Trainspotting

Trainspotting (1996) is a British film based on the novel by Irvine Welsh, depicting the lives of a group of young men in seedy, 'wrong side of the tracks' Edinburgh as they are destroyed by heroin addiction. The film is notorious for its depiction of the Edinburgh drugs scene, and its plot, depicting the ostensible efforts of antihero Renton to escape that milieu. The drug scenes are constructed and filmed in brilliant colour, to emphasise the 'highs' that they supposedly provide, by contrast with the depiction of clean, everyday life as grim and colourless. The film's most cited line emphasizes its cynical promotion of drugs, by depicting 'life' as an endless cycle of suburban boredom: Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a starter home. Choose dental insurance, leisure wear and matching luggage. Choose your future. . . . But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life. I chose somethin’ else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you’ve got heroin?

The film's opening song, Lust for Life, was performed by influential punk rocker Iggy Pop, who has struggled with heroin addiction himself. The lyrics include the lines "Yeah, I'm through with sleeping on the sidewalk / No more beating my brains / No more beating my brains / With liquor and drugs / With liquor and drugs." The song was number ten on UGO's list of the Top 11 Uses Of Classic Rock In Cinema.

The film has nothing directly to do with the British hobby of train spotting, in which railfans keep records of the rolling stock they've seen, beyond the authors' opinion that shooting heroin is as little use as he considers the railfan hobby to be.

Defenders of Hollywood values cite this movie as an example of Hollywood telling the truth about the harm caused by drugs, but this does show "cool" people engaging in drugs and enjoying it. This movie, like most Hollywood depictions of drugs, portrays the drug users as sympathetic victims rather than as the perpetrators of evil.^{[Citation Needed]}