Vegas Movies: A 20 Year Fascination with Sin City

“Whatever happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” is a common phrase hiding the scintillating personal scandals that happen in a wild west city like Las Vegas. It seems like nothing is off limits and everything goes in Vegas movies. From fabulous hotels and Elvis impersonators to winning streaks and the mob, there were plenty of stories that filmmakers told that made the city of Las Vegas its own character.

What does a destination do to a story? In New York alone you could set a story on Wall Street, Brooklyn, Staten Island or Queens — each one creating a setting as if it were its own character. Beginning in the late-1980s and peaking in the 1990s, Las Vegas was the setting of Oscar-nominated films, independent features and a few duds. Regardless, they told the story of desire, ambition, hope and pain. Here are few Vegas movies to download for this week’s script collection. 

Scripts from this Article

Rain Man

Indecent Proposal

Casino

Leaving Las Vegas

Showgirls

Swingers

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Ocean’s Eleven

The Hangover

Rain Man (1988)

The film hit theaters and started the fascination of gambling right as the city was on the cusp of being a popular adult destination. It centers around a selfish car dealer who discovers that the autistic brother he never knew he had is the recipient of millions as part of a trust fund from their estranged father. Charlie (Tom Cruise) was left out of the will.

Raymond (Dustin Hoffman) plays the autistic brother whose gift with numbers takes them to Caesar’s Palace in fresh matching suits, where they clean up at the blackjack table to the point where they parlay it into a magnificent suite at the top of the hotel, and eventually get kicked out for being too successful.

So popular was this scene that it was referenced in later films like Swingers and The Hangover.

Read More: Best Plants and Payoffs Screens Screenwriters Can Learn From

Indecent Proposal (1993)

This movie is like another Vegas-set film, Honeymoon in Vegas, in which a rich man sees a beautiful woman and uses money to coerce his way into her heart. Only this is a darker drama focusing more on the relationship dynamics between a happily married couple who need to make money fast to save their dream home. This is the type of film that intrigues based on the quote from John (Robert Redford) to David (Woody Harrelson):

“Suppose I were to offer you one million dollars for one night with your wife.”

This premise alone could send the story in a thousand different directions, but in Indecent Proposal it sets up the destruction of a marriage and shows that there’s more to lose in Vegas than money.

Read More: Sitting Down with ‘Mystic Pizza’ Screenwriter Amy Jones

Casino (1995)

While based on real people, Casino is a fictitious look at two “connected” friends eager to stake their claim in 1970’s Las Vegas. Along with Bugsy, this film was sort of an origin story of the major casinos that put Las Vegas on the map. Behind the glamour are ruthless mafia enforcers, the stresses of managing the casino and a toxic relationship between two friends and a wife.

Casino took the mob story out of New York and placed it in a new destination. It gave audiences a behind-the-scenes look at how casinos operated in the 1970s and 1980s, how they became successful and what happened if you were a customer who crossed the line.

Read More: How to Write a Gambling Screenplay

Leaving Las Vegas (1995)

1995 was a year that didn’t put Las Vegas into a very good light. It was a place to lose money, lose oneself and watch dreams circle down the drain. Nicolas Cage returns to Sin City in Leaving Las Vegas as an alcoholic who decides to drink himself to death. He ends up meeting a prostitute and they help each navigate the brutal realities of their life.

There is hardly anything glamorous about Las Vegas in this film but one would be remiss to find a better destination for this story to unfold. Like New York City, Las Vegas can be seen as both a fun and vibrant location or one of tragedy. Along with Academy Award nominations for writing and directing for Mike Figgis and Best Actress for Elisabeth Shue, Leaving Las Vegas garnered Nicolas Cage his Oscar statue.

Read More: The Scripts That Made Nicolas Cage All the Rage

Showgirls (1995)

There’s nothing Nomi (Elizabeth Berkley) wants more than to be a dancer. She arrives in Las Vegas to start her career on the showgirl circuit and will do whatever it takes to succeed. To tell this story, you need to have it take place in Las Vegas. While the other two Las Vegas films released in 1995 garnered Oscar nominations and wins, it’s Showgirls, famous for its NC-17 rating and unapologetic nudity, that broke records – seven Golden Raspberry Awards (Razzies).

