Film

Barfly

Name: Barfly
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Released: 1987
Cast: Mickey Rourke, Faye Dunaway, Alice Krige, Jack Nance, J.C. Quinn

Social drama

Barfly is Charles Bukowski's own barroom mythology turned into a scuzzy, funny, unexpectedly tender love story. Mickey Rourke's Henry and Faye Dunaway's Wanda drink themselves into a kind of grace, brawling and flirting through Skid Row dives with real wit and no shame. It's for anyone who wants romance stripped of comfort — squalid, funny, oddly moving, if you can stomach the glamour it finds in self-destruction.

TMDb rating

3.4

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you love hard-luck stories told with dry wit and tenderness, where a pair of barflies are funnier and more human than the squalor around them and the drinking is a character in itself.

Skip it if you need plot momentum or a clear arc; this drifts from one barroom evening to the next, and its appetite for sordid, boozy detail can wear thin over its hundred minutes.

What it asks of you: Settle in for a slow, loose hundred minutes that mostly lives in dim rooms and small talk, with the mood darkening at its own unhurried pace and your patience doing most of the work.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Leaving Las Vegas1995

Nicolas Cage drinks himself to death with cheerful purpose while falling for a hooker who won't try to save him — the same doomed tenderness as Henry and Wanda, played dead straight instead of for laughs.

But It has none of Barfly's grim humour — this one commits fully to tragedy and doesn't let you off easy.

Factotum2005

Matt Dillon plays the same Bukowski alter ego, Henry Chinaski, drifting through dead-end jobs and cheap whiskey with a quieter, sadder version of Rourke's swagger.

But Slower and more melancholic than Barfly's scrappy energy — less brawl, more drift.

Trees Lounge1996

Steve Buscemi's directorial debut is a plain, unglamorous portrait of a man who's basically moved into his local bar — funnier and sadder for being so unadorned.

But No movie-star chemistry here, just a guy quietly wasting his life; it's low-key almost to a fault.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Barfly

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Bukowski: Born Into This2003

Barfly is Bukowski's own semi-fictionalised drinking years; this documentary shows you the real Henry Chinaski, unfiltered and often less charming than Rourke's performance.

Interviews, archive footage and readings assemble the actual man behind Henry Chinaski — meaner, sadder, and funnier than any actor's impression of him.

But No Hollywood polish or Dunaway glamour; this is raw talking-heads documentary, and the real Bukowski is a harder man to like.

Withnail & I1987

Same year, same alcoholic wit, opposite accent — two washed-up actors drink their way through a miserable countryside holiday with quotable, gloriously self-destructive bravado.

But It's broader and more overtly comic than Barfly; the pathos is buried deeper under the jokes.

Days of Wine and Roses1963

The classic study of two people drinking each other down together, decades before Barfly, with Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick devastating as a couple who can't stop.

But Made under the Production Code, so it's moralistic where Barfly refuses to be — this one wants you to see the wreckage as a warning.

The Lost Weekend1945

Billy Wilder's noir-lit portrait of a writer's bender was startling for 1945 and still hits — the same warped glamour of drink as muse and destroyer.

But Its Hollywood-approved ending softens what should stay hard; Barfly never blinks like this.

Sid and Nancy1986

Gary Oldman and Chloe Webb turn a punk romance into the same kind of squalid, doomed devotion Rourke and Dunaway have — love as a shared act of ruin.

But Heroin instead of gin, and a much darker, more claustrophobic ending than Barfly ever risks.

Crazy Heart2009

Jeff Bridges' washed-up country singer is Henry Chinaski with a guitar — charming, wrecked, and given one more shot at love he probably doesn't deserve.

But It's warmer and more redemptive than Barfly allows itself to be; the ending wants you to feel good.

Trainspotting1996

Swap gin for heroin and Skid Row for Edinburgh, and you get the same giddy, funny, horrifying rhythm of addiction as lifestyle rather than tragedy.

But Faster, nastier, and more visually inventive than Barfly's barroom stillness — a different kind of high altogether.

A Star Is Born1954

Same story underneath the glamour — a talented drunk and the person who loves him anyway — but told as a lush, tragic Hollywood musical instead of a scuzzy bar comedy.

Judy Garland and James Mason turn Barfly's central wound — loving someone drinking themselves to death — into full Technicolor melodrama, with career-best performances from both.

But It's long, theatrical, and asks you to swallow a much more sentimental version of the same tragedy.

Cocktail1988

Take Barfly's bar-as-battlefield setting and drain out every ounce of despair — same world of drinkers and hustlers, played as glossy, horny, aspirational fun instead of doom.

Tom Cruise flips bottles and charms customers in the most shameless, MTV-era version of bar culture imaginable — pure trashy pleasure if you want the hangover without the pain.

But It has none of Barfly's honesty or grit; this is the fantasy version, and some viewers will find that a betrayal of the subject.