We all are familiar with gambling, casinos, robbery, and heists. Well, this is what poker movies are all about. They take you to the world of gambling and show you how the world of casinos works, how people use different tactics to win money, their addiction to gambling, and how casino heists are planned. There are a lot of movies that are made on these topics since the early 1900s. Some of them are fictitious while some are classics based on the real stories of the casino world. If you want to watch thrilling movies that show you the worst and best sides of the gambling world then here are our top 16 picks from Netflix that are a must-watch for a poker movie lover.
James Bond Casino Royale
The 2006 James Bond spy movie is an adaption of Ian Fleming’s novel Casino Royale. The plot of the movie is about James Bond being on an assignment to bankrupt Le Chiffre, a terrorist financer in a poker game at the Casino Royale in Montenegro. As he begins to complete his assignment, Bond falls in love with Vesper Lynd, she is an employee who provides money to James Bond for playing the casino game. James Bond is playing the role of Daniel Craig, an M16 operative who gains his license to kill and gets promoted to 00 agent status. Eva gree is playing the role of Vesper Lynd, Mads Mikkelsen is playing the role of Le Chiffre, and Jesper Christensen is Mr. White. If you love to watch poker movies then a poker movie starring James Bond is something for you.
Ocean’s Franchise
If you love playing poker then Ocean’s Franchise is a must-watch for you. The movie has three parts. The first part was released in 2001, the second one was released in 2004, and the third one was released in 2007 named Ocean’s Eleven, Ocean’s Twelve, and Ocean’s Thirteen respectively. It is said that Ocean’s franchise is one of the best heist series in the world, crossing over 1.17 Billion Dollars worldwide. The movie is inspired by the 1960s movie Ocean’s 11, a movie made on heists. The cast for all three movies is the same. The role of Danny Ocean is played by George Clooney, Brad Pitt plays the role of Rusty Ryan, Matt Damon is playing the role of Linus Caldwell, Don Cheadle plays the role of Basher Tarr, and Casey Affleck is playing the role of Virgil Malloy.
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Croupier
Croupier is a 1998 movie starring Clive Owen and written by Paul Mayersberg. The story is about Jack Manfred who is an unsuccessful writer who takes up the job of a croupier in a local casino. He soon gets involved in the casino world and takes part in a planned robbery of a casino. A lot of it happens when Jack soon realizes what he is doing is against the laws, you will see how it turns around as he tries to escape from all of this. Jack also writes a book about everything that happened to him after he turned into a croupier, and the book gets a huge success. The cast of the movie involves Clive Owen as Jack Manfred, Kate Hardie as Bella (Jack’s girlfriend), and Alex Kingston as Jane De Villiers (the one who asks Jack to become a part of the robbery). You will love this movie as it shows the personal life of a croupier who later turns into a robber.
Win It All
Win It All is a gambling and comedy movie written and directed by Joe Swanberg and starring Jake Johnson. The story of the movie is about a guy named Eddie Garrett, a man who is trying to recover from his addiction to gambling by working as a parking attendant in Wrigley Field. A local thug Michael, who is also Eddie’s cousin is going to be imprisoned for six months. He asks Eddie for a favor to take care of his duffel bag without asking any questions and without opening it until he returns. While Eddie agrees to do the favor he is not able to shut down his temptation of opening the bag and ends up opening it and finding a large amount of money in the bag. Being addicted to gambling he starts gambling the money and loses all the money that belonged to Michael. Now the question arises what will happen when Michael returns from jail to get back his money?
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Molly’s Game
The American biographical crime movie Molly’s Game was released in 2017 directed and written by Aaron Sorkin. The movie is based on the 2014 memoir named ‘Molly Bloom’. The movie stars Jessica Chastain as Molly Bloom, Idris Elba as Charlie Jaffey (Molly’s lawyer), Michael Cera as Player X, Kevin Costner as Larry Bloom, Jeremy Strong as Dean Keith, and Chris O’Dowd as Douglas Downey. The movie follows the story of Molly Bloom who wants to win the Olympics in 2002 but just before she could participate she gets injured which ends her career in sports. She joins a law school and moves to Los Angeles. To support herself she becomes a bottle service waitress in a club. While working as a waitress she meets Dean, a real estate developer. Soon she joins Dean’s office and starts running underground poker games at a bar.
