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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Requiem for a Dream
Artisan Entertainment


8.8

based on 33 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 136 votes
Read user comments
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FILM:

MPAA 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)

GENRE(S):	Drama
WRITTEN BY:	Darren Aronofsky Hubert Selby Jr. (novel)
DIRECTED BY:	Darren Aronofsky
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: May 22, 2001 Video: May 22, 2001 Theatrical: October 6, 2000
RUNNING TIME:	102 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

Ellen Burstyn received a 2001 Oscar nomination for her starring role.

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...

100

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

No one interested in the power and magic of movies should miss it.

100

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.

100

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

May be the first movie to fully capture the way that drugs dislocate us from ourselves.

100

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.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Burstyn is astonishing, forsaking all vanity to make silly biddy Sara a fully dimensioned human being.

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.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

Be warned: it's a downer, and a knockout.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

A work of art whose beauty has the eternal power of redemption.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

An unrelentingly dark vision that's as hard to watch as it is impossible to walk away from.

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.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Locks in on its self-destructive subjects so precisely, it's almost unbearable to watch.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Easily the most searing movie-going experience of the year.

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.

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.

Austin Chronicle Sarah Hepola

Haunts the memory long after you've left the theatre.

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.

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.

Chicago Reader Lisa Alspector

This bleak vision directed by Darren Aronofsky ("Pi") is pointless with good reason.

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.

Slate David Edelstein

Becomes increasingly unwatchable -- not just bleak but punishing, as if the director wants to fry your circuits along with his characters'.

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.

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.

TV Guide Ken Fox

Aronofsky has given us a well-acted, gorgeously overwrought and luridly entertaining exploitation flick -- a midnight movie for future generations.

TNT RoughCut J. Rentilly

Chilling and technically proficient and, also, fairly hollow.

TNT RoughCut J. Rentilly

Chilling and technically proficient and, also, fairly hollow.

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.

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.

LA Weekly Paul Malcolm

Far too complex and provoking.

Mr. Showbiz Kevin Maynard

Never the heart-wrenching emotional experience it seems intended to be.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The average user rating for this movie is 8.8 (out of 10) based on 136 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

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.

Who Cares gave it a10:
No movie has made me feel the way i did after i watched this. Plus the music was amazing.

Eric C gave it a9:
Chris K., it's not about the drugs. It's about the pursute of happiness. There's the spring board for starting to understanding this intense, earth-shatteringly bleak film. Also has the most incredible score of our generation.

Mike W gave it a9:
Intricate, dark, amazing.

Requiem for a Dream Artisan Entertainment

Requiem for a Dream
Artisan Entertainment