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Top 10 Pills in Movies

Or, more properly, Top 10 Life-Enhancing Supplements – give your life a lift with the film world’s finest selection of uppers. WARNING: do not mix medicines, do not exceed the stated dose, and beware the potential side effects...

Our Top 10 Films

Clear Pill – Limitless (2011)

Dose: Take 1 tablet daily, 2 max (but build up it, don’t go mad).

Benefits: Access to 100% of your brain, so in mere days you can write a novel, learn a new language or instrument, whip the casino and the stock market, and woo anyone with your wit, humour and intellect.

Side-effects: The mother of all comedowns, plus – well – the light that burns twice as bright burns half as long, let’s put it like that.

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Red Pill – The Matrix (1999)

Dose: Take 1 red pill, er, once.

Benefits: No longer a slave to the Matrix, you’ll be alive, for real. And, when you plug in, you’ll swish about in cool shades, tote high-end automatic weaponry and – of course – you’ll know kung-fu.

Side-effects: The food’s crap, the everyday fashion’s worse, and you must live in fear of discovery on a greasy ship with other ‘liberated’ refugees.

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Bottle & Cake – Alice in Wonderland (2010)

Dose: 5ml from the bottle (don’t overdo it); one small bite (REALLY don’t overdo it).

Benefits: A slurp from the bottle means you can fit into those jeans again. And through the tiny door into a world of technicolour mentalists. The cake means you can play pro-league basketball. And reach the key you forgot to grab off the table.

Side-effects: Hallucinations, interactions with anthropomorphic animals and floating cats, and a strange craving for tea. Or, possibly, rum.

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Everlasting Gobstopper – Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory

Everlasting Gobstopper – Willy Wonka & the Choc Factory (1971)

Dose: Pop 1 into your mouth, and that’s it.

Benefits: For families on lower incomes, it’s a confection of extreme economic efficiency - each comes with a lifetime guarantee: “You can suck ‘em forever!”

Side-effects: Exactly how many E numbers must Wonka have packed into these, and are they really, fully tested? (Probably not). Each Gobstopper might also be a sweet masquerading as a morality test – beware!

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Spinach – Popeye (1980)

Dose: Approx 250g of spinach (canned), 2-3 times daily.

Benefits: You’ll be strong to the finish of... well, whatever task presents itself. Lifting stuff and bashing other stuff seem to be typical options.

Side-effects: Mood swings and violent tendencies, especially in relation to domestic disputes with your girlfriend’s hulking ex. Plus, digesting this quantity of iron-rich leaves will give a new meaning to greenhouse gases.

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Stardust – Stardust (2007)

Dose: One sliver per rejuvenation.

Benefits: An instant return to youth, beauty and A-list movie-star glamour (has Michelle Pfeiffer been scoffing a secret stash of this for years? Or does she just have a spooky painting in her loft?)

Side-effects: Wears off by degrees when you enact the dark arts, so if you enjoy one enchanted evening, beware the morning-after effect.

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Potion – Death Becomes Her (1992)

Dose: 50 ml, once only.

Benefits: It’s a bit cheaper (and more humane) than tracking down a sliver of stardust, but only just. Offers not just rejuvenation, but full-on immortality – you’ll live forever, impervious to pain...

Side-effects: ...but not injury. Physical damage will take its toll, so look after your undead body (or find a good plastic surgeon who can make running repairs).

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Miracle Max’s Chocolate-Coated Pill – The Princess Bride (1987)

Dose: Take 1, and don’t swim for at least... a good hour.

Benefits: Well, it brings you back to life (providing you were only ‘mostly dead’ in the first place), so you can go on to fulfil a noble and romantic cause.

Side-effects: It takes a while to kick in, so pay good heed to the swimming caution, and be aware that – should you be faced with a sword duel too soon after taking the pill – you may need to rely upon bluff and misdirection to see you through.

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Capsule of Quaid – Innerspace (1987)

Dose: One capsule, injected by hypodermic needle directly into the bloodstream.

Benefits: As long as it’s Dennis Quaid dispensing advice from the miniaturised pod, actually hearing voices inside your head is probably a good thing. He can control your facial muscles and make you look like someone else, too.

Side-effects: Acting a bit weird, plus you’re likely to become a target for organised criminal gangs bent on international espionage. There’s always something, right?

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Michael’s Secret Stuff – Space Jam (1996)

Dose: As much as you like.

Benefits: Transforms the confidence of diminutive, under-dog sports teams facing impossible odds, turning them into world-beaters.

Side-effects: None whatsoever, except perhaps a spot of either disillusionment or enlightenment when you realise that the Secret Stuff of basketball legend Michael Jordan has chemical properties very similar to H20.

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Darren Bignell