In 2004 the crime thriller The Card Player (German title: fatal poker games) started. This is about online poker and the life of hostages as a stake. In the same year, another Italian film was released in Italy, which is about a poker rematch among old friends. The lesser known film La rivincita di Natale (English title: Christmas Rematch) in a drama with comedic elements.

In 2005 the poker comedy drama Freeze Out was released in the USA. It’s about the micro-stakes game of poker with a few friends. It is interesting that the director himself was a poker player and financed the film production purely with profits from poker games.

Another fun poker movie was shown in 2007: The Grand . The actors had to improvise a lot in the film about the participants of a poker tournament.

In 2008, Burt Reynold played a poker player who coached a rookie in the movie Deal .

The 2009 Chinese comedy Poker King is about Texas Hold’em , rip-offs and poker tournaments.

Runner Runner (2013), one of the few films about online poker . Strongly cast with Justin Timberlake and Ben Affleck. Despite the exciting topic, it was torn up by the critics.

And finally Molly’s Game was filmed in 2017 and was very successful. Maybe because Molly Bloom really existed and managed to organize very high stakes poker games. But maybe also because the film is just really well made and very exciting.

So there is a whole collection of exciting poker films for poker fans who love to see big movies. It is nice to see that the online poker game also makes it into the scripts time and again and even brings in considerable sums of money at the box office.…

As one of the best works on poker as a theme, the 1965 Cincinnati Kid was rated Steve McQueen. The flick takes place in the 1930s in New Orleans, where “The Kid” challenges the poker champion “The Man” in the game of stud poker.

The Gambler was released in 1974 with James Caan . This exciting thriller is about the constant loser and gambling addict “Axel Freed”, who has a money shark on his neck. In 2014, the remake of the same name appeared with Mark Wahlberg in the lead role. Many poker fans, however, rate the original as clearly more exciting.

In California Split (1974) is about friendship and excitement of poker. Two men, poker, gambling, winning streaks and losing streaks as well as lots of funny scenes make this film very entertaining.

The always funny and charming Adriano Celentano played a poker player in the Italian comedy Asso – Ace in 1981 , who is murdered and ultimately plays poker against God in heaven.

It took 25 years for a real poker movie to hit theaters again after The Gambler. In 1998 the film Rounders was released , starring the brilliant Hollywood stars Matt Damon and Edward Norton . The script offers a lot of suspense and drama in the New York underground high-stakes poker world.

A year later, in 1999, The Big Blind was shown. The story tells of 50 poker players trying to make a name for themselves in the poker world. The 12 interlocking storylines are hailed by poker fans as the most realistic representation of game details in a movie.…

Poker and gambling have been featured in movies for as long as the film industry was around. And not from somewhere – poker rounds are exciting, provide a thrill and can be inserted into any story. The first films in which the popular poker game was more or less part of the plot appeared shortly after the First World War. An amazing example of this is the film adaptation of the book “The Outcasts of Poker Flat” by the American author Bret Harte from 1869. The short story about a poker player and a place called Poker Flat had so much potential that it had more over the years than has been filmed three times. In 1919, 1937 and 1952 there were the most famous film adaptations ofWatch The Outcasts of Poker Flat . Certainly, these films are not works that every poker fan must have seen, but it does show what a dramatic attraction the aura of a poker player and the game of poker itself have.

Poker in western and wild west films

Poker is an important part of Western and Wild West films . After all, the times of the Wild West in America were also the time of the birth of the game of poker as we know it today. Well-known films are 5 Card Stud (1968 – German title: Mortal enemies), A big hand for a little lady (1966 – German title: Highest bet in Laredo). This was followed by The Hi-Lo Country (1998 – German title: Hi-Lo Country) and 5 Card Draw (2015). In 1980, The Gambler was even an American mini-series about a few poker players starring Kenny Rogers.

A western didn’t always have to be a movie with lead flying through the air. Old stars Elisabeth Taylor and George Hamilton brought some romance to a western with Poker Alice in 1987 , which is about a female poker pro in Arizona in the 1880s. The spaghetti western Trinity is still my name (German title: Vier Fäuste für ein Halleluja) with Terence Hill and Bud Spencer from 1972 was a western comedy. Many poker fans say that the best poker scene of all time features in this movie. Just shuffling the cards is absolutely worth seeing.

Over the decades, western films were more or less out of date, but the game of poker stayed and some films worth seeing were made with stories and characters related to poker. It was about professional gamblers, cheaters, criminals and gamblers, but the game of poker almost always played the leading role .

…