Let it Ride: Top 10 Gambling Movies

Gambling in the movies is about much more than chance, money, luck or even victory. The gambler is on a quest, a journey of some kind through the random complexities of the game, leaning on the rules and rubric, hoping to discover much about his nerve and character, raising the stakes, flirting with oblivion, pushing this cruel kind of self-exploration to its very limits. The cinematic gabmler teeters on the edge of revelation, detectives of the inner-self looking for clues to the great crime of existing.

There is something vicariously sumptuous in gambling movies, in the minutiae, the resplendent details, the simple pleasure of ‘the game’ to be found in the turn of a card or the roll of the dice. It’s a strange kind of cinema, one of direct experience, stranded somewhere between the detective film and the sports movie - there’s also a touch if the heist movie (a group of desperados trying to crack into an elaborate, encoded dream fortress). Only a fool thinks he can really beat the system, mathematically out-hustle chance. The real gambler, the player of games, lets it ride, to see what kind of person he is, what kind of life, strangely, hey deserves. The movies tap into the classic (and literal) against-the-odds heroism of the flawed, fallen figure battling indeterminable forces in the hope of redemption. So many fail, so many fall, that’s why it’s worth a damn. The gambler is the last true anti-hero, playing against the probabilities that rule the universe.

10. Havana (Sydney Pollack, 1990)
One of Redford's most underrated performances and the most maligned of his collaborations with Sydney Pollack, Havana is an old fashioned romance that explores the selfish nature of the gambler. It is, at times an uncertain film that reaches too far beyond the poker table, where it seems to me, it rightly belongs. In revolutionary Cuba, Jack (Redford) becomes entangled in a political affair that distracts him from the purpose of his visit - the biggest poker game of his life. Jack is the ultimate chancer, the professional player who lives only under the warm bulb of the game table. His character is perfectly set - "How many times have you lost everything, Jack?" - by his reputation and the wonderful quirk that he has a diamond surgically impanted in his arm for a rainy day. The imbedded jewell was always intended for the big game but as his relationship with the breathless Roberta (Lena Olin) intensifies and he begins to engage with the violent, fractured events in Cuba, the enormity of the game recedes.

True, the film can be a little cackhanded and simplistic when dealing with the political intricacies of the revolution, but as a human story, it's exceptionally engaging. Redford plays the conflicted confidence man at perfect pitch, essentially awakening as someone other than a selfish huckster. The ruthless business of the offshore gaming industry is an intriguing side entertainment here but what resonates isn't so much the on screen poker action but the wistful loneliness of the gambler, evoked with great emotion at the film's muted ending. Jack is left stranded, alone, with not even his devotion to "the game" intact for comfort. Standing on a desolate shore, he's still waiting for his ship to come in. Check out the opening sequence, it's an absolute belter.

9. The Music of Chance (Philip Haas, 1993)
This is a ponderous film that focuses interestingly on the abstract debt owed by an uncovered bet. Although the poker scenes themselves are quirky and tense, they merely serve to frame the greater concern of the film - the metaphysical debt that must be paid by the gambler who bets more than he can afford - more, in every sense, than he is worth. The stakes in this instance move beyond the realm of money into an existential mortgage of the soul. Jim Nashe (Mandy Pitkin) and Jack Pozzi (the ever-sleazy James Spader) lose everything. They are wiped out. Rendered near anonymous by their loss, they toil away with no end in a kind of purgatory, slowly working their way back into being. By way of paying back what they owe, they are contracted to build, by hand, a seemingly useless wall of ten thousand stones. This abstract objective becomes a sinister and oppressive force that tears the newfound friends apart.

Paul Auster's novel, on which the film is based, chooses an interesting title. The narrative dances to the wicked tune of fate, the characters more like marionettes than performers with free will. The mysterious gentlemen who order them to build the wall are enigmatic conductors of destiny, seemingly malign figures, Gods toying with the pliant soul of the addict. The Music of Chance is a moving, tragic story that serves as a kind of philosophical extraction of what it means to place your chips on the table.

