[10] A 2017 poll, which consisted of 150 actors, directors, writers, producers and critics for Time Out magazine, ranked it the tenth best British film ever.

Mark Renton, a 26-year-old unemployed heroin addict living with his parents in Leith, regularly takes drugs with his "friends": treacherous, womanising James Bond fanatic Simon "Sick Boy" Williamson; docile and bumbling Daniel "Spud" Murphy; and Swanney—"Mother Superior"—their dealer.

Tiring of his reckless lifestyle, Renton attempts to wean himself off heroin with a bare room, foodstuffs, and opium suppositories from dodgy dealer Mikey Forrester.

This consists of meeting Sick Boy in a park where he uses an air gun to incite a stranger's dog to attack its owner, supplying Spud with amphetamine for a job interview that backfires, and stealing a sex tape of Tommy and his girlfriend, Lizzy.

Despite the group’s shock, grief, and horror regarding the negligence-induced death of Dawn, the infant daughter of Sick Boy and Allison, they still do not quit using.

Arrested, Spud receives a six-month custodial sentence at HMP Saughton, and Renton narrowly avoids jail by entering a drug rehabilitation programme where he is given methadone to help him.

Following severe withdrawal punctuated by hallucinations of his friends and visions of Dawn crawling on the ceiling, Renton is released upon the condition of an HIV/AIDS test.

Begbie, discovering Renton and the money gone, enragedly destroys their hotel room, prompting the police to arrest him as Sick Boy and Spud flee.

Music has great importance in Danny Boyle's films, as evident by the best-selling soundtracks for Trainspotting and Slumdog Millionaire, both of which feature many pop and punk rock artists.

[13] The combination of images and music with the setting of the criminal underworld has drawn comparisons to Pulp Fiction and the films of Quentin Tarantino, that had created a certain type of "90s indie cinema" which "strove to dazzle the viewer with self-conscious cleverness and empty shock tactics".

[14] This affected the shooting style of the film, which features "wildly imaginative" and "downright hallucinatory" visual imagery, achieved through a mix of "a handheld, hurtling camera", jump cuts, zoom shots, freeze frames and wide angles.

[20] Hodge read it and made it his goal to "produce a screenplay which would seem to have a beginning, a middle and an end, would last 90 minutes and would convey at least some of the spirit and the content of the book".

[21] Boyle convinced Welsh to let them option the rights to his book by writing him a letter stating that Hodge and Macdonald were "the two most important Scotsmen since Kenny Dalglish and Alex Ferguson".

[19] Boyle had heard about Jonny Lee Miller playing an American in the film Hackers and was impressed when he auditioned by doing a Sean Connery accent.

[17] For the role of Begbie, Boyle considered casting Christopher Eccleston for his resemblance to how he imagined the character in the novel, but asked Robert Carlyle instead.

He also went to Glasgow and met people from the Calton Athletic Recovery Group, an organisation of recovering heroin addicts, who play the opposing football team in the opening credits.

Danny Boyle had his actors prepare by making them watch older films about rebellious youths like The Hustler and A Clockwork Orange.

[33][34][35] Danny Boyle approached Oasis about contributing a song to the soundtrack but Noel Gallagher turned down the opportunity due to him mistakenly believing it would be a film about actual trainspotters.

[60] In his review for The Guardian, Derek Malcolm gave the film credit for tapping into the youth subculture of the time and felt that it was "acted out with a freedom of expression that's often astonishing.

[16] In his review for the Los Angeles Times, Kenneth Turan wrote, "in McGregor ... the film has an actor whose magnetism monopolizes our attention no matter what".

[63] Entertainment Weekly gave the film an "A" rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote, "Like Scorsese and Tarantino, Boyle uses pop songs as rhapsodic mood enhancers, though in his own ravey-hypnotic style.

Whether he's staging a fumbly sex montage to Sleeper's version of "Atomic" or having Renton go cold turkey to the ominous slow build of Underworld's "Dark and Long" ... Trainspotting keeps us wired to the pulse of its characters' passions".

Most of it sticks to the same moderate pitch, with entertainment value enhanced by Mr. Boyle's savvy use of wide angles, bright colours, attractively clean compositions and a dynamic pop score".

[65] Rolling Stone's Peter Travers wrote, "the film's flash can't disguise the emptiness of these blasted lives.

[66] In his review for The Washington Post, Desson Howe wrote, "Without a doubt, this is the most provocative, enjoyable pop-cultural experience since Pulp Fiction".

[67] Jonathan Rosenbaum, in his review for the Chicago Reader, wrote, "Like Twister and Independence Day, this movie is a theme-park ride – though it's a much better one, basically a series of youthful thrills, spills, chills, and swerves rather than a story intended to say very much".

[68] The film's release sparked controversy in some countries, including Britain, Australia and the United States, as to whether or not it promoted and romanticised drug use.

"[83] On 6 May 2014, during a BBC Radio interview with Richard Bacon, Welsh confirmed that he had spent a week with Boyle, Andrew Macdonald and the creative team behind Trainspotting to discuss the sequel.

In a newspaper interview with The Scotsman on 17 November 2014, Welsh said that McGregor and Boyle had resolved their differences and had held meetings about the film, saying "I know Danny and Ewan are back in touch with each other again.

T2 stars the original ensemble cast, including leads Ewan McGregor, Ewen Bremner, Jonny Lee Miller, and Robert Carlyle, with Shirley Henderson, James Cosmo, and Kelly Macdonald.