Feature

Small blinds on the big screen. A look at the best poker films.

If you’ve ever taken the time to check out the player profiles of your opponents in our poker room, you’ll know it doesn’t take long before you find someone who lists their favourite film as Rounders.

The 1998 film stars Matt Damon as a reformed gambler who decides to rejoin the world of high stakes poker to help clear debts a friend owes to a loan shark.

Often dubbed the most popular poker movie ever made the film is, in fact, in good company. Over the decades hundreds of films have been made about poker – or feature big poker scenes.

Though by no means definitive here’s the Big Slick guide to six of the best that are common enough that you might just find them in your local video store, in the TV listings or for sale in an online store or auction site.

Rounders (1998)

Having lost his tuition money, and everything else he’s saved, in a big money poker game student Matt Damon knocks it on the head and promises his girlfriend he won’t play poker again.

That is until Damon’s best friend, a notorious card shark, is released from prison. It’s not long before the friend has persuaded Damon to play high stakes poker again to pay of debts he owes to a Russian mobster.

Damon gets involved in a marathon session, is reading his opponents like a proverbial book and then, well, you wouldn’t want us to spoil the end now would you?!

The film is also noteworthy because of the cameo by Johnny Chan, then former two-time poker World Champion after winning the World Series of Poker $10,000 No Limit Hold’em tournament in 1987 and 1988.

The Cincinnati Kid (1965)

This is the Big One. The Daddy. The Royal Flush of poker films. Based on Richard Jessup’s seminal novel the film stars Steve McQueen as The Kid, a travelling gambler who arrives in New Orleans to play “The Man” Lancey Howard (Edward Robinson), revered among the road gamblers as the best there is.

With all the other players knocked out of the game the film builds up to a final tension-wracked big hand showdown between the Kid and Howard. Arguably the best poker scene ever shot the film is also memorable for the classic line that sums up the timeless appeal of poker: “It gets down to what it’s all about, making the wrong move at the right time.” A classic.

The Sting (1973)

Not strictly a poker film but it’s as permanent a fixture on the Christmas TV schedules as Scrooge and The Great Escape and does feature a classic poker scene that’s crucial to the film.

Set in the world of 1930s Chicago, run by gangsters and with con men making good livings, young con Johnny Hooker (Robert Redford) decides to avenge a friend’s death by conning the man responsible, criminal banker Doyle Lonnegan (Robert Shaw) out of a stack of cash.

To set him up Hooker first needs to get his attention – and he does this with friends through a high stakes poker game onboard a train. Paul Newman gives a master class in table image as his character Henry Gondorff beats Lonnegan out of $15,000 by cheating.

Criminal boss Lonnegan is outraged – he fixed the game so he could win – and in one classic scene asks an underling: “What was I supposed to do? Accuse him of cheating better than me in front of the others?”

Hooker then confirms to Lonnegan that he was cheated, promises he can help Lonnegan get Gondorff back – and the bait is set in a $500,000 sting.

Kaleidoscope (1966)

The Sting may feature players cheating at cards but Kaleidoscope is all about it! Warren Beatty is a Sixties playboy who decides it’s time a punter turned the tables on casinos so breaks into a card factory and marks the cards.

He then hits the casinos, with the glamorous Susannah York in tow, and quickly wins a fortune at Blackjack and poker while acquiring the title of “luckiest poker player” ever.

The party is short-lived though as Beatty gets caught and is forced by Scotland Yard to either go to prison or play a high stakes poker game with a drug smuggler while using the marked cards. He chooses the game - but the decks used turn out to be unmarked and Beatty has to survive on his wits to win.

Of course, it all comes down to one big hand - and it’s worth watching the movie just to see how Beatty makes a big play decision, and his reaction when the showdown happens.

Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998)

OK, so the film is an adrenaline charged rollercoaster ride through London’s criminal underworld but it’s a high stakes poker game, fixed of course, that gets the action going!

Eddy (Nick Moran) has been a cardsharp since his early years so he and three wide-boy mates put £25,000 in each to get the stake together for a big game. Unfortunately Eddy plays local gangland boss “Hatchet” Harry Lonsdale and by the end of the game the East End hard man has cheated him out of £500,000.

Given a week to get the money together or start losing his fingers Eddy and his mates dig themselves deeper and deeper into trouble as they realise how attached to their fingers they’ve become.

It’s a fast-moving film, worth watching if only to see the technical wizardry “Hatchet” Harry uses to cheat Eddy out of his money. You may never trust a home game again!

Big Hand for a Little Lady (1966)

A comedy western about poker the film, starring Henry Fonda, is actually very enjoyable and keeps you guessing what’s going to happen right till the end.

A family arrive in a new town just as its richest residents are sitting down for the biggest poker game of the year. The couple start watching the game but as soon as the wife leaves the husband joins the game, only to lose most of the family savings.

As the game progresses the husband deals himself a winning hand. But during an argument about whether he can get more cash to bet with he has a heart attack. His wife arrives back just in time to play the hand for him - despite the fact she doesn’t know how to play – and try and raise the money to bet with so she can win the family savings back.