Ballad of a Small Player
Amid the glittering casinos of Macau, a gambler running from his past—and his debts—becomes fascinated by an enigmatic woman at the baccarat table.
Movies Like Ballad of a Small Player
Similar in style, tone, and themes — find your next watch.
Casino
1995★ 8.0
In Las Vegas, two best friends--a casino executive and a Mafia enforcer--compete for a gambling empire and a fast-living, fast-loving socialite.
Rounders
1998★ 7.0
Poker addict Mike McDermott knows the game inside out, but loses his money one night in a game to Russian-American gangster Teddy KGB. Promising his partner Jo he'll give up, he meets up with best friend Lester 'Worm' Murphy, just out of prison and owing lots of money to the wrong kind of people. McDermott becomes his co-guarantor and now there's only one way to raise the money, the pair have to get back into the game.
Owning Mahowny
2003★ 6.8
Dan Mahowny 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 $10 million in eighteen months to feed his gambling obsession.
The Air I Breathe
2007★ 6.3
A gambler’s bet spiraling into chaos, a gangster's prophetic visions, a pop star’s dark entanglement, a doctor’s desperate race against time to rescue his beloved... Four interconnected stories reveal life unfolding through four emotional pillars — joy, passion, grief, and love.
Dark City
1950★ 6.5
Gamblers who "took" an out-of-town sucker in a crooked poker game feel shadowy vengeance closing in on them.
Killing Them Softly
2012★ 6.0
Jackie Cogan is an enforcer hired to restore order after three dumb guys rob a Mob protected card game, causing the local criminal economy to collapse.
Bugsy
1991★ 6.4
New York gangster Ben 'Bugsy' Siegel takes a brief business trip to Los Angeles. A sharp-dressing womanizer with a foul temper, Siegel doesn't hesitate to kill or maim anyone crossing him. In L.A. the life, the movies, and most of all strong-willed Virginia Hill detain him while his family wait back home. Then a trip to a run-down gambling joint at a spot in the desert known as Las Vegas gives him his big idea.
The Card Counter
2021★ 6.1
William Tell just wants to play cards. His spartan existence on the casino trail is shattered when he is approached by Cirk, a vulnerable and angry young man seeking help to execute his plan for revenge on a military colonel. Tell sees a chance at redemption through his relationship with Cirk.
Croupier
1998★ 6.7
Jack Manfred is an aspiring writer who to make ends meet, takes a job as a croupier. Jack remains an observer, knowing that everything in life is a gamble and that gamblers are born to lose. Inevitably, he gets sucked into the world of the casino which takes its toll on his relationships and the novel he is writing.
Hard Eight
1997★ 6.8
A stranger mentors a young Reno gambler who weds a hooker and befriends a vulgar casino regular.
The Gambler
1974★ 6.7
New York City English professor Axel Freed outwardly seems like an upstanding citizen. But privately Freed is in the clutches of a severe gambling addiction that threatens to destroy him.
SuperFly
2018★ 6.7
Career criminal Youngblood Priest wants out of the Atlanta drug scene, but as he ramps up sales, one little slip up threatens to bring the whole operation down before he can make his exit.
The Gambler
2014★ 6.0
Literature professor Jim Bennett leads a secret life as a high-stakes gambler. Always a risk-taker, Bennett bets it all when he borrows from a gangster and offers his own life as collateral. Staying one step ahead, he pits his creditor against the operator of an illicit gambling ring while garnering the attention of Frank, a paternalistic loan shark. As his relationship with a student deepens, Bennett must risk everything for a second chance.
Nightmare Alley
2021★ 7.0
An ambitious carnival man with a talent for manipulating people with a few well-chosen words hooks up with a female psychologist who is even more dangerous than he is.
House of Games
1987★ 6.8
A psychiatrist comes to the aid of a compulsive gambler and is led by a smooth-talking grifter into the shadowy but compelling world of stings, scams, and con men.
Molly's Game
2017★ 7.2
Molly Bloom, a young skier and former Olympic hopeful becomes a successful entrepreneur (and a target of an FBI investigation) when she establishes a high-stakes, international poker game.
The Unforgivable
2021★ 7.4
A woman is released from prison after serving a sentence for a violent crime and re-enters a society that refuses to forgive her past.
Winged Creatures
2009★ 5.9
A psychotic man opens fire in a diner, murdering numerous people before killing himself. The survivors struggle in different ways following this horrendous event: a doctor doubts his own instincts and elects to use an experimental medical procedure on his wife, while a gambler believes he's on a lucky streak. A waitress begins engaging in promiscuous sex, and a young girl whose father is among the dead gains unexpected fame.
Kill Me Again
1989★ 6.1
After Faye and her psychotic boyfriend, Vince, successfully rob a mob courier, Faye decides to abscond with the loot. She heads to Reno, where she hires feckless private investigator Jack Andrews to help fake her death. He pulls the scheme off and sets up Faye with a new identity, only to have her skip out on him without paying. Jack follows her to Vegas and learns he's not the only one after her. Vince has discovered that she's still alive.
I Smile Back
2015★ 6.1
Laney is an attractive, intelligent suburban wife and devoted mother of two adorable children. She has the perfect husband who plays basketball with the kids in the driveway, a pristine house, and a shiny SUV for carting the children to their next activity. However, just beneath the façade lie depression and disillusionment that send her careening into a secret world of reckless compulsion. Only very real danger will force her to face the painful root of her destructiveness and its crumbling effect on those she loves.