
Desperate Lives
1982-03-03 · 96 min · ★ 6.5
A brother and sister get caught up in the drug scene in their local high school, with tragic results.
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Production details
- Directors
- Robert Michael Lewis
- Production companies
- Fellows-Keegan Company, Lorimar Productions
- Countries
- United States of America
- Status
- Released
Top Cast
Diana ScarwidEileen Phillips
Doug McKeonScott Cameron
Helen HuntSandy Cameron
William WindomDr. Jarvis
Art HindleStan
Tom AtkinsJohn Cameron
Norman AldenCoach
Tricia CastSusan Garber
Sam BottomsKen Baynes
Diane LaddCarol Cameron
Michele GreeneJulie Jordan
Terry AlexanderRobert Walsh
Joyce BrothersMrs. Watson
Katherine Kelly LangMary
Jane MilmoreJane
Grant CramerSteveTitle information and images are supplied by TMDb. Explore our discovery guide for advice on comparing metadata and legal viewing options.
Where to watch
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Seasons & episodes
Recommendations

Burglary. Drugs. Assault. Rape. The students at Brandel High are more than new Principal Rick Latimer bargained for. Gangs fight to control the school using knives - even guns - when they have to. When Latimer and the head of security try to clean up the school and stop the narcotics trade, they run up against a teenage mafia. A violent confrontation on the campus leads to a deadly showdown with the drug dealer's gang, and one last chance for Latimer to save his career... and his life.

After he and his first wife separate, journalist David Sheff struggles to help their teenage son, who goes from experimenting with drugs to becoming devastatingly addicted to methamphetamine.

A high school basketball player’s life turns upside down after free-falling into the harrowing world of drug addiction.

After their mother dies of an overdose, two sisters hide her body to avoid being separated by the foster system, but as their secret threatens to unravel, they must confront the consequences of their desperate choice.

When principal Joe Clark takes over decaying Eastside High School, he's faced with students wearing gang colors and graffiti-covered walls. Determined to do anything he must to turn the school around, he expels suspected drug dealers, padlocks doors and demands effort and results from students, staff and parents. Autocratic to a fault, this real-life educator put it all on the line.

Based on a true story. Liz Murray is a young girl who is taken care of by her loving, but drug-addicted parents. Liz becomes homeless at 15 and after a tragedy comes upon her, she begins her work to finish high school.

A college freshman returns to Los Angeles for Christmas at his ex-girlfriend's request, but discovers that his former best friend has an out-of-control drug habit.

Thomas Montgomery, a married father of two young daughters, gets seduced by the world of online gambling and chat rooms where a virtual romance and sexual obsession ultimately leads to the murder of an innocent man.

High-school students start a vigilante group in their neighbourhood but, as their power increases, they become more abusive and dangerous.

A logger defends his family from a group of dangerous drug runners.

The story of how George Jung, together with the Medellín Cartel led by Pablo Escobar, established the billion-dollar cocaine empire in the United States in the 1970s.

The drug-induced utopias of four Coney Island residents are shattered when their addictions run deep.

The story of a precocious six year-old and her ragtag group of friends whose summer break is filled with childhood wonder, possibility and a sense of adventure while the adults around them struggle with hard times.

A quiet, stoic man, lives a monk-like existence in self-imposed exile. When his estranged son is killed in a drug deal gone bad, he is left to look after a granddaughter he never knew existed, and he is forced back into a life he tried to put behind him.

In the fall of 1994, a teacher at Chicago's run-down Steinmetz High conspires with the school's academic decathlon team to cheat on an academic competition.

A college student must take care of her 7-year-old half sister after the death of their parents.

A group of high-school friends must come to terms with the fact that one of them, Samson, killed another, Jamie. Faced with the brutality of death, each must decide whether to turn their friend in to the police, or to help him escape the consequences of his dreadful deed.

In the late 1990s, up-and-coming mixed martial artist Mark Kerr aspires to become the greatest fighter in the world. However, he must also battle his opioid dependence and a volatile relationship with his girlfriend Dawn.

An eighteen year old high school drop out and his twenty-seven year old friend start trafficking marijuana across the border of Canada in order to make money and their lives are changed forever.

Two separate stories mesh - in the first, a young music teacher, Maggie Andrews, begins dying of a heart condition and her son Nathan tries to get a pair of Christmas shoes for her before she dies. In the second, lawyer Robert Layton and his wife Kate are slowly drifting apart and the matter comes to a head during Christmas when Kate takes over for Maggie for the school choir.
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