Best movies like The Boost

Imagine having all the power, passion and pleasure money can buy. Now imagine losing them.

A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like The Boost Starring James Woods, Sean Young, John Kapelos, Steven Hill, and more. If you liked The Boost then you may also like: 28 Days, When a Man Loves a Woman, Willie Dynamite, Wired, Woman Thou Art Loosed and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.

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Lenny Brown moves to California to find his fortune in tax shelter investments. When the federal government changes the tax laws, poor Lenny finds himself $700,000 in hock with nowhere to turn. His friend, Joel, introduces him to cocaine to give Lenny that needed "boost". What ensues next is a descent into drug addiction and insanity as Lenny tries to regain control of his life, all the while needing that extra "boost".

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28 Days

After getting into a car accident while drunk on the day of her sister's wedding, Gwen Cummings is given a choice between prison or a rehab center. She chooses rehab, but is extremely resistant to taking part in any of the treatment programs they have to offer, refusing to admit that she has an alcohol addiction.

When a Man Loves a Woman

An airline pilot and his wife are forced to face the consequences of her alcoholism when her addictions threaten her life and their daughter's safety. While the woman enters detox, her husband must face the truth of his enabling behavior.

Willie Dynamite

Willie Dynamite is a pimp who operates in New York City. Willie was a big success as a pimp, but now, just as fast as he rose to the top, he has hit bottom. A former prostitute who has become a social worker tries to get Willie to clean up his life while it is still possible.

Wired

The ghost of John Belushi looks back on his troubled life and career.

Woman Thou Art Loosed

An adaptation of Bishop T.D. Jakes' self-help novel, chronciling a woman's struggle to come to terms with her legacy of abuse, addiction and poverty.

Not My Kid

A teenaged drug addict is sent to Dr. Royce's controversial drug intervention program where the addicts in the program confront each other in supervised group meetings. Also, in evening meetings, the addicts are confronted by their families. The girl's parents want to remove her from the program because it upsets them that their daughter is being forced to associate with addicts who admit to stealing and trading sex for drugs.

Requiem for a Dream

The hopes and dreams of four ambitious people are shattered when their drug addictions begin spiraling out of control. A look into addiction and how it overcomes the mind and body.

The Rose

Rock-and-roll singer Mary Rose Foster's romantic relationships and mental health are continuously imperilled by the demands of life on the road.

The Basketball Diaries

A high school basketball player’s life turns upside down after free-falling into the harrowing world of drug addiction.

Beautiful Boy

After he and his first wife separate, journalist David Sheff struggles to help their teenage son, who goes from experimenting with drugs to becoming devastatingly addicted to methamphetamine.

The Blackout

A debauched Hollywood movie actor tries to piece together one wild night in Miami years earlier which remains a drug-induced blur, and soon finds out that some questions about his past are best left unanswered.

Blow

A boy named George Jung grows up in a struggling family in the 1950's. His mother nags at her husband as he is trying to make a living for the family. It is finally revealed that George's father cannot make a living and the family goes bankrupt. George does not want the same thing to happen to him, and his friend Tuna, in the 1960's, suggests that he deal marijuana. He is a big hit in California in the 1960's, yet he goes to jail, where he finds out about the wonders of cocaine. As a result, when released, he gets rich by bringing cocaine to America. However, he soon pays the price.

Born to Win

A smart-mouthed junkie and a former hairdresser spends his days looking for just "one more fix".

Bright Lights, Big City

A disillusioned young writer living in New York City turns to drugs and drinking to block out the memories of his dead mother and estranged wife.

The Secret Life of Zoey

Marcia always thought her overachieving daughter Zoey was the dream child. But then she discovers that her perfect teen has a not-so-perfect drug addiction. Marcia and her ex-husband go through plenty of denial as their daughter spirals out of control. It's a true-to-life tale that parents and their kids should watch together.

6.2 / 10 1988 Drama
suggested by: user557m6u1k74p

Clean and Sober

Hotshot real estate salesman Daryl has a bad cocaine habit. After embezzling his company's money, he wakes up next to a girl who overdosed. To hide from the police, he checks into a rehabilitation program guaranteeing anonymity. Under the mentorship of counselor Craig, Daryl accepts that he has a substance abuse problem. As he falls in love with fellow patient Charlie, Daryl begins committing to a newly sober life.

The Panic in Needle Park

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.

