The Anna Nicole show.

Days of Wine and Roses! There's something so poignant about Lee Remick's descent, in all her doomed beauty.

Barfly was fierce too.

Didn't like "Leaving Las Vegas." Nic Cage's acting seems to artificial to me. Couldn't believe he won all those awards.

"Barfly"

Nicholson and Streep in Ironweed.

It's got to be Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf!

Taylor & Burton in "Virginia Woolf"

Julia, the movie that came out this year with Tilda Swinton. I didn't care that much for the plot itself, but Swinton's performance was amazing. And I love the very opening scene. She starts out the fun party girl, and progressivly gets drunker and drunker, ending up passed out in the back seat of a car with some guy. I can relate!

I once read 'CAT BALLOU' was pretty funny.

Lee Marvin said his horse deserved half his Oscar for his performance in Cat Ballou, and when you see that animal leaned up against the side of a building, looking just as drunk as his rider, you may be tempted to agree.

A fun little western spoof, Cat Ballou has catchy tunes and campy performances.

I can't judge films I haven't seen yet, but found A Star Is Born (the '37 and '54 versions) to be poignant.

In the comedy genre, Arthur was funny

Fat City with Susan Tyrell and Stacy Keach

I just saw "Julia" with Tilda Swinton. Fantastic film!

but I also vote for "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolf."

Animal House.
"Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life."
"Shut up and pour me a drink."
"My advice to you is start drinking heavily."
"They took the bar. The whole fucking bar!"

'Shakes the Clown.' As soon as he gets off that stage he's gonna fuck that little dog!

"I'll Cry Tomorrow" Susan Hayward...When the red, red robin comes bob, bob, bobbing along.

For a while, Susan had the market cornered on drunken dames.

See also "Crack-Up: The Story of a Woman,"I Want to Live" (her Oscar winner); "Stolen Hours," etc.

Two of the best movies about drunks that pop to my mind are "Arthur" and "Postcards from the Edge"

Honourable mentions:

Drunks with Faye Dunaway and Parker Posey

The Morning After with Jane Fonda and Raul Julia

Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest

Patty Duke as Neely O'Hara in Valley of the Dolls

Bette Davis as Eve Harrington in All About Eve

Liz Taylor in XYZ

The Thin Man series. Nick and Nora always had a martini in hand. However they were a product of their time and their overindulgence was celebrated. Amazing to watch just how cavalierly they accepted it.

Love the Countess De Lave in The Women: "Get me a bromide...and put some gin in it!"

But strictly about alchoholics, Days of Wine and Roses is my pick. Have not seen Leaving Las Vegas or Fat City. The Hayward films are great but a little over the top.

All this discussion has me wondering what Marc Christian looked or looks like. I cannot locate a picture on Google. Any thoughts?

Oops. Comment on wrong article.
Sorry.

I vote for "Days of Wine and Roses". Right before I saw this poll, I was considering showing it to some friends tomorrow for a Movie Night. Now I've decided for sure.

They haven't seen all the essential '60s classics yet. Last film I showed them was "A Patch of Blue".

Never ever forget Morris Buttermaker from the original "Bad News Bears"!

"The Star," 1952, with Bette Davis at her Bette best! My favorite line: She takes her Oscar statuette while on a serious alcoholic bender, parks him on the dashboard of her car and growls, ""Come on, Oscar, let's you and me go get drunk!" She also has a cool scene in a shmancy department store, where reduced circumstances have forced her to go to work as a salesclerk. She has a run-in with a snotty rich bitch and rips her a new one. For my money, one of the most underrated of the latter-day Bette vehicles.

"Leaving Las Vegas"

Though I don't know if he was an alcoholic in the classic sense but rather a means to kill himself.

Ditto with Davis and the Oscar on the dashboard! The Star. Mother Goddamn.

I loved Rourke and Dunaway in Barfly so Bukowski can shove it as far as him being upset the film went in another direction.

For the Holidays, Bad Santa.

For acting, I loved Joan Allen as the bitchy mother in The Upside of Anger.

Forever, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Virginia Woolf and Leaving Las Vegas just resonate.

Adrienne Barbeau in "Creepshow" is quite a hoot.

Meg Ryan in "When a Man Loves a Woman" comes close.

What do you get when you pair a great director
with an excellent actor, at the end of WWII?

Ray Milland won the Oscar for Best Actor, for his portrayal of an alcoholic in Billy Wilder's film The Lost Weekend (1945).

Milland gave the shortest acceptance speech of any Oscar winner: he simply bowed and left the stage.

Susan Tyrell and Stacy Keach were great fun in Fat City, too.

Susan Hayward in "I'll Cry Tomorrow" and the other one is "Smash-Up: Story of a Woman". But Jane Fonda as Vivica von Loren in "The Morning After" is hysterical! "Frankie, I woke up with a stiff this morning!" "That's better than most of the losers you wind-up with!" "No, Frankie, this guy was COLD!"

'Valley of the Dolls' should be on this list.

HAPPY HOUR beats em all... Michael Stotlz is awsome and the band in the bar....fugetabout it

well well, nobody did mention it, if not wrong, so I am..after all, is maybe just from the best or so, there are so many, movie, oops, film, ever made..
ok..susan alexander in citizen kane, drinking up all night and talking, whatelse, about mr, charles foster kane...did you not think that i loved him...now, that was art...
she did, btw, if not wrong, commit suicide later on..the real actress...the lost weekend, and how can i forget..the perpetual drunk from the humprey bogart/la. bacall movie, to have or have not..one of the truest characters of the movie screen...

Even though this was never a movie. Let's give it up for those two loveable lushes fron AbFab - Patsy and Edwina.

'postcards from the edge' was, and is, lots o' fun.

"we're going to pump your stomach."
"do i have to be there?"

'do you always talk in bumper stickers?'

'I think I'll just go weave a basket or something'

I liked "Capote" quite a bit.

Albert Finney was singularly magnificent in "Under The Volcano" in ways Nicolas Cage could never comprehend. "Leaving Las Vegas" was ridiculously over the top.

I need to see the other three, but I love The Lost Weekend! Ray Milland was very worthy of his Oscar win. I dislike some Oscar historians proclaiming its Best Picture/Director wins as merely compensatory for Double Indemnity's loss. It stands perfectly well on its own.

I seem to be drawing a blank, but I know I've got others on my Top films list.

Ironweed for sure along with Virginia Wolf & Bette Davis in The Star.

Clean and Sober (1987). Michael Keaton and Kathy Baker. Love this movie.

John Waters' "Polyester."

While the film isn't totally about an alcoholic, the events in the beginning of the series lead to Francine Fishpaw's (Divine) alcoholism, which in turn leads to her throwing up in her purse at a fashionable boutique and then being heckled at an AA meeting.

Anyone with me?

("You're so cute when you get tipsy." - Edith Massey, to Divine)

No one ever mentions "Ironweed"

meryl streep and jack nicholson are two alcohols lost in the great depression. . . waiting to die.

I admire your website , it's filled of lot of information. You have got one perennial visitor and a fan of your blog.

'Come fill the cup'....the great Jimmy Cagney

"Days of Wine and Roses" for its truth. I've been there and know. I made it but she continued on and died prematurely I heard through her family several years ago.
Many thought of Jack Lemmon as a comedian but he was a great actor.