8. Rounders (John Dahl, 1998)
Matt Damon is on usual maverick form here, playing, as is his want, a wayward genius of sorts. Way back when Edward Norton seemed charming, Rounders rode the wave of the new poker phenomenon that tightened its vice-like grip on the Western world. Dahl doesn't do anything new - that's the kind of director he is - but he does everything pretty damn well. Rounders is a particularly slick and well balanced film focusing on the personal strain the gambler faces, ready to scuttle along the bottom of the barrel when needs must, comprimising himself into the fouler corners of a wasted kind of life. There are a few particularly affecting scenes, the meaningful, shamefaced exchange between Mike and his professor (played with great sensitivity by Martin Landau) stands out. The only hitch along the way is the incrongruous presence of John Malkovich, spunking it up as a Russian mobster, surviving somehow as an outtake from an earlier, sillier version of the script.

The gambling scenes are extrememly satisfying, Dahl's camera floating around, all seeing, all knowing. The tension comes through even for the lay watcher, as there is a genuine significance to the hands played, even if the technicalities might be missed by the uninitiated. Norton is a fine, spiky counterpart to Damon's sensible hero - it's a successful double act: one a weak tough guy, the other a tough weakling. The viewer gets to see some neat tricks and cheats along the way in a script peppered with sage gambling soundbites: "If you can't spot the sucker in the first half hour at the table, then you ARE the sucker." Rounders is pretty light going in terms of psychological and emotional stakes but it plays out as a highly enjoyable study in choices, what moves to make and when to make them, awkward dilemmas the gambler is only too familiar with - gambling is seen here as the quick scribble to the fine art of judgement.

7. Bob le Flambeur (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1956)
In Paris's Montmartre district, Bob is a well-known chap, a suave compulsive gambler, a genuine high-roller. He's generous, almost ethical, drives a slick convertible, resides in a swish apartment, and even has the knowing respect of the local cops. But he's on a losing streak, a mean strangle of bad luck, and even when he wins big at the racetrack, he bombs hideously at the Deauville casino. When he learns that the casino keeps a fortune on Grand Prix weekend, he plots a robbery against the advice of all who care about him. As you might imagine, Jean-Pierre Melville plots the robbery with wonderful articulation, but Bob, like the audience, is less interested in the mechanics of thievery and more excited by the money.

The film is a rare thing in the gambling movie genre, it draws the audience in to the magic, the absolute mystical awe of the hot streak. Whilst Bob's associates are attempting to rob the casino, by way of an alibi, Bob gambles flagrantly. Suddenly, unexpectedly, he finds he cannot lose. His streak runs and runs and runs, skewing the film into new, enthralling territory. This is the moment the gambler lives for, the point at which his reality will become a surreal fiction. Eventually the police turn up and Bob is led away, but not before his winnings are placed carefully into the trunk of his car. He may be punished on a physical level but he has the unusual spiritual satisfaction of the winner to keep him warm through the long prison nights. And, of course, the future joy promised by the money that awaits him. In a refreshingly uncomplicated way, Bob le Flambeur is all about the cash, about finally being a winner. The gambler makes a living out of hope and every once in a while it's good to see it come through.

6. Croupier (Mike Hodges, 1998)
Who knew England was going to give us a film so imbued with classic genre traps? The wonderfully depreciating voiceover, grubby back rooms, shadowy games and Alex Kingston's brittle femme fatale make this a genuine London noir, a rare but apt coming together of doom-laden location and theme. Mike Hodges brings the best out of Clive Owen, transforming him into a sickened kind of Glen Ford. Caught at a crossroades, Jack (Owen) becomes drawn into the world of double-cross he hoped he had left behind. He is intoxicated by the danger and exhiliration, tortured by his own good character.

Croupier excels at giving the audience insight into the miniature arts of the gambler, the essence of the film hanging on the brilliant mantra of "hang on tightly, let go lightly". The dialogue is crisp and the characters generically pleasing, but it's the table, the glow, the action that excites. Jack's seemingly spiteful dexterity as Croupier is almost sensual, his fingers traipsing over the table like horny ballet dancers. Hodges reveals how the house makes its money, simply facilitating the odds in the likelihood that the gambler, more often than not, will lose. It's no surprise that casino staff are attractive and polite, that the food is good and the complimentary drinks flow: they want you to be happy, so that you don’t realise how rotten you really are.

