Of all the movie genres, there’s something about the allure of gambling, greed, and brotherhood that keeps audiences coming back for more. These films, including popular book adaptations, showcased in this article, exemplify elite moviemaking and break down the most incredible gambling movies, revealing why we can’t get enough.
The Card Counter
The Card Counter is not your typical gambling movie because it’s gory. William Tell (Oscar Isaac) leads a lonely, depressing existence as he aimlessly moves from hotel to the next with only a suitcase. During his military prison stint, he became adept at counting cards during the extreme torture of prisoners.
Molly’s Game
Based on the real life story of Molly Bloom, enjoy 2 hours of a poker queen running an underground empire. Molly’s Game is loaded with star power, including Idris Elba. Jessica Chastain hits it out of the park as Molly Boom.. For those looking for a gangster’s paradise, Molly’s Game has it all: star athletes, crooked CEOS, performers, and mobsters. Thrilling, exciting, and riding on incredible performances, Molly’s Game has all the ingredients to make a great crime drama.
The Color of Money
Martin Scorsese, Tom Cruise, and Paul Newman all lend their extraordinary talents in this Atlantic City-based class film. The Color of Money is considered the unofficial sequel to Newman’s iconic film, The Hustler, in 1961.
Cut to 25 years later, with The Color of Money opening with a spectacularly staged pool game that whisks us away to Atlantic City, New Jersey, and the fast-talking Paul Newman as a retired pool hustler, “Fast Eddie”. Newman plays a self-proclaimed teacher to our not-so-humble student Vincent, deftly played by Tom Cruise. The game? Pool, of course. But as Cruise learns the tools of hustling, he is also gaining several life lessons.
A lesson in pool and life led to a long, lonely road to every pool hall in town, including gorgeous views of the big casinos near me and you, taking Eddie and Vincent on a gambling, scamming journey of big bucks, Atlantic City, and the magical nine-ball. With massive egos, the pair of crooks is bound to drive themselves and each other crazy before they make it to the end of their journey.
California Split
The vast majority of gambling movies take the high-flying, glitzy lifestyle of card rooms, pool halls, and Vegas hotels and amp it up to ridiculous proportions, but California Split goes for realism to observe its two main characters, who also inspired the film, Mississippi Grind.
Bill Denny, played by George Segal, and Charlie Waters (Elliott Gould) meet at a poker game when Denny gets mugged by a sore card loser. But they quickly discover they share a mutual and fatal love of gambling.
Hooked like drug addicts on their next score, the two gamblers can’t resist the pull of chasing the jackpot—and it’s never about where the money is, whether it’s at the horse races, boxing matches, or elsewhere.
California Split brilliantly reveals Vegas’s dark side, including the problems of mixing cocaine, violence, and sex, and the downfall fueled by gambling. However, even in the middle of the chaos, California Split still manages to make us laugh.