Showgirls held true to many of the core themes and ideas behind other Vegas destination films: people come here in search of making their fortune or mark in the world and that the excitement and allure of Vegas is a façade to the vices that lurk underneath.

Swingers (1996)

This independent film skyrocketed the careers of two of the most influential filmmakers in a generation and made Vince Vaughn and Heather Graham two influential actors of the 1990s and early aughts. It also created several memorable quotes, brought back a dance style from the 1940s and showed a realistic view of Vegas according to Los Angelenos. In a reference to a previous film, Trent (Vaughn) believes he and Mikey (Jon Favreau) will make so much money, the casino will put them in “the Rain Man suite.” They don’t get their comped room but Las Vegas helps tell the story of two struggling twenty-somethings in L.A.

Swingers (1996)

Written by Favreau (responsible for launching the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Iron Man, several Disney live action films and The Mandalorian) and directed by Doug Limon, the first act makes Las Vegas the easy and fun destination for Los Angeles residents (side note: this author turned 21 on I-15 heading from L.A. to Vegas).

Las Vegas adds a level of authenticity to the story making it the perfect setting to introduce the main characters and set the tone of the film.

Read More: 5 Plot Point Breakdown: Swingers

Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)

In this wild adventure, Johnny Depp embraces his inner Hunter S. Thompson in a film based on the gonzo journalist’s novel. It’s a look at what happens when you get an advance for a magazine article and buy lots of psychedelics. It’s not so much Las Vegas as the major backdrop of the Terry Gillam directed film but shows what someone could get away with in the city that seemingly lets everything go.

The lesson? Drugs are great and all but they can lead you down a nightmare-ish trip.

Ocean’s Eleven (2001)

The 1990s are over. But Vegas doesn’t go out with a whimper but rather a bang. Ocean’s Eleven brings together a murderer’s row of stars with the ambition to do the impossible: rob a casino. Make that three casinos. It’s exciting and fun watching George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts — superstars that became household names in the previous decade — team up in a film by 1990s indie auteur Steven Soderbergh.

Ocean’s Eleven was made at a time of transition. Las Vegas was building bigger and fancier hotels and cleaning up the images seen in the dismal films of the early 1990s while still being a destination for tourists to let go of their inhibitions and maybe make some money in the process. Sure, the movie was about a crime, but it was still entertaining like other heist films like The Italian Job, The Fast & The Furious and Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid.

Read More: How to Write a Heist Screenplay

The Hangover (2009)

At the tail end of the aughts came a movie that became the highest grossing R-rated comedy. The Hangover was a mystery comedy that took a handful of anti-heroes on a bachelor party adventure and sent them around the Las Vegas area in an attempt to find their lost friend – who is also the groom-to-be.

Las Vegas has always been that place where people can get lucky or fall flat on their face. The Hangover highlights the good times of drinking, partying and gambling but doesn’t shy away from the consequences of all that debauchery. Just like many of the other films with Las Vegas as the backdrop, the fun always precedes the reality that one can’t escape. It’s the redemption in Vegas and the characters (Carlos the baby, Mike Tyson, a tiger and Ken Jeong’s Mr. Chow) that gives the audience the belief that what happens in Vegas can make a great story.

Read More: 5 Plot Point Breakdown: The Hangover

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In 2013, there were 5 major films centered around Las Vegas released. In the last 10 years, you’ll be hard-pressed to find another one. Las Vegas had a good run in film providing a roller coaster of incredible (and not-so great) films. It was more than just a destination to shoot a movie, it was part of the story – the city became a character and played a significant role in telling it.

Whether it’s the cornfields of Iowa (Field of Dreams), downtown Chicago (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) or Pandora (Avatar), a film’s location can have a personality just like any character in the film.