Trainspotting (1996)

★ 8.0 1h 34m 10,324 votes IMDb
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Trainspotting

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Cast

Ewan McGregor
Ewan McGregor as Renton Age 55 · Perth, Scotland, UK Ewan Gordon McGregor (born March 31, 1971) is a Scottish actor. His accolades include a Golden Globe Award and a Primetime Emmy Award. In 2013, he was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Emp...
Ewen Bremner
Ewen Bremner as Spud Age 54 · Edinburgh, Scotland, UK Ewen Bremner (born January 23, 1972) is a Scottish character actor. His roles have included Julien in Julien Donkey-Boy and Daniel "Spud" Murphy in Trainspotting and its 2017 sequel T2 Trainspotting....
Jonny Lee Miller
Jonny Lee Miller as Sick Boy Age 53 · Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, England, UK Jonathan Lee Miller (AKA Jonny) is an English actor who gained notoriety with roles in Hackers and Trainspotting. The son and grandson of Stage and Film actors, Jonny's first (uncredited) role was at...
Kevin McKidd
Kevin McKidd as Tommy Age 52 · Elgin, Moray, Scotland, UK Kevin McKidd (born 9 August 1973) is a Scottish television and film actor and director. He is known for his prominent television roles, including his performances as Lucius Vorenus in Rome, as Poseido...
Robert Carlyle
Robert Carlyle as Begbie Age 65 · Glasgow, Scotland, UK Robert Carlyle OBE (born 14 April 1961) is a Scottish actor. His film work includes Trainspotting (1996), The Full Monty (1997), The World Is Not Enough (1999), There's Only One Jimmy Grimble (2000), ...
Kelly Macdonald
Kelly Macdonald as Diane Age 50 Kelly Macdonald (born 23 February 1976) is a Scottish actress. Known for her film and television performances, she has received various accolades, including a BAFTA Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and...

Audience Reviews

CinemaSerf 7/10 Aug 27, 2023
25 years on, and this Danny Boyle effort has lost little of it's authentic, gritty, potency. Set in mid 1990s Edinburgh it follows the antics of a disparate group of friends whose only goals in life are to survive, maybe get laid, and to take each day as it comes... "Begbie" (Robert Carlyle) is their psychopathically charged leader, who thinks nothing of smashing a glass in someone's face; "Spud" (Ewan Bremner) and "Sick Boy" (Jonny Lee Miller) just lurch from one day to the next looking for a fix; "Tommy" (Kevin McKidd) at least tries to live with some semblance of normality - he has a steady girlfriend "Diana" (Kelly Macdonald) and finally Ewan McGregor ("Renton"), whom along with his worldly, and in their way loving, parents, might just see a way of escaping from this relentless misery... What helps this stand out is the fact that director Boyle misses few opportunities to depict the grim depravity in which these people live. Its graphic, violent, distressing certainly, but it is also funny and eminently human - there is a definite sense of "there but for the grace of God" about many of the scenarios and they tugs at the heart strings whilst simultaneously making you cower and wince in disgust or sometimes even fear. The efforts from the talent in indistinguishably good - especially Bremner and JLM whose roles are not so significant as Messrs Carlyle & McGregor's, but who add a depth and richness to what could otherwise just prove to be a rather downbeat tale of hopelessness and emptiness. For once, the gratuitous (for, that it is) use of good old Anglo-Saxon expletives doesn't not appear merely to compensate for a lack of script-writing skills; here the language and violence add significantly to the plausibility of the whole thing - it's ghastly, yet compelling to watch and watch again. It works well again on a big screen, even though the cinematography doesn't really require anything to present scale or grandness, and the soundtrack adds a deliciously contemporaneous dollop of nostalgia, too. Not for the fainthearted, but - in my view - the finest work from all concerned that stands the test of time very well.
r96sk 9/10 May 30, 2024
Not the most enthralling, but <em>'Trainspotting'</em> does have plenty to say - and boy does it portray it!

There are particularly strong performances from Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner and Robert Carlyle. I didn't like watching the bunch of characters given how severely unlikeable they are. Of course, that is very much the intention so it's a credit to the actors and the filmmakers at how convincing it all is. The humour is weaker than expected, perhaps due to the horrors of the plot taking centre stage.

Their struggles are showed in a heavy manner, to the point I did feel uncomfortable seeing them <em>do their thing</em>. I do feel post-watch that I'm missing something from it in regards to being able to appreciate it higher, I can't shake that feeling. That's probably the only negative at nailing the realness so much, you miss out on other bits to enjoy about a film; or at least to me.

Cool to see this on the big screen, mind. I think it's the first movie I've ever watched at the cinema that isn't a contemporary release. I evidently hadn't seen this before so thought what better way to watch it for the opening time! Now for the sequel (albeit back in the doldrums of home release!😁).
badelf 9/10 Mar 17, 2026
**Trainspotting** (1996)

_Directed by Danny Boyle_

Danny Boyle's Trainspotting is sardonic in the truest sense, both in style and story. It doesn't make fun of addiction, doesn't glamorize it, doesn't preach about it. Instead, it presents the whole grotesque cycle with dark wit and visual audacity, letting you see exactly how absurd and horrifying and inevitable it all is. The film is as much about what creates addiction—Thatcher's Britain, economic collapse, a generation with no prospects staring into the void—as it is about the addiction itself.

Boyle's style is kinetic, hallucinatory, utterly committed to making even squalor visually arresting. The famous dive into "the worst toilet in Scotland," the baby crawling on the ceiling, the nightmarish withdrawal sequences—all of it serves the sardonic tone perfectly. This is not realism; this is Edinburgh's underclass refracted through a fever dream, and it works precisely because Boyle understands that heroin isn't an escape from reality but a different kind of prison with better visuals.

Ewan McGregor, Robert Carlyle, Ewen Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller—all the performances are good, each actor finding the specific way their character is trapped and the specific way they lie to themselves about it. Begbie, the violent teetotaler, might be the most terrifying of all precisely because he doesn't need drugs to be monstrous.

The "Choose Life" monologue frames the whole thing: choose mortgage payments and washing machines and tedious jobs and slow death by boredom, or choose heroin and fast death by overdose. When those are your options, the critique isn't subtle. It's a side-swipe at a system that offered an entire generation nothing worth choosing.

Trainspotting is sardonic, savage, and still sharp nearly three decades later.

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