Ten Best Gambling Movies
One of the most popular movie genres to come out of Hollywood is the gambling movie. These films have people betting, losing and winning fortunes. Gambling movies and films have been made since the time of the silent films. What is surprising is that there are still many new gambling films being made. In fact, you can even watch live streaming casino games up to 7 days a week. This article is going to cover some of the best gambling films ever made.
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The Cooler
A casino cooler is a person whose job is to purposefully lose at blackjack, so as to help other players win. The main character of this movie, Bernie (William H. Macy) is one such casino employee and he uses his powers of persuasion to help “his” people win big while causing them to lose small. Along the way, he falls in love with Natalie (Maria Bello), who works as a cocktail waitress at the casino.
Bernie has an uncanny ability to sense what cards are likely to come next, which enables him to manipulate the players around him for their own good—and his own profit. Bernie has been hired by a Las Vegas casino owner named Shelly Kaplow (Alec Baldwin) who wants him out of town because he has become more successful than anyone else on staff and therefore threatens everyone else’s job security
The Cincinnati Kid
The Cincinnati Kid is a 1965 American film directed by Norman Jewison and starring Steve McQueen, Edward G. Robinson, Tuesday Weld and Karl Malden. It is based on the novel of the same name by Richard Jessup.[2] The film was released by Universal Pictures on December 20, 1965.
The film is loosely based on the life of poker player Arnold Rothstein.[3] A young, reformed gambler must return to playing big stakes poker to help a friend pay off loan sharks, while balancing his relationship with his girlfriend and his commitments to law school.
Casino Royale
Casino Royale is a 1967 film adaptation of the first James Bond novel by Ian Fleming. It was directed by John Huston and stars David Niven as Sir James Bond, Peter Sellers as Evelyn Tremble, Ursula Andress as Vesper Lynd and Orson Welles as Le Chiffre. It is not part of the Eon Productions series but rather a spoof made with the blessing of Ian Fleming himself. Sean Connery was offered the role but turned it down and so David Niven took on the role instead.
Rounders
Rounders is a 1998 film about a young law student who gets involved with underground poker games. Matt Damon plays the lead role, alongside John Malkovich and Edward Norton. Gretchen Mol plays the beautiful JoJo. The movie has an original music score by Carter Burwell, who also wrote the music for True Romance (1993), Seven Psychopaths (2012), Carol (2015) and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri (2017).
Hard Eight
Hard Eight is directed by Paul Thomas Anderson and stars Philip Baker Hall, John C. Reilly, Gwyneth Paltrow, Samuel L. Jackson and others. The film is about an ex-dancer who takes a young man under his wing and teaches him how to gamble. It was released in 1996 and was based on the novel Hard Eight by Donald E. Westlake.
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Croupier
This is a British movie that stars Clive Owen and is directed by Mike Hodges. It’s based on the novel of the same name by Paul Mayersberg, who co-wrote the screenplay with Hodges. The story takes place in London and focuses on a croupier named Jack Manfred (Owen), who narrates his life story to a stranger he meets while playing blackjack at night. He talks about how he became disillusioned with his job after learning some disturbing things about himself during an assignment at work.
Owning Mahowny
Owning Mahowny is a 2003 drama film about a Canadian bank employee who becomes addicted to gambling and loses everything. The movie stars Philip Seymour Hoffman in his Oscar-winning role of Raymond “Ritchie” Mahowny, and was nominated for several awards including Best Original Screenplay. It was released in 2003, the same year as another gambling movie starring Jack Nicholson: The Cooler.
California Split
California Split is a 1974 film directed by Robert Altman, and starring Elliott Gould and George Segal. The novel California Split which the movie was based on was written in 1969 by Terry Southern and Mason Hoffenberg.
In the film, Henry Gondorff (Segal) is a compulsive gambler who meets Edward O’Neill (Gould), an equally addicted pool hustler. As they become friends, they find that their addiction creates problems in their lives—but it also helps them to bond over their shared obsession with winning money.
The Gambler
The Gambler is a 1974 American drama film directed by Karel Reisz, written by James Toback from Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s short story of the same name. The film stars James Caan as an English professor who gets involved with gambling debts. Paul Sorvino co-stars as his father, Lauren Hutton plays his lover, and Albert Finney appears in an early role as one of his students.
Jim later meets up with some fellow professors who invite him over for dinner where they both drink heavily while talking about literature until dawn breaks through into daylight hours; they then go out onto Central Park West where they continue drinking even more heavily before returning home together at around noon time – whereupon Jim passes out cold on top of some sheets without changing clothes first (and without putting anything underneath these sheets either).
California Split
California Split is a 1974 movie about a compulsive gambler who loses his money and tries to get it back by playing a game of poker.
The film stars George Segal and Elliot Gould as friends who find themselves together while they’re both trying to win money at the same time. The two actors have an amazing relationship on screen, and you can tell that they are having fun working together. The chemistry between them makes this movie great.
Conclusion
If you’re looking for a new way to watch movies, we recommend trying out one of these gambling films. They are some of the best movies in history, but also have a fun twist on them. If you’re looking for something more serious, then just go ahead and watch Casino Royale or Croupier.
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