Adapted from Irvine Welsh’s 1993 novel of the same name, Trainspotting is equal parts horrifying and hilarious, one mood setting up the other in the way that a good horror comedy winds you up with scares to amplify the release of tension through laughter. We first meet central character Renton (Ewan McGregor) in Leith, a working-class suburb of Edinburgh (the film was mostly shot in Glasgow, however). It’s the  late 1980s and he’s in rebellion against everything he’s been told to do—“choose life, choose a job, choose a career, choose a family, choose a fucking big television…”—and chose heroin instead. Renton hangs out with a group of friends, each carefully delineated with a central characteristic as if they were musicians in a boy band: Begbie (Robert Carlyle) is a violent psycho, Spud (Ewen Bremner) is a doofus, Sick Boy (Jonny Lee Miller) is a James Bond fanatic, and Tommy (Kevin McKidd) is a clean-living footballer.-The Arts STL

“…buoyed by a great Brit Pop soundtrack and Brian Tufano’s agile cinematography, captures the stoned-out, gut-churning experience of hardcore addiction with hallucinogenic acuity.”-Philly Inquirer