Movie · 1995 · Drama, Romance · 1h 51m · R · English
Curator score: 7.4/10 (241.2K ratings)
I love you... The way you are.
Overview
Ben Sanderson, an alcoholic Hollywood screenwriter who lost everything because of his drinking, arrives in Las Vegas to drink himself to death. There, he meets and forms an uneasy friendship and non-interference pact with prostitute Sera.
Ratings
Curator score: 7.4/10
IMDb: 7.5/10
Letterboxd: 3.75/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 90%
Metacritic: 82
TMDB: 7.3/10
Director
Mike Figgis
Production
Initial Productions, Lumière Pictures
Cast
Nicolas Cage, Elisabeth Shue, Julian Sands, Richard Lewis, Steven Weber, Kim Adams, Emily Procter, Stuart Regen, Valeria Golino, Graham Beckel, Albert Henderson, Shashi Bhatia, Carey Lowell, Anne Lange, Thomas Kopache, Vincent Ward, Lucinda Jenney, French Stewart, Ed Lauter, Waldemar Kalinowski
Curator Review
Verdict
A bleak, intimate character study that finds unexpected tenderness inside self-destruction. The performances, especially Cage and Shue, give the film a bruised honesty that makes its misery feel human rather than merely grim.
Best for
Viewers who like emotionally raw dramas
Fans of tragic romance and damaged-people stories
People interested in standout acting performances
Audiences drawn to late-night, neon-soaked urban melancholy
Skip if
You want an uplifting or cathartic romance
You are sensitive to depictions of alcoholism, sex work, and suicide
You prefer plot-driven stories over mood and character study
You dislike bleak endings and emotional discomfort
Overview
Leaving Las Vegas is a hard film to shake because it refuses easy pity. Mike Figgis stages the story with a strange, bruised lyricism: the city glows, the characters stumble, and the film keeps finding small flashes of warmth inside a situation that is otherwise headed toward ruin.
Worth noting
Nicolas Cage gives one of his most controlled and devastating performances, while Elisabeth Shue brings a wary compassion that keeps the film from collapsing into pure despair. Their relationship is not romanticized so much as observed in all its mutual need, denial, and temporary grace.
Bottom line
What lingers is the film’s uneasy balance of tenderness and decay. It is painful, sometimes almost unbearable, but it has real emotional truth and a clear-eyed sense of what self-destruction looks like when no one is pretending to save anyone.
Top Letterboxd reviews
Marcissus (3★) · 1658 likes
>Nicolas Cage researched his character by binge drinking, and would film himself drunk to study his speech patterns.
One of the great pains in my life is that I will never see this footage.
DirkH (5★) · 904 likes
This film kicks my teeth in in the most beautiful way every time I watch it.
Whenever an artist manages to combine and contrast beauty and reality I'm always sucked in without reservation, often leaving me wrecked but smiling. Figgis, Cage and Shue made promises here they unfortunately never kept in their later careers.
The notion of a man leaving everything behind to drink himself to death in the capital of sin is as strong as it is fraught with… more
Harry Ridgway (4.5★) · 740 likes
"Hey man, you want a drink?"
"Nah, I just watched Leaving Las Vegas"
"Oh, I'm sorry. I guess I'll see you around"
"Maybe"
adambolt (1.5★) · 552 likes
nicolas cage GETS DRUNK and HAS SEX
Sigfred Storstrand (4★) · 410 likes
I'm not sure whether I relate more to the depressed lonely person or the depressed suicidal person here.