In this paper we deal with the following class of nonlinear Schrödinger equations − Δ u + V ( | x | ) u = λ Q ( | x | ) f ( u ) , x ∈ R 2 , where λ > 0 is a real parameter, the potential V and the weight Q are radial, which can be singular at the origin, unbounded or decaying at infinity and the nonlinearity f ( s ) behaves like e α s 2 at infinity. By performing a variational approach based on a weighted Trudinger–Moser type inequality proved here, we obtain some existence and multiplicity results.