The Best Drug Movies on Netflix

What it's about: Lester Burnham, a depressed suburban father in a mid-life crisis, decides to turn his hectic life around after developing an infatuation with his daughter's attractive friend.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix & Prime Video) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: Mark Renton, deeply immersed in the Edinburgh drug scene, tries to clean up and get out, despite the allure of the drugs and influence of friends.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: Loosely based on the true-life tale of Ron Woodroof, a drug-taking, women-loving, homophobic man who in 1986 was diagnosed with HIV/AIDS and given thirty days to live.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: The tender, heartbreaking story of a young man’s struggle to find himself, told across three defining chapters in his life as he experiences the ecstasy, pain, and beauty of falling in love, while grappling with his own sexuality.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: In the wake of his dramatic escape from captivity, Jesse Pinkman must come to terms with his past in order to forge some kind of future.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix & fuboTV).

What it's about: When the incompetent Officer Frank Drebin seeks the ruthless killer of his partner, he stumbles upon an attempt to assassinate Queen Elizabeth.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: An in-depth look at the prison system in the United States and how it reveals the nation's history of racial inequality.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix).

What it's about: A paranoia-fueled action thriller about an unsuccessful writer whose life is transformed by a top-secret "smart drug" that allows him to use 100% of his brain and become a perfect version of himself. His enhanced abilities soon attract shadowy forces that threaten his new life in this darkly comic and provocative film.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: After a botched bank robbery lands his younger brother in prison, Connie Nikas embarks on a twisted odyssey through New York City's underworld to get his brother Nick out of jail.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: A documentary on the life of Amy Winehouse, the immensely talented yet doomed songstress. We see her from her teen years, where she already showed her singing abilities, to her finding success and then her downward spiral into alcoholism and drugs.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: When a seemingly straight-forward drug deal goes awry, XXXX has to break his die-hard rules and turn up the heat, not only to outwit the old regime and come out on top, but to save his own skin...

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Sony Crackle), stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: A punk rock band becomes trapped in a secluded venue after finding a scene of violence. For what they saw, the band themselves become targets of violence from a gang of white power skinheads, who want to eliminate all evidence of the crime.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: A motorcycle stunt rider considers committing a crime in order to provide for his wife and child, an act that puts him on a collision course with a cop-turned-politician.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: 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.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: Sometimes, it takes a strange night to put everything else into focus. And that's exactly what happens to Harold and his roommate, Kumar, when they set out to get the best stoner fix money can buy: White Castle hamburgers. Both guys are at a crossroads, about to make major decisions that will affect the course of their lives. Yet they arrive at wisdom by accident as they drive around New Jersey in search of fast food.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: Tragedy strikes a married couple on vacation in the Moroccan desert, touching off an interlocking story involving four different families.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Epix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: Marcus Burnett is a hen-pecked family man. Mike Lowry is a foot-loose and fancy free ladies' man. Both are Miami policemen, and both have 72 hours to reclaim a consignment of drugs stolen from under their station's nose. To complicate matters, in order to get the assistance of the sole witness to a murder, they have to pretend to be each other.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: A newly-released prison gangster is forced by the leaders of his gang to orchestrate a major crime with a brutal rival gang on the streets of Southern California.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: Two teenage boys cycle 160 km on stolen bikes pursued by police to find a missing bale of cocaine worth 7 million euro. Set around the real event of Ireland's biggest cocaine seizure in 2007 of 440 million euro.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix).

What it's about: With help from his friends, a Memphis pimp in a mid-life crisis attempts to become a successful hip-hop emcee.

Where to Watch: Available to watch free online (Sony Crackle, PopcornFlix & Tubi), stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix & Prime Video), stream on a popular TV everywhere service (Epix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: British soldiers guarding the Kajaki Dam set out to rescue a three-man team after one of them loses a leg to a landmine.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: Out-of-control, trash-talking buddy cops Marcus Burnett and Mike Lowrey of the Miami Narcotics Task Force reunite, and bullets fly, cars crash and laughs explode as they pursue a whacked-out drug lord from the streets of Miami to the barrios of Cuba. But the real fireworks result when Marcus discovers that playboy Mike is secretly romancing Marcus’ sexy sister.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: A teenage girl with nothing to lose joins a traveling magazine sales crew, and gets caught up in a whirlwind of hard partying, law bending and young love as she criss-crosses the Midwest with a band of misfits.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $0.99 on 7 services (iTunes, Google Play & 5 others).

What it's about: The life and career of the hailed Hollywood movie star and underappreciated genius inventor, Hedy Lamarr.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Google Play & 2 others).

What it's about: Struggling to make ends meet, former special ops soldiers reunite for a high-stakes heist: stealing $75 million from a South American drug lord.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix).

What it's about: Meet the dirtiest cop in NYC history. Michael Dowd stole money and dealt drugs while patrolling the streets of '80s Brooklyn.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Google Play & 2 others).

What it's about: Two lifelong friends head up to an isolated Scottish Highlands village for a weekend hunting trip that descends into a never-ending nightmare as they attempt to cover up a horrific hunting accident.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix).

