Highest-Rated Movies about 'Compulsive Gambler'

Casino (1995), House of Games (1987), Michael Clayton (2007), The Gambler (1974), Kill the Irishman (2011), Owning Mahowny (2003), The Glass Key (1942), Cabin in the Sky (1943) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Compulsive Gambler movies.

#1. Casino (1995)

Storyline: This Martin Scorsese film depicts the Janus-like quality of Las Vegas--it has a glittering, glamorous face, as well as a brutal, cruel one. Ace Rothstein and Nicky Santoro, mobsters who move to Las Vegas to make their mark, live and work in this paradoxical world. Seen through their eyes, each as a foil to the other, the details of mob involvement in the casinos of the 1970's and '80's are revealed. Ace is the smooth operator of the Tangiers casino, while Nicky is his boyhood friend and tough strongman, robbing and shaking down the locals. However, they each have a tragic flaw--Ace falls in love with a hustler, Ginger, and Nicky falls into an ever-deepening spiral of drugs and violence.

Plot Keywords: casino, crime epic, mafia, rise and fall, las vegas nevada, exploding car, gangster ...

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#2. House of Games (1987)

Storyline: A famous psychologist, Margaret Ford, decides to try to help one of her patients get out of a gambling debt. She visits the bar where Mike, to whom the debt is owed, runs poker games. He convinces her to help him in a game: her assignment is to look for "tells", or give-away body language. What seems easy to her becomes much more complex.

Plot Keywords: con, surprise ending, playing poker, lighting a cigarette for a woman, author, con game, pack of money ...

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#3. Michael Clayton (2007)

Storyline: Michael Clayton, a high-priced law firm's fixer, leaves a late night poker game, gets a call to drive to Westchester, and watches his car blow up as he's taking an impromptu dawn walk through a field. Flash back four days. He owes a loan shark to cover his brother's debts (Michael's own gambling habits have left him virtually broke). His law firm is negotiating a high-stakes merger, and his firm's six year defense of a conglomerate's pesticide use is at risk when one of the firm's top litigators goes off his meds and puts the case in jeopardy. While Michael is trying to fix things someone decides to kill him. Who? Meanwhile his son summarizes the plot of a dark fantasy novel.

Plot Keywords: title appears in writing, car fire, card playing, commercial, computer, corporation, crying ...

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#4. The Gambler (1974)

Storyline: Axel Freed, a college professor and very successful at his job, is addicted to gambling, who wins big, but loses it all just as fast. He borrowed from his girlfriend, his wealthy mother, and last but not least a loan shark. It just gets worse for him because he can't stop. But when his girlfriend decides to leave him, his mom decides to disown him, and the mob wants to kill him, Axel decides to make a big score to win big and pay off everyone to stay alive and keep his dignity and come out ahead.—Wesley Benton

Plot Keywords: grandfather grandson relationship, teacher student relationship, university student, gash in the face, ambiguous ending, threatened with a knife, bloody face ...

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#5. Kill the Irishman (2011)

Storyline: The true story of Danny Greene, an impoverished but charismatic young Irish-American who rises to power as president of the longshoreman's local union and is charged with corruption but evades serious jail time by becoming an FBI informant. With fearless nerve he joins forces with a Mafia gangster to rise to power in Cleveland's underworld, gaining the reputation of a Robin Hood-like figure with nine lives as he escapes countless assassination attempts.

Plot Keywords: extortion, thermometer, eyeglasses, face slap, cadillac, newspaper headline, year 1960 ...

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#6. Owning Mahowny (2003)

Storyline: Dan Mahowny (Philip Seymour Hoffman) was a rising star at the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. At twenty-four, he was Assistant Manager of a major branch in the heart of Toronto's financial district. To his colleagues, he was a workaholic. To his customers, he was astute, decisive, and helpful. To his friends, he was a quiet, but humorous man who enjoyed watching sports on television. To his girlfriend, he was shy but engaging. None of them knew the other side of Dan Mahowny, the side that executed the largest single-handed bank fraud in Canadian history, grossing over ten million dollars in eighteen months to feed his gambling obsession.

Plot Keywords: gambling, embezzlement, atlantic city new jersey, based on true story, shower, thief, theft ...

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#7. The Glass Key (1942)

Storyline: During the campaign for reelection, the crooked politician Paul Madvig decides to clean up his past, refusing the support of the gangster Nick Varna and associating to the respectable reformist politician Ralph Henry. When Ralph's son, Taylor Henry, a gambler and the lover of Paul's sister Opal, is murdered, Paul's right arm, Ed Beaumont, finds his body on the street. Nick uses the financial situation of The Observer to force the publisher Clyde Matthews to use the newspaper to raise the suspicion that Paul Madvig might have killed Taylor.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Plot Keywords: politician, political corruption, newspaper publisher, compulsive gambler, election campaign, gangster, hospital ...

