The Lost Weekend is a 1945 American drama film

Drama film

A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...

 directed by Billy Wilder

Billy Wilder

Billy Wilder was an Austro-Hungarian born American filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, artist, and journalist, whose career spanned more than 50 years and 60 films. He is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Hollywood's golden age...

 and starring Ray Milland

Ray Milland

Ray Milland was a Welsh actor and director. His screen career ran from 1929 to 1985, and he is best remembered for his Academy Award–winning portrayal of an alcoholic writer in The Lost Weekend , a sophisticated leading man opposite a corrupt John Wayne in Reap the Wild Wind , the murder-plotting...

 and Jane Wyman

Jane Wyman

Jane Wyman was an American singer, dancer, and character actress of film and television. She began her film career in the 1930s, and was a prolific performer for two decades...

. The film was based on a novel of the same title

The Lost Weekend (novel)

The Lost Weekend is Charles R. Jackson's first novel, published by Farrar & Rinehart in 1944. It served as the basis for a film adaptation by the same name in 1945.-Synopsis:...

 by Charles R. Jackson

Charles R. Jackson

Charles Reginald Jackson was an American author, best known for his 1944 novel The Lost Weekend.-Career:Jackson's first published story, "Palm Sunday", appeared in the Partisan Review in 1939...

 about a writer who drinks heavily.
The film recounts the life of an alcoholic

Alcoholism

Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...

 New York writer, Don Birnam (Milland), over the last half of a six year period, and in particular on a weekend alcoholic binge.

A shot of the Manhattan skyline to an apartment, with a whiskey bottle hung outside a window.