The narration is mesmeric, scarred with the authentic wounds of noir: "The world breaks everyone, and afterwards many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break, it kills - it kills the very good, and the very gentle, and the very brave, impartially. If you are none of these, you can be sure it will kill you, too, but there will be no special hurry." This is a classic British film and one of the few gambling movies to offer so many perspectives on the betting industry. The theme highlights another key aspect of the genre - that sooner or later, no matter how cold and impersonal a gambler you hope you might be, you'll have to bet on a living, breathing soul.

5. 13 / Tzameti (Gela Babluani, 2006)
For its intenisty, for its ultimate nerve, for its imposisble stakes, 13 (or Tzameti) is the most gripping and terrifying of any film to fall within the tantalising pull of the genre. Stark, violent and ruthless, the desperation of the world glimpsed at here is entirely plausible. It's certainly not unimaginable that, in search of increasingly jagged thrills, the gambler becomes innured to anything but the cold mechanics of the bet, guiltily comforted by the rarefied air of depraved suffering. We follow the impoverished Sébastien as he takes advantage of a loose identity to edge his way into something he only half-imagined. Once there he lives at the far reaches of his emotions, exhausted and invigorated. Intriguingly, Sébastien's position in the film is not as gambler but as a subject of the bet. The gambler's themslves shuffle around the edges of the game space in a mastabatory fervour. Sébastien is like a card on the table waiting to be turned, fateless and non-existent until the click of the trigger recedes or explodes.

Babluani has created a completely overwhelming, captivating environment - it's a thrilling kind of netherworld of playboy superaddicts and suicidal desperados. 13 moves the gambling movie on to territory beyond which cannot yet be imagined. Could there be any kick beyond the hideously repeated instantaneous jolt of dicovering, over and again, that you are still alive?

4. The Cincinnati Kid (Norman Jewison, 1965)
This short, sharp film is always on point. Ruthlessly minimal, harshly cut and sucking the air out of the room, it has the mark of its original director, Peckinpah, all over it. Anxiety and corruption are on show here, performing a lap of honour, winners always. Sure, there’s skill in poker, but mostly its nerve, and the ability to deny compromise, and the encroaching comforts of weakness. The film revolves around a classic opposition, the young pretender versus the old master. The confidence and killer touch of Stoner (Steve McQueen) against the patient, responsive guile of Howard (Edward G. Robinson). Not only does Stoner have to contend with the pressures of the game but he must also display the moral fortitude to deny the fixing of small time gangsters. Stoner must deliver a kind of justice through victory. He comes to represent something he cares nothing about. So, the stakes are high but it’s not about the money – money is the tool, the language with which the gambler converses with the defeat that drives him. It’s about being the best and not being the best. As Shooter (Karl Morden) says, it "Gets down to what it’s all about, doesn’t it? Making the wrong move at the right time."

Jewison's film is the definitve poker movie, iconically poised and tangibly grubby, as close to a morality tale as the dirty underworld might dare tell. Melba (Ann Magret) rolls around on that soft and seductive bed, a siren of temptation, representing the soft juicy flesh of giving in. It's Stoner's discipline that holds out, his upright determination to take the game to its defining extremeties. As Howard says, "You’re good, kid, but as long as I’m around, you’re only second best", showing that the skills that might see you succeed in one world are worth little more than a damn in this one.

