Five films to watch to help keep your drinking in check

Before you overindulge this weekend, a bit of warning: Excessive drinking can be hazardous to your health. Don’t believe us? Well, check out these five films that show the dark side of alcoholism:

‘The Lost Weekend’ 1945 This was groundbreaking in its day for exploring what was then considered a taboo subject. The film is a nightmarish, sometimes hallucinatory vision of a struggling writer (Ray Milland) boozing and battling his demons over the course of several days.

‘Barfly’ 1987 This film is a piercing, no-nonsense portrayal of two lonely people who are as much in love with booze as they are with each other. Mickey Rourke is a dive-bar denizen and sometime poet; Faye Dunaway is the classy dame with whom he falls into a quick romance. They’re made for each other.

‘Leaving Las Vegas’ 1995 As a Hollywood screenwriter, Nicolas Cage wants to escape everything when he travels to Las Vegas to drink himself to death. Elisabeth Shue is excellent as the prostitute who’s fascinated by him but doesn’t try to save him. The film doesn’t judge; it just lays out two pathetic characters for us.

‘Bad Santa’ 2003 This film is consistently funny but it’s also got an unrelenting, unapologetic mean streak. Billy Bob Thornton’s character, Willie T. Stokes, is a miserable guy, a part-time department-store Santa Claus and full-time alcoholic con man.

‘Julia’ 2008 A great performance from Tilda Swinton, who plays a lonely, self-destructive alcoholic who makes a series of desperate choices. She can be a fun, flirty drunk, but mostly she’s a train wreck. She’s also not nearly as smart as she thinks she is, so when she agrees to kidnap an 8-year-old boy, things get ugly.