Trainspotting is a 1996 Scottish film directed by Danny Boyle based on the novel of the same name by Irvine Welsh. The movie follows a group of heroin addicts in a late 1980s economically depressed area of Edinburgh and their passage through life. The film stars Ewan McGregor as Mark Renton, Ewen Bremner as Spud, Jonny Lee Miller as Sick Boy, Kevin McKidd as Tommy, Robert Carlyle as Begbie, and Kelly Macdonald as Diane. Author Irvine Welsh also has a cameo appearance as hapless drug dealer Mikey Forrester.

The Academy Award-nominated screenplay, by John Hodge, was adapted from Welsh's novel. It does not contain any references to the hobby of train spotting. The title is a reference to an episode in the original book (not included in the film) where Begbie and Renton meet "an auld drunkard" who turns out to be Begbie's estranged father, in the disused Leith Central railway station, which they are visiting to use as a toilet. He asks them if they are "trainspottin'."Welsh, 1997, Trainspotting, p. 309. The title also relates to obsessive behavior and to a slang term to inject or "mainline" heroin. Beyond drug addiction, other concurrent themes in the film are exploration of the urban poverty and squalor, in "culturally rich" Edinburgh.Genres in transition British National Cinema, by Sarah Street, Published by Routledge, 1997. ISBN 0415067359. Page 111.