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Poster for Drugstore Cowboy

Drugstore Cowboy

Sooner or later, someone will pay the price.

1989 · 1h 42m · R Crime, Drama
Directed by Gus Van Sant

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Overview

Portland, Oregon, 1971. Bob Hughes is the charismatic leader of a peculiar quartet, formed by his wife, Dianne, and another couple, Rick and Nadine, who skillfully steal from drugstores and hospital medicine cabinets in order to appease their insatiable need for drugs. But neither fun nor luck last forever.

Director and cast

Critics on Rotten Tomatoes

Top critics, in their words

All reviews
97%
Tomatometer
Fresh

All the actors are used expertly, but it's Burroughs, cropping up near the end, who articulates the film's sociopolitical moral in a contemporary context.

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
Fresh

No previous drug-themed film has the honesty or originality of Gus Van Sant's drama Drugstore Cowboy.

Variety Staff, Variety
Fresh

Though hardly earth-shakingly original, Van Sant's low-budget movie takes a cool, contemplative and sometimes comic look at American drug-culture.

Geoff Andrew, Time Out
Fresh

The film takes us so deeply into this shabby, transient world that we feel its texture -- both its scary thrills and its bleak, fatalistic uncertainty.

Stephen Holden, New York Times
Fresh

The movie stars Matt Dillon, in one of the great recent American movie performances.

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

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