Filmmakers have long sought to use casinos as settings for their movies. Sometimes these venues are central to the action and at other times they merely provide an attractive backdrop.
There is certainly much about the casino experience that can make for compelling cinema. Casinos see people stake large sums of money on the spin of a roulette wheel, the roll of the dice or the next hand of cards.
That edge-of-seat tension that casinos provides is combined with the opulence and stylish dress of the best casinos. This mix of grittiness and glamour cannot be found anywhere else and it intrigues movie writers and directors, as well as audiences.
Of course a lot of casino gaming today takes place online and perhaps we will soon see the play at a top casino site depicted on the silver screen. Until then, here are the highest rated movies to feature land-based casinos.
Casino
Martin Scorsese is considered to be among the greatest living movie directors. So it is not surprising that his depiction of the Las Vegas casino underworld is rated so highly – currently 8.2 on the Internet Movie Database.
This 1995 epic features two of his favorite actors, Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci, as well as Sharon Stone and James Woods. De Niro stars as Sam ‘Ace’ Rothstein, who is put in charge of the Tangiers Casino in Las Vegas by the Mafia.
The film tells the story of the mob-owned Vegas casinos during the 1970s and 1980s and includes some scenes that have become legendary. Among them are a gruesome torture sequence involving a vice and mob enforcer Nicky Santoro (Pesci) beating a cowboy for putting his boots on the gaming table.
However Casino also captures the allure and glamour of the golden age of Vegas gaming.
Ocean’s Eleven
If there is a single movie that sums up the typical cinematic depiction of casinos it must be this 2001 film from Steven Soderbergh. It is set in Las Vegas and it features one of the starriest casts ever assembled on screen.
George Clooney plays Danny Ocean who puts together a team that includes Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, Elliott Gould and Don Cheadle to rob three of the biggest Vegas casinos in a single night.
Julia Roberts, Bernie Mac and Andy Garcia are also in the cast and the film makes both casinos and heists look like the smoothest ways of life imaginable. It has an 83% fresh Rotten Tomatoes rating and a 7.7 one on IMDB. Ocean’s Eleven is a movie of effortless cool and may have helped to revive interest in casino gaming.
The Hangover
This comedy movie from 2009 is an altogether different vision of the Las Vegas experience. It portrays the aftermath of a drunken stag party in the resort where the groom-to-be has gone missing.
The hungover buddies have to search Vegas for him, while avoiding mobsters and other heavies. One of the leads is played by Bradley Cooper, who has since become an A-list Hollywood megastar.
This is the sort of outrageous comedy where one disaster after another befalls the characters. It was a huge global box office success and enjoys a 7.7 IMDB score, so it is another highly rated casino movie.
Casino Royale
Despite its title, only a small amount of this movie takes place in a casino. However that sequence is absolutely crucial to the plot.
Casino Royale is the 2006 film that breathed fresh life into the James Bond franchise and introduced Daniel Craig as the new 007. It is an altogether grittier and tougher version of the Bond character than had been seen in the previous few films.
In one part of the movie, Bond is playing Texas Hold’em poker at Montenegro’s Casino Royale. One of his opponents is Le Chiffre, played by Mads Mikkelsen, who is intending to use the winnings to help finance terrorists.
This sequence is one of the most nail-biting in the entire film as Bond appears to be set to suffer a catastrophic defeat. It captures the world of high stakes gaming to a tee.
Croupier
This British movie from 1998 stars Clive Owen as a croupier at a London casino who helps a shady female gamer to rob the establishment. Its portrayal of that heist, as well as the world of casino gaming, is a much darker one than that of Ocean’s Eleven.
This is a dangerous and murky environment inspired by film noir in which lead character Jack Manfred (Owen) is more of an anti-hero and he can never be totally sure who to trust. That slippery quality has led many to rate it among the finest movies about casinos.
These are the films about casino gaming that should not be missed.