Ecstasy

ECSTASY is a contemporary and relevant film about how drugs transcend all borders of society and affect every facet of our lives. But when it leaves it takes away your soul. A new party drug arrives on the rave scene in a college town and is consumed openly by young people. It's irresistible making you feel invincible, beautiful, intelligent and loved. This haunting psychological thriller centers around a mother's struggle to save her daughters from going down the same dark path she once took, a handsome jock's (Charlie Bewley, from "Twilight - New Moon") misplaced faith in God stemming from the temptations that surrounds him, and three college girls horrific experience with their drug-induced guilt, fears and demons

Light Sleeper

A drug dealer with upscale clientele is having moral problems going about his daily deliveries. A reformed addict, he has never gotten over the wife that left him, and the couple that use him for deliveries worry about his mental well-being and his effectiveness at his job. Meanwhile someone is killing women in apparently drug-related incidents.

Lenny

The story of acerbic 1960s comic Lenny Bruce, whose groundbreaking, no-holds-barred style and social commentary was often deemed by the establishment as too obscene for the public.

Dangerous Game

A New York film director, working on his latest movie in Los Angeles, begins to reflect the actions in his movie and real life, especially when he begins an affair with the lead actress.

Prey for Rock & Roll

Prey for Rock & Roll is set in the Los Angeles club scene of the late 1980s and follows the story of Jacki (Gershon) and her all-girl punk rock band, Clam Dandy. On the verge of turning 40, Jacki decides that if the band's one last shot at the big time is unsuccessful, she will give up her dreams of stardom. Along the way, the women are rocked by personal tragedies that threaten to break up the band before they can get their last shot at success.

Drugstore Cowboy

Portland, Oregon, 1971. Bob Hughes is the charismatic leader of a peculiar quartet, formed by his wife, Dianne, and another couple, Rick and Nadine, who skillfully steal from drugstores and hospital medicine cabinets in order to appease their insatiable need for drugs. But neither fun nor luck last forever.

Four Good Days

A mother helps her daughter work through four crucial days of recovery from substance abuse.

Lady Sings the Blues

Chronicles the rise and fall of legendary blues singer Billie Holiday. Her late childhood, stint as a prostitute, early tours, marriages and drug addiction are featured.

Being Charlie

Charlie is a troublesome 18-year-old who breaks out of a youth drug treatment clinic, but when he returns home to Los Angeles, he's given an intervention by his parents and forced to go to an adult rehab. There, he meets a beautiful but troubled girl, Eva, and is forced to battle with drugs, elusive love and divided parents.

Pure

A young boy trying to deal with his mother's heroin addiction befriends a waitress who helps him cope with the tough situation.

6.5 / 10 1989 Drama TV Movie
suggested by: user564kc4swubd

My Name Is Bill W.

Based on the true story of Bill W. (James Woods), a successful stock broker whose life falls apart after the stock crash of the 20's and how he comes to grips with his alcoholism. Along with a fellow alcoholic (James Garner) he forms a support group that would eventually become Alcoholics Anonymous.

Permanent Midnight

Juggling increasing career success and a growing heroin habit, a television comedy writer attempts to go down a path of improvement.

Postcards from the Edge

Substance-addicted Hollywood actress, Suzanne Vale is on the skids. After a spell at a detox centre her film company insists as a condition of continuing to employ her that she live with her mother, herself once a star and now a champion drinker. Such a set-up is bad news for Suzanne who has struggled for years to get out of her mother's shadow, and who still treats her like a child. Despite these and other problems, Suzanne begins to see the funny side of her situation, and also realises that not only do daughters have mothers—mothers do too.

Puzzle of a Downfall Child

Lou Andreas Sand, a once famous model, recalls her past as she tries to make success in the modeling world of New York, her stressfull workdays, her affair with Mark, an advertising executive, her friendship with photographer Aaron, and her downward spiral into ruin.

Things We Lost in the Fire

A recent widow invites her husband's troubled best friend to live with her and her two children. As he gradually turns his life around, he helps the family cope and confront their loss.

Gridlock'd

After a friend overdoses, Spoon and Stretch decide to kick their drug habits and attempt to enroll in a government detox program. Their efforts are hampered by seemingly endless red tape, as they are shuffled from one office to another while being chased by drug dealers and the police.

Crack House

Rick and Melissa are a pair of young lovers hoping to get out of the slums for good and escape the poverty and crime their families and friends have gotten involved in. All this comes to an end when Rick feels he must rejoin his old gang to avenge the killing of his brother by a rival gang. In the course of getting even, Rick is arrested, leaving Melissa without anyone to protect her. She falls in with a crack dealer and quickly becomes addicted to the drug. When she gets sold to a drug kingpin by a minor dealer to pay off a debt, only Rick can save her.

