The Basketball Diaries is one of Leonardo DiCaprio’s earliest performances and is a harrowing look at addiction, but — where to watch it?
Fans of The Basketball Diaries may be wondering where to watch the 1995 crime drama. The Basketball Diaries is one of Leonardo DiCaprio’s first feature films and is based on Jim Carroll’s autobiographical novel of the same name. Released in 1995, the harrowing movie follows Jim (DiCaprio), a high school basketball player who has substance abuse issues with heroin. As the school year progresses, Jim spirals downward into drug addiction alongside his friends Pedro (James Madio) and Mickey (Mark Wahlberg), loses his home, is forced into sex work and theft, and is eventually jailed before getting sober.
Jim is one of Leonardo DiCaprio’s more underrated characters, an indicator of his incredible later roles rather than a knock on The Basketball Diaries. The film is a dark and personal look at drug addiction and how it can ruin lives, slowly at first, and then rapidly, like a basketball game where the opposing team is two points ahead, then five, and suddenly, one team is so far behind they don’t know what happened. The movie has a 47% on Rotten Tomatoes, but audience reviews are much more favorable, with the film being an iconic milestone in DiCaprio’s career.
The Basketball Diaries Isn’t Currently Available To Stream, Rent Or Buy Online — Will That Change?
Distribution Rights Issues For The Basketball Diaries Are Convoluted
At the moment, The Basketball Diaries is not available to stream, rent, or buyon any platform. Those wanting to watch the film will have to purchase a physical copy (it’s DVD, Blu-ray, and even VHS for delivery on Amazon), or just patiently wait for it to come on streaming. Sadly, it does not appear that The Basketball Diaries will become available online anytime soon, and there’s been no information released regarding it.
While there are no explicit reasons given why The Basketball Diaries is not widely available, there are some strange issues regarding the rights to the film that may stop it from appearing on streamers. For one, while New Line Cinema distributed the film, it was apparently co-produced with Island Pictures, a subsidiary of Island Records. The US distribution rights have since gone to Palm Pictures (via Palm Pictures) and MGM appears to have the international distribution rights.
The Basketball Diaries’ Other Controversies & Lawsuits Explained
Jim’s Daydream Has An Unfortunate Real-World Allusion
The controversies surrounding The Basketball Diaries also make it a hotbed of issues not worth untangling the ownership rights over. In the film, there’s a scene where Jim dreams about committing a school shooting. In it, Jim is wearing a black trenchcoat, much like the ones that the shooters in the 1997 Heath High School shooting and the 1999 Columbine High School massacre were wearing. Parents from the high school sued the studio, as well as other media companies, asserting that the shooters were influenced by the film (via The New York Times).
Though these cases were later dismissed (via The New York Times) any distributor or streamer who wants to provide The Basketball Diaries will certainly have to reckon with its history. This may simply be a case where there’s a confluence of too many reasons not to do something, which is keeping the film off streaming platforms.