What it's about: The insurgence of substance abuse among the young in the Indian state of Punjab through the stories of a rock star, a migrant laborer, a doctor and a policeman.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix).

What it's about: A young woman who has been in and out from rehab for the past 10 years returns home for the weekend for her sister's wedding.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix & Sundance Now) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: Teenagers Zach and Josh have been best friends their whole lives, but when a gruesome accident leads to a cover-up, the secret drives a wedge between them and propels them down a rabbit hole of escalating paranoia and violence.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: Following on the heels of popular teen-scream horror movies, with uproarious comedy and biting satire. Marlon and Shawn Wayans, Shannon Elizabeth and Carmen Electra pitch in to skewer some of Hollywood's biggest blockbusters, including Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, The Matrix, American Pie and The Blair Witch Project.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: To escape his life of crime, a Paris drug dealer takes on one last job involving Spain, unhinged gangsters, his longtime crush and his scheming mother.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix).

What it's about: Ace is an impressionable young man working for a dry cleaning business. His friend, drug dealer Mitch goes to prison. In an unrelated incident, he finds some cocaine in a pants pocket. Soon, Ace finds himself dealing cocaine for Lulu. Via lucky breaks and solid interpersonal skills, Ace moves to the top of the Harlem drug world. Of course, unfaithful employees and/or rivals conspire to bring about Ace's fall.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: A special forces team is sent to snuff out a drug den, but find themselves trapped inside it after being set-up and betrayed.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 4 services (iTunes, Google Play & 2 others).

What it's about: This documentary follows three women -- a fire chief, a judge and a street missionary -- as they battle West Virginia's devastating opioid epidemic.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix).

What it's about: Two kids find themselves in the centre of a deadly game of cat and mouse after taking a sheriff's cruiser for a joy ride.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: A reporter in Iraq might just have the story of a lifetime when he meets Lyn Cassady, a guy who claims to be a former member of the U.S. Army's New Earth Army, a unit that employs paranormal powers in their missions.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Prime Video & 3 others).

What it's about: After four college girls rob a restaurant to fund their spring break in Florida, they get entangled with a weird dude with his own criminal agenda.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: The uplifting and heart-wrenching struggles of families who treat their cancer-stricken children with marijuana, some with astonishing results.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix).

What it's about: Weed. Marijuana. Grass. Pot. Whatever you prefer to call it, America’s relationship with cannabis is a complicated one. In his directorial debut, hip hop pioneer Fab 5 Freddy presents an unparalleled look at the racially biased history of the war on marijuana. A range of celebrities and experts discuss the plant’s influence on music and popular culture, and the devastating impact its criminalization has had on Black and Latino communities. As more and more states join the push to legalize marijuana, this documentary dives deep into the glaring racial disparities in the growing cannabis market.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix).

What it's about: A group of young Cardboard Gangsters attempt to gain control of the drug trade in Darndale, chasing the glorified lifestyle of money, power and sex.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 3 services (iTunes, Prime Video & Vudu).

What it's about: Set in a separate storyline not related to the "Trailer Park Boys" Television show, but with the same lovable characters. The boys get arrested for robbing an ATM machine and spend 18 months in jail. When the get out, they decide to pull off "The Big Dirty" which is to steal a large amount of coins because they are untraceable and quit their life of crime forever

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 1 service (PlayStation Store).

What it's about: Driven by an intense need for fame and validation, members of a dysfunctional Hollywood family are chasing celebrity, one another and the relentless ghosts of their pasts.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: When two youngsters meet and fall for each other, they must go on the run from the girl's corrupt father, who is also the sheriff of the town.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: Summer, New York City. A college girl falls hard for a guy she just met. After a night of partying goes wrong, she goes to wild extremes to get him back.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix & Kanopy) & rent or buy from $2.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).

What it's about: Busan, South Korea, 1970s. Lee Doo-sam is a small-time smuggler. After helping a drug gang to smuggle meth, he falls into the dark crime world. Quick-witted and full of ambition, he eventually takes over the drug underworld and starts to lead a double life: a good community leader during the day but an infamous drug lord during the night.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix).

What it's about: Nineteen-year-old Ari confronts both his sexuality and his Greek family. Ari despises his once-beloved parents, former radical activists, for having entombed themselves in insular tradition. Ari is obsessed with gay sex, although he does make an unenthusiastic attempt to satisfy the sister of one of his best friends. While all of this is going on, he's facing problems with his traditional Greek parents, who have no clue about his sexual activities.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix).

What it's about: Julian, who runs a Thai boxing club as a front organization for his family's drug smuggling operation, is forced by his mother Crystal to find and kill the individual responsible for his brother's recent death.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $3.99 on 6 services (iTunes, Google Play & 4 others).

What it's about: When his daughter's criminal boyfriend becomes an increasing threat to the family, a father must take action to protect them.

Where to Watch: Available to stream on a popular subscription service (Netflix) & rent or buy from $1.99 on 5 services (iTunes, Google Play & 3 others).