3. The Hustler (Robert Rossen, 1961)
Fast Eddie (Paul Newman) plays the game. Because that’s all there is. He’s found the utopia there and he can’t let go. Man, he’s hooked. But the boy is good. In The Hustler the glowing worlds of the tables, strung together like galaxies in the dim universe of the pool halls, show that a game can be so much more. The essential interaction between opponents, the complicated psychological affronts and rebuffs that take place, indicate that a game is not a microcosm of life, but that life is a macrocosm of some kind of game. Everything is laid bare for Eddie. His off-table existence is nothing more than a means back onto it. He forces himself to believe that it’s not about knocking the balls in - that it’s about leaving nothing on the table when you’re finished, about having nothing left to leave. Eddie comes full circle, standing in the same spot, having reached it from another direction, another life. There’s some difference between feeling invincible and being invincible and that difference is Eddie in the first five minutes of the film and Eddie in the last five minutes of the film. In the end, he could play for ever and never lose. However, we’re left with the feeling that, over any stretch of time, nor could he win. When you have nothing to lose, winning is no longer the point.

The Hustler shows exactly what Newman had in his youth that even Clift, Brando and Dean could never match, a vital energy that toyed dangerously (and seductively) with his characters. Rossen hits the perfect note: gambling isn't about money, it's about saying "I'm the best you ever seen", about finally, impossibly proving something that cannot ever be in evidence, a total superiority over everything that ever was. George C. Scott perches on the periphery of the film, tauntingly, like a featherless vulturem, searingly cruel, fully aware that life has no belly and all the fight you stuff it with just falls right through. His only glee is in watching Eddy discover that for himself. A perfect embodiment of the saying that gambling is "the sure way of getting nothing from something."

2. The Gambler (Karel Reisz, 1974)
More than any other movie in this list, Karel Reisz's scorching portrayal of the gambler shows the inevitable, wilful slide into oblivion that faces the man who cannot resist. An adaptation of sorts of Dostoevsky's story of the same name, James Toback's script focuses intently on the propulsive self-destruction which drives Alex Freed (James Caan) as he (mis)places bet after bet after bet, believing each one will dig him out of the hole into which he is so enthusiastically burying himself. In every way Alex is pushing his luck, testing himself against cruel fate, stabbing the hearts of those he loves every time he degrades himself by begging for money or one 'last' chance.

The enjoyably gritty supporting cast of Paul Sorvino, Lauren Hutton, Burt Young, James Woods and M. Emmet Walsh dash just enough New York scum onto Caan's pristinely accurate performance of a man in a lonely elite of ultimate destruction. As he loses more and more, getting into increasingly dangerous territory, he no longer craves the restorative high of the win, but rather the enthralling pang of losing and the inevitable threat it will bring from those closing in on him, terminally eager to retrieve their cash. Finally, he seeks the total thrill of death, goading someone into knifing him, sinking to the ground in a cloud of relief - the end to the hideous game finally in sight, the odds pleasantly stacked against him. Also, not mentioning Caan's afro would be a disservice to the 70s. It only adds to the pathos.

1. California Split (Robert Altman, 1974)
One of the great films of the 70s, Robert Altman's study of addiction, discontent and friendship is both riotously funny and bleakly cynical. Two of the most likeable stars of the period, Elliot Gould and George Segal, run on a desperate nervous energy, sticking together in the hope they might hit a hot streak. Effortlessly naturalistic and typically fluid in sound and visuals, California Split is an essential gambling movie, highlighting both the heroism of the outsiders desperate for some "action" and the pathetic reality of their daily existence. The relationship between the heroes, Bill and Charlie, is a bitter sweet romance of contingent dependency.

The pyrrhic victory of beating the house is cruelly exposed here, with Segal and Gould arriving at the end of their streak with nothing to say to one another, numbed by the receding thrill they believed, and perhaps hoped, would never come: "It doesn't mean a goddam thing, does it?" says Charlie. "I'm going home", responds Bill, empty, realising that the pot of gold he's ground himself down for wasn't worth the hope he afforded it.

Both Gould and Segal are marvellous. Gould, a reformed gambler himself, creaks with the addict's personal junk, with the anxiety of serial expectation. Segal trades in the ponderous hesitancy with which the loafers of destiny's margins lean on instead of living happily. He's a dissatisfied dabbler, with one foot in each of the two lifestyles he detests. This is the defining film of the genre, offering more than just a glimpse of what's on the table every time a gambler throws in his hand.