People attempting to deal with depression by getting drunk in Live-Action Films.
- In the Russian war movie 9th Company, one of the characters quietly declares that he would drink until he forgot about Afghanistan when the titular company is lightheartedly discussing what they would do after the war. This turned the mood somber very quickly.
- In ...And Your Name Is Jonah, Jenny copes with Danny's absence by drinking wine while watching I Love Lucy.
- George Valentin in The Artist, which he does for a great portion of the middle of the film after his unwillingness to adjust to talkies from silent pictures backfires on him, along with his own film, Tears of Love, bombing and bankrupting him. At one point, he is dragged out of a bar by his old butler, Clifford.
- Back to the Future Part III has a subversion. Doc goes to get drunk after losing Clara and despite telling the bartender to "leave the bottle" doesn't actually drink anything, but acts strangely anyway. Well, to the other patrons, he's acting weird. To the rest of us, he's just moping and rattling off common knowledge about 1985.Some Guy: How much has he had?
Bartender: None. That's the first one and he hasn't touched it yet.- And when he actually drinks one shot of whiskey (in celebration) he passes out instantly.
- In The Baker's Wife, the baker resorts to this after his wife runs off with another man.
- In Bat*21, after a rescue mission has gone disastrously wrong, Captain Clarke walks in on Colonel Walker hunched over a chair holding a mostly empty bottle of whiskey. After the colonel finally notices the intrusion he says, "We lost six people today, Clarke. Kids, all of 'em. Just kids."
- Bridget Jones' Diary: Bridget finds out that Daniel cheats on her with a skinny American and that he wants to marry her. But she will not be defeated by a bad man and an American stick insect. She chooses vodka and gets drunk.
- Rick Blaine does this in Casablanca. You know the quote:Rick: Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine.
- Near the beginning of Deadpool 2, after Vanessa's death and becoming a Death Seeker over it, Wade Wilson starts drinking more than usual at Sister Margaret's. In between swigs, he bemoans George Michael's passing, and that "At least we still have Bowie..."
- In The Fly (1986), Seth and Veronica's celebration of his successfully teleporting a baboon via his telepods is put to an abrupt halt when she, having found a message from her editor/ex-lover indicating that he is trying to blackmail her into leaving Seth and returning to him, decides to confront him, only giving Seth a cryptic explanation as to why. Now alone, Seth puts what he knows about Veronica and her editor together and comes to the conclusion he's being cuckolded, and gets drunk on the champagne he was sharing with her by way of celebration. At first this is Played for Laughs as he ends up ranting about his woes to the baboon, but then Seth decides that since it seems to be perfectly fine, why not become Professor Guinea Pig and teleport himself? He promptly gets to it, and doesn't notice that a housefly is in the telepod with him as he goes through...
- In A Few Good Men, Daniel Kaffee gets roaring drunk after an important witness for his case commits suicide.
- The First Wives Club: Goldie Hawn's character bawls about how she would have been cast as the sexy lead character of Monique in a movie not five years ago, but now she's Monique's mother. She babbles about how other actors would be better suited to the role, ending in Sean Connery, but counters the last, noting that Sean Connery would be Monique's boyfriend, as he's 500 years old but "still a stud..."
- In The Four Musketeers, Athos (Oliver Reed) gets drunk to forget about his betrayal by Milady De Winter.
- Girls Like Magic: After hearing Jamie getting into a fight with her ex, Maggie comes over bearing alcohol and ice cream for this purpose. Jamie quickly takes up her offer.
- In The Guilty, Rashid's guilty conscience over lying to cover for Asger and his nervousness over testifying the next day causes him to hit the bottle.
- Linda and Ned have a discussion about this in Holiday. See also the "Theatre" entry.
- The Hunger Games: Just like in the books, Haymitch is pretty drunk when he first meets the latest set of kids he'll have to prepare to fight to the death. Unlike in the books, it's not a formal agreement he makes with Katniss and Peeta that keeps him out of the bar. The film makes a clear point of displaying how he sobers up only after it becomes clear to him that Katniss and Peeta have a legitimate chance of surviving the games (and on several occasions he is reminded that tributes and children from other districts actually see being recruited for the games as a good thing, even fun).
