We've know the score. You're chilling out at home and you just get that desire to kick back and watch a classic casino movie. Problem is there's just so many to choose between! Are you in the mood for a classic performance such as Paul Newman in The Sting, high stakes poker with The Cincinnati Kid, or maybe something a little more bleak such as more recently released The Gambler? Well they and many others are all great films, but there's going to be very few who can argue with the top three casino movies selected below.

Each of these movies wins it's place on the leader-board thanks to not just being an excellent single film, but absolutely ideal to watch numerous times over thanks to the subtleties in the story. So without further ado - here they are:

1) Casino (1995, dir. Martin Scorsese)

Destination: 

Anchor: casino online 

It's an obvious contender for the greatest casino movie of all time even though some may say it's more of a gangster flick. Yet this is without question the greatest re-imaging of the glory days of Las Vegas, when the strip retained that aura of a semi lawless wild west. The ensemble cast featuring Robert De Niro, Sharon Stone and Joe Pesci in career defining roles do perfect justice to a multi-layered story line based upon greed, corruption and ultimately betrayal. Nothing like Casino online

Featuring the fictional Tangiers casino and resort (interior scenes filmed at the very real Riviera) the photography and attention to detail in recreating the rolling 70's is truly astonishing. While some critics complained about the excessive violence that features throughout the movie (car bombings, dismemberment etc) the real star of the show is the description and portrayal of how a major casino operated back in the day.

Oceans Eleven (2001, dir. Steve Soderbergh)

Who doesn't enjoy a good old fashioned, tongue in cheek heist movie? True the sequels were pretty dire but that can't take away from the fun and frolics of the original. George Clooney and Brad Pitt head a motley crew of conmen, bank robbers, confidence tricksters and demolition experts as they seek to pull off the heist of the century by robbing the vaults of three Vegas casinos at once. Hoping to use a championship boxing match as cover, things don't go quite according to plan.

Ending up as the fifth highest grossing movie of 2001, many people forget that this is actually a remake of an original starring The Rat Pack who no doubt enjoyed their time filming in the Vegas resorts! Check it out if you haven't seen it, it's a very different movie.

21 (2008, dir. Robert Luketic)

Usually it'd be the Cincinnati Kid or maybe Rounders that would complete a top three on gambling, but remember that we're looking at movies which focus upon the casino here. While 21 isn't exactly a classic it is actually based upon a true story of a group of MIT students who devise a special way of card counting at Blackjack. They win big, but then slowly the plot starts to unravel over personal rivalries and - of course - money.

Despite being a considerable success at the box office the film was panned by critics who criticized the story being mistold, and especially the casting of a glamorous set of thrusting young actors to play the role of a bunch of geeks and nerds! However you can't argue with the public, and the film does go into good detail over the elaborate methods used by both cheats and casino security to gain an edge.