Mississippi Grind
Mississippi Grind is also a 2015 released American Comedy and Poker movie. This poker movie stars Ryan Reynolds as Curtis Vaughn, Ben Mendelsohn as Gerry, Sienna Miller as Simone, Analeigh Tipton as Vanessa, Alfre Woodard as Sam, and Jayson Warner Smith as Clifford. The story of this movie is about Gerry an unsuccessful gambler and real estate agent meets Curtis, who is a young gambler at a bar where Curtis buys him a drink. Later on, they spend the night gambling and betting against each other but soon the story begins as Gerry is mugged by Sam, his loan shark, and asked to pay her the money he owes. To pay back the money Gerry offers Curtis a gambling trip. As the story unfolds a lot is going to
happen on this gambling trip.
Lay The Favourite
Lay The Favourite is a 2012 comedy-drama movie written by D.V DeVincents and directed by Stephen Frears. The story deals with a young woman from Florida, Beth who is bored with her life which involves lap dancing and stripteases for private customers. Her dad asks her to pursue her dream of moving to Las Vegas and becoming a cocktail waitress. She soon moves to Las Vegas where a young woman named Holly introduces Beth to Dink, a married man who is a professional gambler. Dink considers Beth as his lucky charm and insists that she joins him. Beth starts falling for Dink and soon Dink’s wife asks him to leave Beth. Now, Beth is again a hopeless woman who meets Jeremy, a journalist in New York. As Beth again falls for Jeremy they decide to move on to New York City together. But there is a lot more that happens as they move to New York City.
Casino
The Casino is a classic poker movie released in 1995. The movie is based on a novel written by Nicholas Pileggi named Casino: Love And Honor In Las Vegas. The movie stars Robert De Niro as the main character Sam “Ace” Rothstein. Other supporting cast members involve Sharon Stone as Ginger McKenna, James Woods as Lester Diamond, Joe Pesci as Nicky Santoro, Alan King as Andy Stone, Kevin Pollak as Philip Green, and L.Q. Jones as Pat Webb. What makes the plot of this movie even more interesting is that the prime character Sam is inspired by the real-life of Frank Rosenthal, who used to run casinos like Stardust, Hacienda, Marina, and Fremont for the Chicago Outfit in Las Vegas from 1968 to 1981. Sam is a Jewish American handicapped gambler who runs casinos for Chicago Outfit. The movie is about the difficulties he confronts in his job as Las Vegas is rapidly changing mafias are getting involved in the casinos.
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Bachelor Party Vegas
The American comedy movie Bachelor Party Vegas is a 2006 release written and directed by Eric Bernt. The story highlights a group of five guys who take their soon-to-be-married friend Nathan on one of the best bachelor’s trips to Vegas. The trip has everything that a bachelor needs including gambling. The young men soon discover that their trip planner Mr. Kidd is a bank robber and planning to rob the casino. As they try to escape from the police and the casino security they are falsely accused and thrown into jail. The night turns out to be one of the craziest nights as one event leads to another. The main cast of the movie involves Kal Penn as Z-Bob, Jonathan Bennett as Nathan, Donald Faison as Ash, Charlie Spiller as Johnny C. MacElroy, and Aaron Himelstein as Eli.
Guns, Girls & Gambling
Guns, Girls & Gambling is a crime thriller American movie released in 2012. The movie is written and directed by Michael Winnick. The cast of the movie involves Christian Slater as John Smith, Powers Boothe as The Rancher, Dane Cook as Sheriff Hutchins, Chirs Kattan as Gay Elvis, Jeff Fahey as The Cowboy, Gary Oldman as Elvis Elvis, and Helena Mattsson as The Blonde. The native Americans, a cowboy, two sheriffs, a gorgeous assassin, and a few other people involved are in a trouble as a very expensive artifact gets stolen from a casino in the city.
