The Top Five Casino Movies of All Time

Garon CockrellMiscellaneousLeave a Comment

 

There are plenty of popular and memorable locations featured in some of the most entertaining movies of all time. We’ve certainly seen our fair share of creepy cabins deep in the woods, as well as landmark cities around the world taking centre stage as the main backdrop for some of the best stories ever put on the big screen. One such location that keeps on popping up is the casino and we’ve compiled a list of just some of the top casino-based movies we’ve ever seen.

  1. CASINO (1995)

Martin ScorseseCasino’s dramatic vision ‘Casino’ was very much like ‘Ocean’s Eleven’ meets ‘Goodfellas’. It was a brutal yet telling look into the underbelly of a mob-owned Vegas casino, based on the novel of the same name by Nicholas Pileggi. There’s some top notch acting from the entire main cast involved, including an impressive performance from Sharon Stone as hustler Ginger McKenna, and shows just how power, money and deception played such a role in Sin city in the late 70’s early 80’s.

 

 

  1. 21 (2008)

Academy award winning actor Kevin Spacey starred as maths professor Mickey Rosa in this fact-based story of a group of MIT students who are coerced into learning the ins and outs of card counting in order to win big in the casinos around Las Vegas. The movie itself was an amalgamation of fact and fiction which took its lead from the highly publicised novel by Ben Mezrich which focused on this special team of Blackjack experts.

  1. CASINO ROYALE (2006)

Let’s face it there aren’t too many characters as suave, cool and dangerous as 007. Most men want to be him whilst most women..well….. In 2006’s ‘Casino Royale’ it was a chance for the world famous secret agent James Bond to get reinvented for a new generation. Daniel Craig donned the tux and helped reboot the character into a much darker and flawed personality. Unlike the unofficial comedic farce from 1967 this version of Ian Feming’s first Bond novel, albeit loosely based, featured a particularly tense, crucial and exciting game of poker played between the English gent and his villainous rival Le Chiffre.

  1. OCEANS 11 (2001)

There have been plenty of movies that have featured a notable roulette game or two, or even some plot altering hands of poker but you can’t really put together a list of casino-based movies and not include the entertaining ensemble that is ‘Ocean’s 11’. Whether you’re referring to the 1960 rat pack original or Steven Soderbergh’s remake both movies are fun, tongue in cheek fares that not only bring together much of the best acting talent of the day but also feature some clever and enjoyable heist action.

Oceans 13

  1. OCEANS 13 (2007)

Steven Soderbergh’s “Ocean’s Thirteen,” dispenses with such tiresome exposition and contains mostly action and movie-star behavior. Only the characters know what the plan is, and we are expected to watch in gratitude and amazement as they disclose it out of their off-screen planning and plotting. Fair enough, if it’s done with energy and style. If, however their plan involves elements that are preposterously impossible, I feel as if I’m watching one of Scrooge McDuck’s schemes.

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Garon CockrellThe Top Five Casino Movies of All Time