1998 · Terry Gilliam

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

"Buy a ticket. Take a ride."

R 1h 58m Based on the novel by Hunter S. Thompson Universal Pictures

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold.

— Raoul Duke / Hunter S. Thompson

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas official poster

The Story

Down the
Rabbit Hole

Journalist Raoul Duke and his attorney Dr. Gonzo set out from Los Angeles to Las Vegas armed with a trunk full of every drug known to man. Their assignment: cover the Mint 400 motorcycle race. Their reality: a savage descent into the hallucinatory heart of the American Dream.

Terry Gilliam's psychedelic masterpiece translates Hunter S. Thompson's seminal Gonzo journalism into a kaleidoscopic fever dream — part road movie, part satire, entirely unhinged.

The Players

Unhinged
Performances

Johnny Depp

as Raoul Duke

Benicio Del Toro

as Dr. Gonzo

Film Details

The
Particulars

1998

Released

118

Minutes

7.6

TMDB Score

Rating

Directed by Terry Gilliam

Novel by Hunter S. Thompson

Genres

Adventure Comedy Drama

The Pharmacopoeia

Know Your
Drugs

"We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers... and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether, and two dozen amylnitrate poppers."

Psychedelic · Hallucinogen

Mescaline

Peyote · The Button · Cactus

Vivid geometric hallucinations, euphoria, and a violent distortion of time. Duke's chemical ignition point — the first to take hold somewhere around Barstow.

Intensity

Psychedelic · Serotonergic

LSD

Acid · Blotter · Lucy

Ego dissolution, synaesthesia, and reality folding in on itself. Five sheets of blotter acid is enough to turn the Mint 400 into a very bad scene.

Intensity

Stimulant · CNS

Cocaine

Blow · Snow · Charlie

Explosive confidence, racing thoughts, and a terrifying sense of omnipotence. The salt shaker stays half-full — for about ten minutes.

Intensity

Dissociative · Inhalant

Ether

Diethyl Ether · The Reek

Instant, total disorientation. The world becomes abstract. You cannot drive. You cannot speak. You can barely be. The Mint 400 press box was the worst place to be on ether.

Intensity

Vasodilator · Inhalant

Amyl Nitrate

Poppers · Rush · The Snap

A thirty-second head rush of pure orange heat. Reality bends, the walls pulse, and then — nothing. Two dozen poppers is enough for a very long weekend in Vegas.

Intensity

Cannabinoid · Relaxant

Cannabis

Grass · Mary Jane · Reefer

Mild paranoia, deepened sensory perception, and a very healthy appetite. The two bags were gone by Barstow. Everything after that was somebody else's problem.

Intensity

Movie Stills