Drugstore Cowboy

1989 Drama

The operative word in Drugstore Cowboy is "drug". Matt Dillon plays the leader of a group of dopeheads who wander around the country robbing pharmacies to feed their habits. Dillon's chums include doltish James Le Gros and teen-age junkie Heather Graham; also along for the ride is Dillon's wife Kelly Lynch. Their nemesis is cop James Remar, whom Dillon takes perverse delight in humiliating. When one of the young addicts dies of an overdose, it promps Dillon to try to go straight, a task complicated by wife Lynch's determination to stay high and by the corrupting presence of an ex-priest, played by Naked Lunch author William Burroughs. Drugstore Cowboy was director Gus Van Sant's breakthrough picture.

Director: Gus Van Sant

Starring: Matt Dillon, Kelly Lynch, James LeGros, Heather Graham

 17 Reviews  7 Awards

Reviews

  • Drugstore Cowboy is one of the best films in the long tradition of American outlaw road movies - a tradition that includes "Bonnie and Clyde," "Easy Rider," "Midnight Cowboy" and "Badlands."

    Roger Ebert - The Chicago Sun-Times

    19 January 2013

  • Drugstore Cowboy, an electrifying movie without one misstep or one conventional moment.

    Sheila Benson - Los Angeles Times

    19 January 2013

  • Van Sant gives his material shape and an invigorating, syncopated style. It keeps coming at you in surprising, dazzling ways.

    Hal Hinson - The Washington Post

    19 January 2013

  • Drugstore Cowboy, Gus Van Sant's fresh, gutsy societal underbelly film, never wallows in picturesque down-and-outism, except at the end, when Dillon's character, frightened by the death of a girl he didn't like much and spooked by his own paranoiac suspicion, checks into a seedy hotel while trying to go cold turkey and not yield to the influence of a junkie priest drolly played by William Burroughs.

    Jay Carr - The Boston Globe

    19 January 2013

  • Drugstore Cowboy, Gus Van Sant Jr.'s glum, absorbing film about a clan of heroin addicts who travel around the Pacific Northwest Looting pharmacies of their supplies the way Bonnie and Clyde cleaned out banks, gives Matt Dillon the role of his career.

    Stephen Holden - The New York Times

    19 January 2013

Awards

  • Forum of New Cinema

    Berlin International Film Festival (1990)

  • Best Picture

    Chicago Film Critics Association Awards (1990)

     

  • Best Cinematography

    Independent Spirit Awards (1990)

  • Best Screenplay

    Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards (1989)

  • Best Director

    National Society of Film Critics Awards (1990)

Lists

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