While Netflix is an excellent source of entertainment, it is also a great place to gain a broader understanding of different cultures and lifestyles. There are plenty of lesser known, independent, and foreign films in the media provider’s repertoire, and it’s well worth taking a few hours’ detour outside the mainstream flow of popular cinema and into the depths of raw, unpretentious filmmaking where the viewer will find fresh takes and new perspectives.

The fun part about navigating different film genres is that it is sometimes uncomfortable. Maybe not pins and needles uncomfortable, but more like heroin-aided dives through Scotland’s sewage system uncomfortable, as in the 1996 Oscar-nominated film Trainspotting, a tormenting drama that follows the lives of several young drug-addicts through economically depressed Edinburgh, Scotland.

The film, which is based on a book by Irvine Welsh of the same title, is centered on Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor) who finds himself in the midst of his young adult life without a job, and without any direction except for the places his heroin addiction takes him. Renton is less than enchanted by the conventional life, which consists of mind-numbing 9 to 5 jobs, needy families and pointless acquisition of material wealth, which he finds just as distasteful, if not worse than his own unproductive heroin-laden existence. Meanwhile, his friends have chosen the same path for different reasons, and together they try to cope with the difficulties of growing up in Scotland, incidentally, by cooking up heroin.

Such a film could have only been facilitated by director Danny Boyle, who is known for several successful films, including Slumdog Millionaire and 28 Days Later. Boyle is a master of making the viewer feel unsafe and at times, plunged too far into the world he creates to ever return unscathed, which is an accurate description of how the viewer feels after watching Trainspotting for the first or fifth time. The movie’s squirm factor is one of the reasons it has become a cult classic, and the director’s fashion of thrusting the viewer into a messy town with these lunatic disheveled junkies makes the film so compelling—even the most casual observer cannot help but pay attention, especially when the shots inspire tears or gag reflexes, which they frequently do.

Although the movie is not light, there are a few laughs as the characters find fun and often dangerous ways to pass the time between hits and bar fights, and the soundtrack is exceptional. Featuring songs by New Order, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, Pulp, and Brain Eno, among others, the music in the film is every hipster’s ideal Monday morning Spotify fix.

If you haven’t already added this film to your queue, do yourself a favor and watch it, if for no other reason than to see a scantily clad Ewan McGregor romping around Scotland in skimpy t-shirts. As Renton ominously says in the opening of the film, “who needs reasons when you’ve got heroin?”