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#8. Cabin in the Sky (1943)

Storyline: Chronic gambler and carouser "Little" Joe Jackson is shot by Domino Johnson at Jim Henry's gambling club over an outstanding gambling debt. Little Joe's wife, the God-fearing Petunia Jackson, prays not only for her husband's mortal life, but also his eternal soul as she's afraid that if he dies now, he, despite not being an evil man, won't make it into heaven. As Little Joe is close to death, he is visited by agents of both the Lord and of Lucifer. They make a deal with him: they will give him six months to atone for the errors of his human life. Once back on Earth, he won't remember the deal but both the Lord and Lucifer will be watching over him, trying to get him to see things their way. As both sides try to get Little Joe's soul, they figure that some of the most powerful tools they have at their disposal are the women in Little Joe's life: Petunia on behalf of the Lord, and Georgia Brown, a gold-digging floozy, on behalf of Lucifer. As hard as both the Lord and Lucifer try to get Little Joe on their side, they don't factor into the equation human judgment, which turns some of their work against them.—Huggo

Plot Keywords: slit skirt, hell, shooting, prayer, church, singer, gambling debt ...

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#9. Trance (2013)

Storyline: A fine art auctioneer mixed up with a gang joins forces with a hypnotherapist to recover a lost painting. As boundaries between desire, reality and hypnotic suggestion begin to blur the stakes rise faster than anyone could have anticipated.

Plot Keywords: female frontal nudity, shaved vagina, female star appears nude, female nudity, breasts, female rear nudity, female full frontal nudity ...

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#10. Any Number Can Play (1949)

Storyline: Although Charley Kying has owned a casino for fifteen years, on one rainy night events and people seem to converge and threaten his family home and second home, his gambling house. After a doctor secretly diagnoses him with a severe heart condition and recommends that if he continues to subject himself to the daily stress of a professional gambler, he hasn't long to live. Later that day he's made to realize that he's been neglecting his faithful wife for years and abdicated his duties as father to his son, who resents his father's unsavory reputation and rebuffs his interest in attending that night's prom. Charley's weakling brother-in-law, who sponges off him by freeloading at home and cheating him out of petty cash as croupier, agrees to conspire with rival gamblers to cheat Charley out of thousands. Among the others who add stress to what would seem to be Charley's last night in the casino are a rich former girlfriend who proposes they renew their relationship, an old nemesis who's vowing to break the bank at the tables, and an old degenerate gambler and former mentor whose desperation leads him to try to take his own life.—duke1029@aol.com

Plot Keywords: based on novel, attempted suicide, ex boxer, prostitute, dignity, blood pressure, self respect ...

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#11. Battle of the Sexes (2017)

Storyline: In the wake of the sexual revolution and the rise of the women's movement, the 1973 tennis match between women's world champion Billie Jean King (Emma Stone) and ex-men's-champ and serial hustler Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell) was billed as the BATTLE OF THE SEXES and became one of the most watched televised sports events of all time, reaching 90 million viewers around the world. As the rivalry between King and Riggs kicked into high gear, off-court each was fighting more personal and complex battles. The fiercely private King was not only championing for equality, but also struggling to come to terms with her own sexuality, as her friendship with Marilyn Barnett (Andrea Riseborough) developed. And Riggs, one of the first self-made media-age celebrities, wrestled with his gambling demons, at the expense of his family and wife Priscilla (Elisabeth Shue). Together, Billie and Bobby served up a cultural spectacle that resonated far beyond the tennis court, sparking discussions in bedrooms ...

Plot Keywords: lesbianism, based on real events, tennis player, 1970s, sexism, tennis, adultery ...

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#12. The Lady Takes a Sailor (1949)

Storyline: When Joan Boothe accompanies husband-reporter David to Las Vegas, she begins gambling to pass the time while he is doing a story. Encouraged by the casino manager, she gets hooked on gambling, to the point where she "borrows" David's expense money to pursue her addiction. This finally breaks up their marriage, but David continues trying to help her.—Mike Rogers <MICHAELPEM@aol.com>

Plot Keywords: compulsive gambler, sibling rivalry, holiday, told in flashback, mexico, first person narration, bookie ...

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#13. The Great Sinner (1949)

Storyline: A young writer goes to Wiesbaden to write about gambling and gamblers, only to ultimately become a compulsive gambler himself. Losing all his wealth, as well as his moral fibre, he commits the ultimate degradation of robbing a church poor box in order to feed his compulsion.—<homeport@erols.com>

Plot Keywords: borrowing money, train journey, croupier, roulette wheel, suicide by gunshot, theft, gambling addiction ...

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#14. Flawless (1999)

Storyline: Walt Koontz, a homophobic cop, ends up with paralyzed vocal cords because of an unfortunate stroke. His therapy includes singing lessons from a neighbor who is not only flamboyantly gay but also pre-operative transgender. Both of them are equally prejudiced; Koontz against non-heterosexuals and the neighbor against closed-minded straight people.

Plot Keywords: homosexual, gay interest, gay lead character, female impersonator, bravery, medal, shame ...

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#15. Premium Rush (2012)

Storyline: Wilee is one of 1,500 bike couriers in Manhattan who rides on the edge by having a bike with no brakes. On this day, Wilee has a delivery that is so valuable that a corrupt NYC Detective, who needs the money, begins to chase Wilee throughout the city to get it before the envelope is delivered.

Plot Keywords: chase, manhattan new york city, character repeating someone else's dialogue, threat, law student, raised middle finger, interracial relationship ...

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