Bugsy
Bugsy is a classic American biography depicting the life of an American mobster Bugsy Siegel and his love interest Virginia Hill. A gangster named Bugsy, who was involved in the crime world since he was a kid decides to move to Los Angeles in 1941. He tries to be a part of Hollywood and falls in love with an actress Virginia Hill as soon as he saw her. He buys a house in Las Vegas and starts gambling in the Nevada desert. Soon he is impressed with the idea to create a gambling haven in Las Vegas and wants to execute his plan to make it a reality. The movie stars Warren Beatty as Ben Bugsy Siegel, Annette Bening as Virginia Hill, Harvey Keitel as Mickey Cohen, Ben Kingsley as Meyer Lansky, Elliott Gould as Harry Greenberg, and Joe Mantegna as George Raft.
21
The 2008 release heist drama ’21’ is written by Peter Steinfeld and Allan Loeb. 21 is a film inspired by the true story based on the best-selling novel Bringing Down The House by Ben Mezrich. The cast of the movie includes Jim Sturgess as Ben Campbell, Kate Bosworth as Jill Taylor, Kevin Spacey as Micky Rosa, Aaron Yoo as Choi, Liza Lapira as Kianna, and Jacob Pitts as Fisher. The story of the movie is about Ben, a mathematics major at MIT who gets accepted into Howard Medical School but cannot afford its tuition fee. As he drops his idea of getting into Howard due to the high fees his professor Micky Rosa looks at his marks and ability and offers him a deal to join the MIT Blackjack Team. The Blackjack team uses card counting and signals to win the casino games and earn profits.
The Cooler
The 2003 movie The Cooler is more of a romantic gambling story written by Frank Hannah. The movie stars William H. Macy as Bernard Lootz, Alec Baldwin as Sheldon, Maria Bello as Natalie Belisario, Shawn Hatosy as Mikey Lootz, and Ron Livingston as Larry Sokolov. The story of the movie is about a casino employee falling head over heels with the cocktail waitress at his casino. Their love is unacceptable to their boss and of which the employee decides to destroy all the gamblers who visit the casino.
Rounders
The 1998 American poker film is written by David Levien and directed by John Dahl. The movie stars Matt Damon as Mike McDermott, Edward Norton as Lester Murphy, John Malkovich as Teddy, John Turturro as Joey Knish, and Famke Janssen as Petra. The movie is about a reformed gambler Mike McDermott turns back to his gambling life when his friend asks him to help him in repaying a loan shark the money he owes him. Mike starts to gamble money again to repay the money he owes to his gamblers and ends up becoming a gambler once again.
Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas
The movie is adapted from Hunter S. Thompson’s 1971 novel ‘Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas. The movie was released in 1998 screenplay and directed by Terry Gilliam. The movie stars Johnny Depp as Raoul Duke, Tobey Maguire as The Hitchhiker, Benicio Del Toro as Dr. Gonzo, Christina Ricci as Lucy, Ellen Barkin as The Waitress of North Star Cafe, Gary Busey as The Highway Patrolman, and Mark Harmon as the magazine reporter. The story is about a journalist Raoul and his lawyer who goes on a trip to Las Vegas to cover the 400 motorcycle race but ends up indulging in recreational drug activities.
Casino Tycoon Franchise
Casino Tycoon is a Hong Kong-based movie directed and produced by Wong Jing has two parts in it. The movie stars Andy Lau as Benny Ho San, Joey Wong as Vivian Ching Lok-yee, Chingmy Yau as Mui, Alex Man as Kwok Ying- Nam, Wilson Lam as Fu Ka-Chun, and Paul Chun as Wong Cheung. The story of the movie is from the time of World War II when Benny flees to Hong Kong after the Japanese invasion takes place. During his work as a coolie he impressed a businessman and soon becomes his favorite employee handling all his criminal activities and getting included in the gambling world.
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