Unlike the characters in high-school-age predecessors like “Superbad,” the hooligans of “21 and Over” can legally drink. But these college-kid caricatures prove that legal drinking is certainly no better, safer, or healthier than underage consumption

This year’s Academy Award lineup featured the usual gripping historical dramas and soaring epics, but it also included stories that dealt honestly with the all-too ordinary struggle of mental health conditions and substance abuse.

With such a complex character, skillfully played by Denzel Washington, “Flight” might have created a nuanced portrait of addiction. Unfortunately, after a gripping opening, the film nosedives into sentimentality and melodrama.

In the film “Smashed,” recovering alcoholic Kate refutes the AA maxim that “your worst day sober is better than your best day drunk.” She admits she had some fun times on the sauce—but she doesn’t regret the decision to get sober.

Eugene Jarecki’s powerful new documentary The House I Live In shows how the War on Drugs has led to a policy of mass incarceration.