Top 10 movies about addictions

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Sometimes movies are addictive, and sometimes they just tell stories about addictions. Luckily there are some flicks that fall nicely into both categories, so here are my top 10 addictive movies about addictions.

10. LEAVING LAS VEGAS (1995)
When a Hollywood screenwriter loses everything he cared for due to his alcoholism, he heads to Las Vegas with a plan to drink himself to death. When in Vegas, he meets a prostitute and strikes up an unusual pact with her.

9. CHOKE (2008)
Choke focuses on a sex addict/con artist who plays upon the sympathies of strangers to pay his desperately ill mother's medical bills.

8. GIRL, INTERRUPTED (1999)
Susanna is admitted to a psychiatric hospital in the 1960s after attempting to kill herself. There she meets and bonds with an eccentric group of women who are facing addictions and mental illnesses.

7. POOLHALL JUNKIES (2002)
This film tells the story of a talented pool hustler who, after many years of being out of the game, must return to his glory to save his younger brother from a dangerous pool-playing thug.

6. THE LOST WEEKEND (1945)
This film is a sad look a weekend in the life of a desperate alcoholic. Flashbacks piece together moments and even days lost by the brutal effects of intoxication.

5. THE KING OF KONG (2007)
Addicted to an arcade game, or simply addicted to being the best? Steve Wiebe and Billy Mitchell compete to hold the world record for highest score in the classic arcade game Donkey Kong.

4. THANK YOU FOR SMOKING (2005)
Nick is the spokesman for Big Tobacco and he will stop at nothing to gain new smokers in the world. This flick is a thoroughly satirical look at the dangers of tobacco and one man's downfall.

3. 127 HOURS (2010)
Aron Ralston is an adrenaline junkie and an outdoor adventurer, and while traversing a canyon on a solo trip, an 800-pound boulder pins Aron's arms to the canon wall. With no hope of rescue Aron is forced to do the unthinkable to survive his 127 hours of captivity.

2. REQUIEM FOR A DREAM (2000)
Four individual addicts are pulled further and further into delusion as their self-control vanishes and they succumb to their drugs of choice. It's a dirty look at the downward spiral of drug addicts.

1. TRAINSPOTTING (1996)
A sad, pathetic and desperate look at the life of a heroin addict in Scotland that, through its startling and powerful imagery, sends a strong message about the dangers of heroin.