius direction and interpretation of the writers vision and desire. 10/10
Anon Y gave it a10:
A powerful, underrated, classic film. Those who decry this movie as an overly simplistic caricature of the horrors of drug use completely miss the point of the film; what makes this film compelling and different from other drug films is its ability to show how drug addiction can afflict anyone and comes in many forms. From television to caffeine to heroin, everyone self medicates, and anyone can fall victim to serious addictions, be they old or young.
