Best Stoner Movie: Good Mourning
This day-in-the-life flick features Machine Gun Kelly (a.k.a Colson Baker) as London Clash, an up-and-coming singer and actor who has an audition for the lead role in the next Batman movie, but can't focus on it because he thinks his GF, Apple (Becky G), is breaking up with him. Plenty of pot is smoked and there's also a ketamine scene in this MGK-Mod Sun production. However, it received a Razzy for Worst Director(s).
Second Best Stoner Movie: Emergency
Sean (RJ Cyler) and Carlos (Sebastian Chacon) smoke spliffs, bongs and vapes in this buddy comedy that takes a serious turn when a drunk girl goes along for the ride.
Best Pot Scene: Causeway
For her second film in a row, Jennifer Lawrence smokes weed. Last year it was via a pipe in Don't Look Up; this year, her character Lynsey hits a blunt passed to her by car mechanic James (Brian Tyree Henry). Lynsey has returned from Afghanistan where she suffered a TBI and is recovering. She and James ares both damaged and become friends in Lila Neugebauer's sharp film.
Best Drug Movie: Babylon
"I just want everyone to party forever," Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie) declares in Damien Chazelle's bacchanalian Hollywood history lesson also starring CelebStoner Brad Pitt as Jack Conrad. Lot of coke is snorted in this sprawling three-hour epic. And check out the opening of the trailer.
Best Mushroom Scene: Mack & Rita
Bestie Carla (Taylor Paige) encourages Rita (Diane Keaton), who's a 70- year old version of 30-year-old Mack (Elizabeth Lail), to drink psilocybin tea. She does and soon the room is spinning and pulsing psychedelically as Rita dances and plays with a dog. "Wow, oh wow, whoo," she says. "Is this really happening?" Afterwards, Rita goes: "That was super fun. But I'm still Rita." Rita eventually changes back to Mack and all is well again in this fluffy film from Katie Aselton. In real life, Keaton says she "missed out" on mushrooms in the '70s when she won an Oscar for Annie Hall.
RELATED: More Movie Mushroom Scenes
Best LSD Scene: The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent
In this movie within several movies, Nicolas Cage plays himself and reenacts scenes from some of his best-known films. During one with super fan Javi (Pedro Pascal) they both inhale acid via a pen device. "What do you have there?" Nic asks. "LSD," Javi replies: "Divine inspiration." After a beat, Nic goes. "OK." and the mild trip ensues.
Best Use of Eye Drops: Amsterdam
Burt (Christian Bale) makes his own pain killers in David O. Russell's World War I era comedic thriller. In one scene, he's offered an eye dropper full from Tom (Rami Malik). "Oh, that's fast," Burt exclaims. "That is advanced."
Best Documentary: "Sr."
Robert Downey Jr.'s tribute to his father Robert Downey Sr. traces the family's drug use that included marijuana, cocaine and alcohol. Robert Downey Sr. admitted in the past he got his son stoned on pot as young as six years old. In Chris Smith's compelling documentary on Netflix, Downey Jr. digs deeper, connecting his father's habit to his own, which led to arrests, jail and now a sober life.
Best Music Documentary: Cypress Hill: Insane in the Brain
Made for Showtime by Esteban Oriol, this film charts the stony history of L.A.'s notorious Latin hip-hoppers Cypress Hill. B-Real is interviewed in Dr. Greenthumb grow facilities and CelebStoner's Steve Bloom provides commentary.
Best Pot Documentary: (tie) American Pot Story; High Landz
Set in Northern California, both films tackle the state of legalization on the Left Coast. Dan Katzir and Ravit Markus trace the roots in American Pot Story with a focus on Oakland and Oaksterdam University, which was raided in 2010, while High Landz director Luka Oleksyshyn (he's Ukrainian) portrays life among the many growers in the state's famous Emerald Triangle growing region.
Best Anniversary: Fast Times at Ridgemont High
In 1982, Amy Heckerling hired San Penn to play surfer dude Jeff Spicoli in Fast Times and the rest if history. Cameron Crowe's Southern California high school romp also features Jennifer Jason-Leigh, Phoebe Cates, Judge Reinhold, Ray Walston and Forest Whitaker. After spilling out of hot-boxed VW bus, Spicoli delivers the immortal line: "Surfing is not a sport. It's a way of life - it's no hobby. It's a way of looking at that wave and saying, 'Hey bud, let's party!'"
Best Oscars Upset: Coda
The surprising Best Picture winner at the 2022 Academy Awards directed by Sian Heder about deaf people, Coda features a pot-smoking character Frank played by Troy Kotsur, who also earned the Best Supporting Actor award.
Best Biopic: Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody
Like Billie Holiday, Janis Joplin and Amy Winehouse, Whitney Houston was an singular talent who squandered it with drugs and alcohol, ultimately passing away in 2012 in the middle of her career. Kasi Lemmon's plodding picture traces Houston's rise and fall, from a young gospel singer to a crack-smoking junkie. Her use is underplayed to retain the PG rating. After hitting a joint early in the film, Houston (Naomi Ackie) graduates to coke, but we never glimpse her actually snort. Houston has a lesbian relationship with Robyn Crawford (Nefessa Williams), but opts for Bobby Brown (Ashton Sanders). Despite his infidelities and alcholism, Brown's not played as the bad guy. Though we don't see her last moments in a bathtub, it's clear Houston made her own choices to reject rehab and paid the price.
Best Woody Harrelson Movie: Triangle of Sadness
Swedish director Ruben Östlund employs CelebStoner Woody Harrelson for the middle act of this comedic class-warfare film. Harrelson plays a drunken Marxist captain on a yacht that takes off from Greece with uber-rich passengers. A rough Captain's dinner turns into a barf-fest, at which point he makes a speech linking the Kennedy, King and Malcolm X assassinations. The passengers and crew (minus Harreleson) end up on what appears to be a deserted island for the third act that resembles The Beach and Lord of the Flies. He also appeared this year with Kevin Hart in The Man from Toronto, an action comedy that stretches credibility with Harrelson as a paid assassin.
Best Richard Linklater Movie: Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood
Steven Spielberg isn't the only director who made a movie about his life this year (The Fabelmans). Dazed and Confused director Richard Linklater returns to animation to tell the fictional story of a secret moon mission in 1969. Growing up in Houston with a dad who worked at NASA and five siblings, Linklater reaches back to his youth, serving up a huge plate of nostalgia for the era. But mostly the focus is on the '60s space program and how it dominated the lives of families who were there.
Worst Stoner Movie: Clerks 3
This second Clerks sequel fails to light up the screen. Bad acting and a weak story - Randal (Jeff Anderson) makes a movie about his life after suffering a heart attack - offer little for fans hoping for a few laughs. Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (director Kevin Smith) smoke a huge spliff at one point, which is a highlight.
