In the year 2000, there were so many hip filmmakers making sexy violent experimental crime fantasias. Darren Aronofsky stood out. Most Sundance debuts were cheap, but his breakout feature looked funded by quarters stolen from a broken vending machine. When other young directors were trying hyper-kinetic editing, he all-but-trademarked the rapidfire split-second montage: heroin, lighter, bubbles, syringe, molecules, eyeball, STONED. Rather than join the long line of provocateurs battling the MPAA over NC-17 ratings, Aronofsky just released his second film unrated — a totemic act of Generation X defiance. And while plenty of awesome movies back then were about drugs, an Aronofsky picture somehow just was a drug: intoxicating, traumatizing, addictive, corrosive.

Twenty-five years ago, the

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