A humble bartender falls into a world of gambling and vices, losing everything.
Social & External
The people behind it
Emilio Tuero
Chula Prieto
Andrea Palma
Rodolfo Acosta
Liliana Durán
Carlos Valadez
José Baviera
Alfredo Varela
José Luis Aguirre
Nono Arsu
Eleonora is trapped in her marriage with Achilleas. Her brother, Vagelis, unwillingly offers her a possible way out.
In 1948, the Trouths are facing no income and the hottest summer on record. When their estranged son inexplicably returns, the apartment is full again - but is it big enough for the gambling, trauma, and substantial life insurance policy that comes in his wake?
A chronicle of the life of 18th century aristocrat Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, who was reviled for her extravagant political and personal life.
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.
A stranger mentors a young Reno gambler who weds a hooker and befriends a vulgar casino regular.
The lives of two strangers - a struggling mother and a gambling addict - meet in tragedy. Years pass, and they must come to terms with themselves, and one another.
Set in 1959, Diner shows how five young men resist their adulthood and seek refuge in their beloved Diner. The mundane, childish, and titillating details of their lives are shared. But the golden moments pass, and the men shoulder their responsibilities, leaving the Diner behind.
Facing bankruptcy after losing a card game, U Bo Shwe and his daughter Khin May must defend themselves against the former's creditor, Maung Tin.
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.
Hands sculpted in stone, hidden in the niches of an ancient house, are regarded as sources of a curse by the present inhabitant, a country gambling addict. Indeed, he goes to an early grave after experiencing bankruptcy. The house passes to another family, one of whose sons becomes obsessed with the hands. (A cross-editing of principal material from two Chilean films, LA CASA ESTA VACIA and LA DAMA DE LA MUERTE, with the addition of new American-made footage, to create a single story.)
Married couple Fugui and Jiazhen endure tumultuous events in mid-20th century mainland China as their personal fortunes move from wealthy landownership to peasantry.
Maximillian (Max) has a serious addiction his family knows nothing about. He places bets with his friend Charlie, but Charlie has become disappointed with Max's lack of control. Max starts to beg family and friends for large sums of money, but no one's willing to help. Even his successful older brother has doubts about why he needs the money. His younger brother Kyle might be his only hope, but he's in a little bit of trouble pocketing money from his "side" gig. With bank letters threatening to take his house, he becomes more desperate for quick money. He thinks all he needs is just one more sure bet to keep him above water, but luck plays a wicked game.
Cosmo Vittelli, the proprietor of a sleazy, low-rent Hollywood cabaret, has a real affection for the women who strip in his peepshows and the staff who keep up his dingy establishment. He also has a major gambling problem that has gotten him in trouble before. When Cosmo loses big-time at an underground casino run by mobster Mort, he isn't able to pay up. Mort then offers Cosmo the chance to pay back his debt by knocking off a pesky, Mafia-protected bookie.
Carefree single guy Charlie Waters rooms with two lovely prostitutes, Barbara Miller and Susan Peters, and lives to gamble. Along with his glum betting buddy, Bill Denny, Charlie sets out on a gambling streak in search of the ever-elusive big payday. While Charlie and Bill have some lucky moments, they also have to contend with serious setbacks that threaten to derail their hedonistic betting binge.
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.
A man feels obligated to hijack the plane his boss is on after he has gambled himself into overwhelming debt.
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.
General arrives in Baden-Baden with his stepdaughter Polina and his mother, seeking social standing and respite. Secretly, they chase casino fortunes alongside a French businessman and beauty. Alexej, Polina’s tutor, struggles with his own gambling past while falling for her. When the wealthy “Babushka” dies, the family’s financial woes vanish, freeing Alexej to court Polina. Yet he loses everything in a sudden winning streak that upends loyalties and reveals the world’s true stakes: love, money, and chance.
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.
An aimless young man who is scalping tickets, gambling and drinking, agrees to coach a Little League team from the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago as a condition of getting a loan from a friend.
Thomas Montgomery, a married father of two young daughters, gets seduced by the world of online gambling and chat rooms where a virtual romance and sexual obsession ultimately leads to the murder of an innocent man.
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.
A pro ball player with a substance abuse problem is forced into rehab in his hometown, finding new hope when he gets honest about his checkered past, and takes on coaching duties for a misfit Little League team
When illegal card dealer and recovering heroin addict Frankie Machine gets out of prison, he decides to straighten up. Armed with nothing but an old drum set, Frankie tries to get honest work as a drummer. But when his former employer and his old drug dealer re-enter his life, Frankie finds it hard to stay clean and eventually finds himself succumbing to his old habits.
A massage therapist looking to overcome her addictions and reconnect with her son, whose father is an anthropologist in South America studying the Yanomani people, moves in with a wealthy ex-client in New Jersey.
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.
The eldest son of a ruthlessly tough MMA champion must fight his way out of the abusive cycle his father has continued.
John LeTour is a recovering drug user who suffers insomnia and still deals to a high-end New York clientele, even though he’s trying to move on from the business. John’s professional midlife crisis becomes something more acute — and dangerous — when he re-encounters an old flame while a string of seemingly drug-related murders rocks the city.
Two childhood friends from South Boston turn to crime as a way to get by, ultimately causing a strain in their personal lives and their friendship.
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.
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.
A short, unhappy affair with a married man leads a dedicated schoolteacher into the alcohol-and-drug fueled underworld of singles’ bars, where she begins to engage in a pattern of dangerous sexual activity.
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.
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.
