The Best Movies To Watch While Very, Very Stoned

Banging on about taking drugs is so powerfully lame it should have some effect on your credit rating, but there is no denying that weed and films go together like Cheech and Chong.

That said – films about weed are, with a few notable exceptions, terrible. So what to do?

Read our guide to the best stoners movies, that’s what. Whether you’re after something to chuckle gormlessly to, stare serenely at or use as a prompt for rambling existentialist ‘conversations’, there’s something here for you.

Scott Pilgrim Vs The World (2010)

Whatever you watch, you’ll want it to have some decent visuals. You might get a little something extra out of watching, say, Das Boot while stoned, it’s not going to do much for you in that regard. Watching Edgar Wright’s hyperactive, arcade-inspired visuals pop off on a big screen, however, is a very, very good use of an evening. Michael Cera is Scott Pilgrim, nerd and garage band bassist, who has to defeat his new girlfriend’s seven evil exes in mortal combat.

Watch Scott Pilgrim Vs The World here

Tron (1982)

For a film which was inspired by a demo of 2D table tennis arcade game Pong, Tron has had an incredibly long life. That’s partly down to the neon-lit world created within it, which is so influential that it puts it second only to Blade Runner as the most-often-ripped-off sci-fi film of them al – and the fact that Jeff Bridges is around to carry a fairly tedious story about industrial espionage around on the back of his lightcycle. There’s also a measure of proto-Matrix reality-warping in here too, though not quite enough to make you anxious about the substance of your own reality.

Watch Tron here

Commando (1985)

The connoisseur’s choice of utterly brainless retro explode-a-thon. Arnie is retired US Army colonel John Matrix (that’s JOHN MATRIX) whose daughter is kidnapped by generically evil South American revolutionaries who try to blackmail him into carrying out a hit on the US-backed president of the country they’ve just failed to overthrow. But Arnie’s not having that, oh no. He sorts things out the old-fashioned way: with small arms, machine guns, heavy artillery, brute force and post-murder quips so badly constructed and delivered they almost become Dadaist non-sequiturs.

Watch Commando here

The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)

It’s good to have a purely aesthetically pleasing film at hand which doesn’t involve lasers and references to Donkey Kong, and for that you’ll struggle to beat the pinks, purples, mauves and burgundies of Wes Anderson’s screwball opus. Ralph Fiennes is Gustave, a concierge at the shabbily grand Grand Budapest Hotel who’s accused of murder and ropes in young colleague Zero to clear his name as well as stealing an extremely valuable painting. It’s very funny, very arch, and very, very gorgeous to look at.

Watch The Grand Budapest Hotel here

The Big Lebowski (1998)

Perhaps the best stoner film ever made about an actual stoner, The Big Lebowski is mistaken identity caper that sees the Coen Brothers do their best work and Jeff Daniels do his as ‘The Dude’, a laid-back bowling bro who ends up embroiled in a kidnapping and extortion plot. Steve Buscemi and John Goodman make up the excellent supporting cast in a film that is ideal for a weed-watch as it gives the impression of pottering along at its own pace and minding its own business with a little philosophising on the side, but actually has the taut intrigue of a Raymond Chandler adaptation.

Watch The Big Lebowski here

Interstellar (2014)

Some people swear by watching 2001: A Space Odyssey while in an altered state. Absolutely do not attempt to do that. You don’t know what you’re playing with. Interstellar‘s a much easier way to turn the room onto a bit of light cosmology chat. Matthew McConnaughey throws himself into a wormhole to find another habitable planet when Earth starts going a bit Planet of the Apes. There’s black holes, time dilation, multiple dimensions and tesseracts all over the gaff, but none of the overwhelming sense that life is meaningless that you get with 2001.

Watch Interstellar here

Airplane! (1975)

As a big evening in wears on, the idea of shouting a film’s punchlines about a second and a half before they actually arrive suddenly stops being irritating and becomes The Funniest And Most Good Thing Ever. For that, there’s no film better to shout along with than Airplane!. You’ve already thought of about seven or eight gags you want to blurt out right now since starting this paragraph. Go on, blurt them. Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue! Don’t call me Shirley! Have you ever been in a Turkish prison! Everyone’s already seen Airplane! anyway, so blurt away.

Watch Airplane! here

Help! (1965)

From the freewheeling plot which follows the lads’ attempts to get a cursed ring off Ringo’s finger and save him from being ritually sacrificed while haring around the Bahamas, the Beatles’ innocent and giggly second film is completely enveloped in weed smoke. “If you look at pictures of us you can see a lot of red-eyed shots; they were red from the dope we were smoking,” Ringo recalled later. It’s a lot baggier than A Hard Day’s Night, but its sly, anarchic feel and easygoing charm make it ideal for enjoying with a sly late afternoon joint. Look at George’s little smirk. He knows.

Buy Help! here

All Aboard: The Canal Boat (2015)

Nature docs can become utterly riveting, but being ambushed by the sight of a baby polecat being torn limb from limb by a red kite can also really kill a mood. That’s where slow TV documentaries – feature-length docs shot in real time – come in. This one’s shot from a single camera on the front of a barge navigating the Kennet and Avon Canal from Top Lock in Bath to the Dundas Aqueduct in real time over the course of two hours. Sometimes the camera pans to the left slightly; sometimes it pans to the right. Occasionally there’s a fact about the early days of mechanised weaving. Despite the fact that nothing else happens, it’s weirdly gripping. A good 5am chiller.

Watch All Aboard: The Canal Boat here