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The Basketball Diaries
1995 1h 42m R
Drama
,
Crime
,
and more
7.3
47%
76%
74%
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A teenager finds his dreams of becoming a basketball star threatened after he free falls into the harrowing world of drug addiction.
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Directed By
Scott Kalvert
Written By
Jim Carroll
,
Bryan Goluboff
Studio
New Line Cinema
,
Island Pictures
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Cast of The Basketball Diaries
Leonardo DiCaprio
Jim Carroll
Mark Wahlberg
Mickey
Lorraine Bracco
Jim's Mother
Michael Imperioli
Bobby
Ernie Hudson
Reggie
Juliette Lewis
Diane Moody
James Madio
Pedro
Bruno Kirby
Swifty
Patrick McGaw
Neutron
Manny Alfaro
Manny
Toby Huss
Kenny
Cynthia Daniel
Winkie
Brittany Daniel
Blinkie
Michael Rapaport
Skinhead
Roy Cooper
Father McNulty
Josh Mostel
Counterman
Marilyn Sokol
Chanting Woman
Alexander Chaplin
Bobo
Ben Jorgensen
Tommy
Jimmy Papiris
Iggy
Nick Gaetani
Referee #1
Vincent Pastore
Construction Worker
Barton Heyman
Confessional Priest
The Basketball Diaries Reviews
Los Angeles Times
Kenneth Turan
Although it masquerades as a cautionary tale about the horrors of heroin, this epic of teen-age angst is more accurately seen as a reverential wallow in the gutter of self-absorption.
Entertainment Weekly
Owen Gleiberman
For those few soul-freezing moments, you get a glimpse of the great actor Leonardo DiCaprio is going to be.
USA Today
Mike Clark
DiCaprio has so much presence that he almost saves the day, but this is a movie that'll make you want to opt for Jim Carrey's The Basketball Diaries.
New York Times
Janet Maslin
The star shines, but the movie is hard to watch.
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
Will there ever be a market for a movie about a character who hurries past his drug phase because he can't wait to tell you what he did after he pulled his act together? Probably not.
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
Facile escapes are rejected, and the resolution is acceptable because we can believe it. In fact, that's the reason this film works as well as it does: credibility.
San Francisco Chronicle
Edward Guthmann
Amazingly, though, even with Kalvert's lack of style and vision, the greatness of DiCaprio's performance is undiminished.
Austin Chronicle
Marjorie Baumgarten
A stepped-on product that never scores.
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
You leave The Basketball Diaries believing that Leonardo DiCaprio can do anything.
Chicago Reader
Jonathan Rosenbaum
Significantly, the movie keeps the hero's reformation offscreen as well as unexplained; it's more interested in shock effects than in candor or elucidation.
Washington Post
Joe Brown
A movie for masochists, an unrelentingly ugly 'Just Say No' propaganda movie, it might have been bankrolled by Nancy Reagan.
Washington Post
Hal Hinson
DiCaprio goes as far into the hell of drug abuse as any actor ever has -- and comes out a star.
Juicy Cerebellum
Alex Sandell
Okay film that unjustly caused its fair share of controversy.
EmanuelLevy.Com
Emanuel Levy
You never understand what really motivated this intelligent adolescent, a gifted basketball player and sensitive writer, to descend into the hellish life of a drug addict and hustler on the mean streets of New York.
Nick's Flick Picks
Nick Davis
Crushingly over-emoted and internally inconsistent; for Leo die-hards only, and how many of those are around anymore?
TV Guide
If the idea of watching Leonardo DiCaprio pout for 90 minutes gives you sweaty palms, by all means go.
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