- Sarah Packard in The Hustler (1961) frequently does this, to forget her various past loves.
- The protagonist of British World War II movie Ice Cold in Alex starts out the film drinking heavily as a result of the stress he's been put under during the campaign in Africa, and the plot is driven by his yearning for a cold beer 300 miles away.
- After Howard Brackett (Kevin Kline) admits to his fiancée Emily Montgomery (Joan Cusack) that he's gay shortly before they're to get married in the 1997 comedy In & Out, Emily is shown drowning her sorrows at the same bar Peter Malloy (Tom Selleck) is at. When a wedding dress-clad Emily hits on Peter and Peter reveals that he too is gay, this creates a hilarious Heroic BSoD moment that was coincidentally what was shown on that year's Oscars telecast when Joan Cusack was nominated for an Oscar for that role.
- Just Like Heaven: David spends most of his time drinking and watching his old wedding video because his wife recently passed away from a sudden stroke.
- Mr. Miyagi in The Karate Kid Part II. The scene in the first film when he's drinking because of his and his dead wife's anniversary qualifies, too. Especially because he passes out.
- Jason Lee's character does this to an absurd degree in Kissing A Fool.
- The Last Samurai, starring Tom Cruise, has retired U.S. Army Captain Nathan Algren drunk for a good third of the movie, drowning his sorrows and being haunted by nightmares due to his role in the American Indian genocide around the time of General Custer.
- In Like Normal People, Roger's mother drinks to deal with the stress of caring for him, the lack of money, and her worry over his future.
- The explanation given for why Michael was in prison for a year in Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day: He planned on asking a girl to marry him, but she didn't show, so he opened up the bottle of champagne he brought, and in the course of a bottle decided the best course of action was to get her a new ring. From the Tower of London.
- Macho Dancer: Dismayed at his sister's apparent fate and jealous of Pol and Bambi's relationship, Noel engages in alcohol, drugs and self-harm with other dancers.
- In the Puerto Rican short film Modesta, this sign can be seen in the tavern.Si toma para olvidar
Pague antes de tomar
(If you drink to forget
Then pay before you drink) - Mr. Ricco: When George, a police detective, finds proof that a cop shot an unarmed man and planted a shotgun on him, he tells a fellow officer, "Let's get drunk."
- New Police Story: The main character, Chan Kwok-Wing, binge-drinks almost-to-death for years and (briefly) quit as a cop out of severe guilt over failing to save his squads from gruesome deaths.
- Outcast has the protagonist, Jacob, drinking under a table within a tavern after witnessing first-hand the atrocities of war from the Crusades.
- In Perfect Days
- In Perfect Days the protagonist mostly lives a healthy life. However at some point he feels sad, buys beers and cigarettes and starts smoking while also drinking (for just one night apparently).
- Please Turn Over: Two examples in Jo's book, Naked Revolt:
- Aunt Una knocks back bottles of gin to get over the pain of Dr. Gay sleeping around with other women.
- Roger has to drink after Stella leaves him to go off with Rod:Roger: Keep them coming 'til that's all used up.Barman: Bitter?Roger: Yeah, what do you think? (Beat) No, no, scotch, make it scotch. Large ones, the largest you've got.
- Inigo Montoya does it in The Princess Bride after losing a sword fight and losing Vizzini, thinking he'll never be able to kill the six-fingered man now.
- The Punisher (2004) has the title character resort to drinking Wild Turkey Bourbon (TM) straight in his depression after the murder of his entire family. The way the bottle was clearly labeled and placed on the table facing the audience smacks of Product Placement.
- Raiders of the Lost Ark invokes the trope twice; first Indy drowns his sorrows when he thinks Marion was blown up by the Nazis, then Belloq thinks he's drowning his sorrows with Marion, but as we already know, she's drinking him under the table trying to escape.
- Harry and Cecil from Revenge for Jolly! consume huge quantities of beer, prescription drugs, and weed after the murder of Harry's beloved dog.
- In Riot on Sunset Strip, Andy's mother is a raging alcoholic, which she says is because of the horrible suffering she's been through. She never specifies exactly what happened to her.
