Trainspotting (film)

This article is about the film. For other uses of the term Trainspotting, please see Trainspotting (disambiguation).

Trainspotting is a 1996 British film directed by Danny Boyle. Based on the novel by Irvine Welsh, it follows the lives of a group of heroin addicts and their associates in Edinburgh, Scotland, centring on the trials of Mark Renton as he tries to move on from drug abuse. Although it depicts the existence of the drug addict as mostly lonely,violent and self-destructive, the film was criticised at the time as pro-drugs; most commentary, however, was highly positive.

Most of the production team and several actors had worked with Boyle before on his directorial debut, 1994's Shallow Grave - notably Ewan McGregor, who played Renton. Ewen Bremner, who had played Renton in a stage version of the novel, was cast among the leads as 'Spud', a fellow addict. The film also featured Robert Carlyle in a starring role, and Irvine Welsh had a cameo as a drug dealer. Most of the film was actually shot in neighbouring Glasgow rather than Edinburgh, but did feature a mostly-Scottish cast (the exception being Jonny Lee Miller as 'Sick Boy'). Boyle discovered Kelly Macdonald, who appeared in her first role in Trainspotting.

Much of the dialogue is in Scots, spoken in southern Scotland and closely related to English varieties. Some dialogue was actually redubbed by the original actors for the American market, as it was feared audiences outside the UK would not understand it.