So what are the best films on gambling? I don't only mean how it is made but also how it deals with gambling. It would also be nice to make a list of gambling films.
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I have quite a few favorites on gambling:
1. California Split - No movie comes close to depicting the need for Gamblers Anonymous. I love the poker scenes the most. Brilliant movie.
2. The Gambler (1974) - One of James Caan's best performances ever. And anyone with the guts to double a hard 18 in blackjack is a true gambler.
3. Fever Pitch (1985) - Unfortunately the acting is horrible, but it does a very good job of depicting gambling addiction. Ryan O'Neal playing craps is classic, especially when he imagines a huge football stadium and the playing field is huge craps table layout.
4. The Cincinnati Kid (1965) - Ok, the ending is pretty hard to believe, and who plays 5 card stud anymore? But as a poker lover and a huge Steve McQueen fan, it's impossible for me to not like this movie.
5. Two For The Money (2005) - No movie depicts the ups and downs of sports betting better than this. Also exposes the fraud of those "experts" that will give you a guaranteed football game winner for $200.
Thanks for the list fzappa711. Very interesting.
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Hey,
The list on gambling flicks also needs:
Croupier - the Brit film focuses on a heist in the second half, but the first hour looks at what a croupier really thinks about all those people losing all that money.
Owning Mahoney - based on a true story, a great look at the joyless addiction that gambling can become for some people
Thank you for this addition "anneandwalt-1". I just heard of a new film about gambling that is not on these lists:
Lucky You (Curtis Hanson: 2007).
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Croupier is very good, I would like to add Color of Money, ok technically it's 'hustling'. Also Rounders, people like to hate this film yet it is actually quite realistic in some ways and is good entertainment.
Sonny Black: How can John Wayne die?
Lefty: *beep*' Indians got him.
Well the "Color of Money" is a remake of lesser glory than its predecessor "The Hustler" with Paul Newman from the early 60's. Its a great film with a powerful performance by Paul Newman as a pool hustler betting it all on his game.
"Rounder" is a "fun" movie to watch with Matt Damon and Ed Norton is awesome as an uncontrollable compulsive gambler.
I would say that "Lucky You" is a decent film, but is very conventional and a waste of good talent (Eric Bana, Robert Duvall, and Robert Downey Jr.)
This one may be a little less gambling centric, but the latest James Bond movie, "Casino Royale" is a good thriller on its own right with a slightly ridiculous card play aspect.
There aren't many films that really deal with gambling. Most of them are just interested in the spectacle of it. Of the lot, California Split is the best. The simplest and the most poetic.
"Ça va by me, madame...Ça va by me!" - The Red Shoes
Just watched and came here to comment on it... good thread. Most films probably have been mentioned already, as I'm writing this the film "21" has hit the theaters already, not having seen it I can't comment on it but it doesn't look too good.
For someone who's played a *beep* of poker, Rounders isn't that good of a film, it's sort of... what's the right word, condescending? Patronizing? You know when you watch poker on TV they always have to go over the rules of Texas Hold'em for example. Kinda felt like that when watching Rounders.
Lucky You was one of the biggest disappointments of a film I ever laid my eyes on. It's nowhere near as good as even Rounders might be. The acting is terrible, there's a silly story, just pain.
California Split is the best gambling film I have ever seen, Gould and Segal are terrific, this is an actor's film and these two guys really pull you into their world. Great film.
yeah california split and the gambler are great
2 films that haven't been mentioned are David Mamet's HOUSE OF GAMES and Paul Thomas Anderson's HARD EIGHT
both great films....and about gambling
I don't think House of Games is about gambling at all. It's really about the art of deception and hustling, often without putting up any of your own money in the process (usually a requirement of "gambling").
share1 CALIFORNIA SPLIT
2 HARD 8
3 OWNING MAHONEY
4 FEVER PITCH( Great cameo of Bob Stupak)
5 GAMBLER
6 Rounders
7 OVERLOOKED AND FORGOTTEN BY EVERYONE A GREAT GAMBLING MOVIE......... LOOKIN TO GET OUT JON VOIGHT BURT YOUNG
NOTE These are just The lucky 7 Gambling movies Not meant too be in any particular order
1. The Hustler
2. The Gambler (1974)
3. Calfornia Split
4. Rounders
Honorable Mention:
Owning Mahoney
Sorry, regardless of what you've heard but almost everything else is NFG. Either filled with superstitious nonsense, magical luck, unrealistic characters and situations, technical errors, or worse.
Fever Pitch -- complete garbage. Laughable on every level.
Cincinnati Kid -- Hard to beat on a Steve McQueen film, well-made and acted, but unfirtunately utter fantasy.
Hard Eight -- Well-acted, but silly magical fantasy nonsense some filmmakers can't yank themselves away from.
Lookin' to get Out -- God-awful would-be comedy embarassment by the once-great Hal Ashby. Dreadful.
Every recent poker movie -- to a frame, all terrible.
Not sure I understand the remarks about Hard Eight - silly magical fantasy nonsense? What does this mean? But, anyway, it doesn't really even qualify as a "movie on gambling" as the gambling scenes are quite incidental, a means to an end as it were, and don't even have any metaphorical meaning to them, far as I can see.
"facts are stupid things" Ronald Reagan
I liked Hard Eight, and The Cooler (2003) I think William H. Macy was in both.
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