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.
Hannah and Tahir fall in love while homeless on the streets of New York. Shelter explores how they got there, and as we learn about their pasts we realize they need each other to build a future.
Shot over the course of 18 months in New York City's Lower East Side, METHADONIA sheds light on the inherent flaws of legal methadone treatments for heroin addiction by profiling eight addicts, in various stages of recovery and relapse, who attend the New York Center for Addiction Treatment Services (NYCATS).
A stark portrayal of life among a group of heroin addicts who hang out in Needle Park in New York City. Played against this setting is a low-key love story between Bobby, a young addict and small-time hustler, and Helen, a homeless girl who finds in her relationship with Bobby the stability she craves.
This movie portrays the drug scene in Berlin in the 70s, following tape recordings of Christiane F. 14 years old Christiane lives with her mother and little sister in a typical multi-storey apartment building in Berlin. She's fascinated by the 'Sound', a new disco with most modern equipment. Although she's legally too young, she asks a friend to take her. There she meets Detlef, who's in a clique where everybody's on drugs. Step by step she gets drawn deeper into the scene.
Set in the Little Saigon district outside of Sydney, a woman trying to escape her past becomes embroiled in a drug deal.
When the recession hits, Osaka-based loan shark Ginjiro Manda decides to help out small business owners in trouble, but finds himself face-to-face with the yakuza who come to collect debts.
This experimental 1970 color documentary film, ostensibly designed to provoke classroom discussion employs a boldly unconventional approach to addressing the issues of drug addiction, featuring the music of Canadian singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn. The film eschews narration for montage effects and extended fly-on-the-wall scenes of various drug users in conversation.
Notorious Baltimore criminal and underground figure Divine goes up against Connie & Raymond Marble, a sleazy married couple who make a passionate attempt to humiliate her and seize her tabloid-given title as "The Filthiest Person Alive".
This film points out the risks of being a heroin addict. Explains that addicts cannot be identified solely with one particular socio-economic level and cannot always be detected by appearance. Addicts and ex-addicts describe the first and subsequent drugs they used.
Jack Caine is a Houston vice cop who's forgotten the rule book. His self-appointed mission is to stop the drugs trade and the number one supplier Victor Manning. While involved in an undercover operation to entrap Victor Manning, his partner is killed, and a sinister newcomer enters the scene...
Shifty, a young crack cocaine dealer in London, sees his life quickly spiral out of control when his best friend returns home. Stalked by a customer desperate to score at all costs, and with his family about to turn their back on him for good, Shifty must out-run and out-smart a rival drug dealer, intent on setting him up for a big fall.
Juggling increasing career success and a growing heroin habit, a television comedy writer attempts to go down a path of improvement.
Undercover cop Jim Raynor is a seasoned veteran. His partner, Kristen Cates, is lacking in experience, but he thinks she's tough enough to work his next case with him: a deep cover assignment to bring down the notoriously hard-to-capture drug lord Gaines. While their relationship turns romantic during the assignment, they also turn into junkies, and will have to battle their own addictions if they want to bring down Gaines once and for all.
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.
An alien creature invades New York's punk subculture in its search for an opiate released by the brain during an orgasm.
A waitress confronts all the wrong turns she has made in her short life and ultimately ends up facing the biggest wrong turn of all: her dangerous ex-boyfriend who's determined to win back her love or die trying.
The family of Raymond, his wife Val and her brother Billy live in working-class London district. Also in their family is Val and Billy's mother Janet and grandmother Kath. Billy is a drug addict and Raymond kicks him out of the house, making him live on his own. Raymond is generally a rough and even violent person, and that leads to problems in the life of the family.
A young boy trying to deal with his mother's heroin addiction befriends a waitress who helps him cope with the tough situation.
This documentary follows three women — a fire chief, a judge, and a street missionary — as they battle West Virginia's devastating opioid epidemic.