Saxophone player Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker comes to New York in 1940 and is quickly noticed for his remarkable way of playing. He becomes a drug addict but his loving wife Chan tries to help him.
When investigative reporter Irwin "Fletch" Fletcher goes undercover to write a piece on the drug trade at a local beach, he's approached by wealthy businessman Alan Stanwyk, who offers him $50,000 to murder him. With sarcastic wit and a knack for disguises, Fletch sets out to uncover Stanwyk's story.
The hopes and dreams of four ambitious people are shattered when their drug addictions begin spiraling out of control. A look into addiction and how it overcomes the mind and body.
Over the course of one night, a woman drives across LA with her heroin addict brother in search of a detox center, with his two-year-old daughter in tow.
A young heroin addict roams the streets of New York to panhandle and get her next fix, while her unstable boyfriend drifts in and out of her life at random.
After serving time in prison, former drug addict Sherry Swanson returns home to reclaim her young daughter from family members who have been raising the child. Sherry's family, especially her sister-in-law, doubt Sherry's ability to be a good mother, and Sherry finds her resolve to stay clean slowly weakening.
A down on his luck former drug dealer is forced by a corrupt LAPD policeman to sell 100 kilos of confiscated marijuana in one weekend.
A young man turns from drug addiction and petty crime to a life redeemed by a discovery of compassion.
Antoine, a handsome boy in his 20s, falls for a straight best friend who does not reciprocate, and being a junkie exits the film quite early. Enter a girl, who seems to make him happy again, after he has tried living as a rent boy with men, having some familial, financial difficulties. But the girl is a junkie too.
Los Angeles heroin addict Jesse endangers the lives of his childhood friends after he discovers a briefcase full of money from a drug deal gone bad, and returns home with it to Texas. Hoping to turn his life around with his newfound wealth, Jessie endures detox with the support of his friends. However, the gang leader behind the drug deal, along with his cronies, trace Jesse's footsteps to Texas to exact revenge and take back their money.
In the 1980's, Pilar, an ordinary woman, married, about forty years, discovers that one of their three children are addicted to heroin. After an initial period of uncertainty, Pilar contact with other parents in similar situations who come to a precarious Civic Center helps the addict, but soon realizes that many things have to change in and out of home so your child can be saved. Thus was born the desire to do more than complain and starts along with other parents, but especially mothers, an arduous journey of withdrawal of drug trafficking in Galicia.
An unflinching, fragmentary look at a handful of self-destructive, marginalized people, but taking as main focus the heroin-addicted Vanda Duarte.
Following the events of El pico, the heroin-addicted Paco faces jail time due to his involvement in a double murder.
Anita is a barmaid at the center of a community of street preachers, prostitutes, dealers and users. When a beloved friend (and young drug dealer) is caught by narcotics agents, Anita takes it upon herself to score for his struggling clients.
Two rich American young adults who meet and fall in love in Venice, Italy. With plenty of money and no real responsibilities or direction in life, the couple begin experimenting with illicit drugs. The movie travels through a series of flashbacks showing their progression from marijuana to harder drugs as a result of their complex romantic entanglement with each other.
A young Glaswegian prostitute in London tries to start a new life.
This follow-up to the 1989 documentary ONE YEAR IN A LIFE OF CRIME revisits three of the original subjects in New Jersey during a five-year period in the 1990s. We share in their triumphs and setbacks as they navigate lives of poverty, drug abuse, AIDS, and petty crime.
Leo Regan follows his friend, photographer Lanre Fehintola, as he tries to go cold turkey (detox) from heroin in his council flat and without medication.
Naturalistic and almost documentary account of the heroin addicts in Belgrade, in the form of a sad life story of young girl and her wasted life.
Two heroin-addicted couples lead hard and stressful lives on the streets of New York.