- Saw: One of the flashbacks in Saw V features Hoffman drinking alcoholic drinks at a bar to emphasize his depression in the aftermath of his sister's murder. It's implied in flashbacks taking place at similar points in the whole franchise that this ended up boiling into alcoholism, hence Hoffman's unusual open violence towards others outside of his typical killing job.
- Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors: Ivan drinks copious amounts of vodka as he mourns Marichka during his loveless marriage.
- In Shredder Orpheus, after losing Eurydice by looking back, Orpheus drowns his sorrows in his music and skateboarding for at least a year.
- Coogan, Finegarten, and Culley sit around drinking heavily after Felix's death in S.O.B..
- Similarly, Harry Osborn in Spider-Man 2 takes up drinking as he grieves over the death of his father in the prior movie. Harry's drink of choice is Makers Mark Whiskey.
- Star Trek Into Darkness: Kirk after losing the Enterprise, followed by Scotty when Kirk is forced to accept his resignation when he won't allow the experimental torpedoes onto the ship.
- Tecate beer is common for this trope, as it is one of the few beer brands that will pay for product placement even when characters use it in this way:
- Drowning Sorrows appears in The Three Musketeers (1993), with Kiefer Sutherland as Athos.
- In The Truman Show it's implied that Marlon is a heavy drinker because of the guilt he feels over constantly lying to his best friend. Interestingly, while that implication is there in the finished film, it's not present in some earlier versions of the script. Originally, Marlon was written as being almost entirely guiltless about his role on the show, and, in a deleted scene where the show's staff and actors meet behind the scenes, he gleefully mentions how much severance money the actors get if and when Truman dies, a remark that makes even the other actors uncomfortable.
- In the "Weird Al" Yankovic vehicle UHF, George reaches rock bottom after learning that the TV station he works for is days away from becoming insolvent, and then his girlfriend, Teri, breaks up with him because he forgot her birthday. A frustrated George decides to go out for a drink, and orders something pink with a little umbrella in it. It's a blueberry daiquiri. The drink clashes horribly with his somber mood. The commentary reveals that it was supposed to be much more flamboyant, but someone in the prop department missed the memo.George: I need a drink!
Bob: You don't drink.
George: Yeah, but I've been meaning to start. - Vamps: A distributing case of drowning one's sorrows with blood, combined with being a Villainous Glutton when Cisserus drinks a whole restaurant dry, and implies that she'd killed more people directly before that, after a celebrity she'd attempted to seduce rejects her.
- The reason Ron is the town drunk in The Warrior's Way.
- What Price Hollywood? has Max as The Alcoholic who only gets worse when Mary marries Lonnie.
- In When a Woman Ascends the Stairs, Keiko, who normally doesn't like to drink, gets drunk after Yuri's suicide and after one of her clients, a banker, sent someone to the funeral home to demand money from Yuri's mother. Unfortunately, getting drunk ends up causing her ulcer to bleed.
- Eddie Valiant in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, who still grieves over the death of his brother years earlier.
- Lawrence after learning of Ben's death and then seeing what's left of him in The Wolfman (2010).
- Wonder Woman (2017): The war left Charlie an emotional wreck; he became a heavy drinker once discharged and has regular nightmares, freaking out upon waking up from them.
- Agent Mulder drinks in The X-Files: Fight the Future after he finds out that the FBI blames Scully and him for a bomb explosion and wants to split them up.
- X-Men Film Series:
- X-Men Origins: Wolverine: Subverted; during one of the post-credits scenes, we see Wolverine in a Japanese bar. The bartendress asks him if he's drinking to forget, to which Wolverine replies he's drinking to remember.
- X-Men: Days of Future Past: The younger Charles Xavier attempts to escape from his emotional torment by consuming copious amounts of alcohol.
- X-Men: Apocalypse:
- Angel has several bottles of alcohol to choose from when Apocalypse pays him a visit. Warren Worthington III is drunk because although he managed to escape from the East Berlin fight club venue, he has no friends and nowhere to go.
- Ms. Maximoff drinks heavily in the middle of the day because she still resents Erik Lehnsherr for abandoning her before Peter was born, which would've been in the mid-1950s, a time when unmarried women with children were ostracized.