Where Love Has Gone

A divorced couple's teen-age daughter stands trial for stabbing her mother's latest lover.

7.2 / 10 1995 Drama
suggested by: user984en87gp4p

Sweet Nothing

Angel celebrates the birth of his daughter by taking his first hit of crack cocaine. With the hesitant support of his wife, Monika, he joins a friend of his to deal drugs for a short time--enough time to get out of debt and buy some nice things for the family. Three years later, Angel is still dealing, and has not saved any money, instead spending it on crack. His addiction grows, straining his friendship and his family life, and he gradually loses control.

5.0 / 10 2006 Drama
suggested by: user9173zzipr4g

Cocaine Angel

Cocaine Angel captures a grinding and tragic week in the life of a weary young drug addict who is clinging to the remnants of his once hopeful existence amidst the stink, the sweat, and unforgiving heat of Jacksonville, Florida.

Shattered Spirits

When his drinking problem takes control of his life, a father tries to leave the bottle behind while putting his and his family's lives back together.

Under the Volcano

Against a background of war breaking out in Europe and the Mexican fiesta Day of Death, we are taken through one day in the life of Geoffrey Firmin, a British consul living in alcoholic disrepair and obscurity in a small southern Mexican town in 1939. The consul's self-destructive behaviour, perhaps a metaphor for a menaced civilization, is a source of perplexity and sadness to his nomadic, idealistic half-brother, Hugh, and his ex-wife, Yvonne, who has returned with hopes of healing Geoffrey and their broken marriage.

Boogie Boy

A man who has just been released from prison vows to start a new life, but is put to the test when an old cellmate appears.

Illtown

Dante and his girlfrend Micky run a very profitable drug operation in a seaside town, aided and abetted by a host of teens who sell the smack at discos around town, as well as by Lucas, a corrupt cop who's on the take. Their downfall comes when they suspect one of the boys, Pep, of ripping them off, and his accidental death causes disloyalty among the teens, who suspect Dante offed them. All of this is perfect for the return of Gabriel, a one-time partner of Dante, who has just been released from jail, and has an almost angelic demeanor and the certainty that he can fix everyone's lives.

The Unraveling

Michael is a basically decent guy with a pregnant girlfriend, great friends - and one massive drug problem. Because he missed his own Las Vegas bachelor party being too stoned, his four besties decide to kidnap him for a weekend of roughing it in the California wilderness. Caught off guard by this surprise camping trip and his nose candy supply dwindling, Michael is shocked when his buddies start being ritually murdered one by one. Suspecting it’s the vicious drug dealer he cheated getting bloody revenge, Michael’s life swirls out of all control as the real truth is revealed.

6.0 / 10 1973 Drama TV Movie
suggested by: user4078sn3e34o

Go Ask Alice

A 14-year-old girl in late 1960's America is inadvertently sucked into an odyssey of sex and drugs. She eventually seeks help.

Augusta, Gone

Martha is a businesswoman and divorced mother of two children - Augusta and Jack. However, when docile Augusta becomes a teenager, feelings of anger and self-hate cause her personality to undergo a scary transformation, and Martha realizes that this is not just typical teen angst. Augusta begins doing drugs, drinking, and ends up on the streets. Her concerned mother and father reach out to an educational consultant, who advises them to send Augusta to a strict wilderness camp for troubled teens. However, even the institution's experienced and tough administrators find Augusta a difficulty to keep under control. Martha comes to realize that there is no answer to her daughter's behavior.

Down to the Bone

A woman stuck in a stale marriage struggles to raise her children and manage her secret drug habit. But when winter comes to her small town, her balancing act begins to come crashing down.

I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can

An adaptation of Barbara Gordon's nonfiction account of her addiction to Valium.

Body Brokers

Utah and his girlfriend Opal, are drug addicts living on the streets in rural Ohio. After getting recruited by body broker Wood, and offered treatment in Los Angeles, Wood takes Utah under his wing and introduces him to treatment center mogul Vin. Wood and Vin bring Utah in on their lucrative and illegal dealings, where saving lives comes second to the bottom line.

Wasted

A high-school track star (Nick Stahl) watches without judgment as his two best friends (Summer Phoenix, Aaron Paul) abuse heroin.

Love in the Time of Civil War

The reality of addiction in a tough-minded docudrama set in the bleak milieu of hustlers and junkies in Montreal.

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