Movies like Vegas: Based on a True Story (2008)
The best movies like Vegas: Based on a True Story (2008) are The Place Beyond the Pines (2013), Hard Eight (1997) and Pale Rider (1985). If Vegas: Based on a True Story hooked you with its drama, these 30 similar films are what to watch next, and every pick says why it matches.
Quick picks
- Highest ratedCasino (1995)8.0/10 from 6,873 votes
- NewestTornado (2025)Released 2025
The Place Beyond the Pines (2013)
A motorcycle stunt rider considers committing a crime in order to provide for his wife and child, an act that puts him on a collision course with a cop-turned-politician.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisHard Eight (1997)
A stranger mentors a young Reno gambler who weds a hooker and befriends a vulgar casino regular.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisPale Rider (1985)
A mysterious preacher protects a humble prospector village from a greedy mining company trying to encroach on their land.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisOld Henry (2021)
A widowed farmer and his son warily take in a mysterious, injured man with a satchel of cash. When a posse of men claiming to be the law come for the money, the farmer must decide who to trust. Defending a siege of his homestead, the farmer reveals a talent for gun-slinging that surprises everyone calling his true identity into question.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisCasino (1995)
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.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisMcCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971)
A gambler and a prostitute become thriving business partners in a remote Old West mining town until a large corporation arrives on the scene.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisBugsy (1991)
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.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisBad Times at the El Royale (2018)
Lake Tahoe, 1969. Seven strangers, each one with a secret to bury, meet at El Royale, a decadent motel with a dark past. In the course of a fateful night, everyone will have one last shot at redemption.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisSurrounded (2023)
After her stagecoach is ambushed, a woman is tasked with holding a dangerous outlaw captive and must survive the day when the bandit’s gang tries to free him.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisOwning Mahowny (2003)
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.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Missouri Breaks (1976)
When vigilante land baron David Braxton hangs one of the best friends of cattle rustler Tom Logan, Logan's gang decides to get even by purchasing a small farm next to Braxton's ranch. From there the rustlers begin stealing horses, using the farm as a front for their operation. Determined to stop the thefts at any cost, Braxton retains the services of eccentric sharpshooter Robert E. Lee Clayton, who begins ruthlessly taking down Logan's gang.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLawless (2012)
In 1931, the Bondurant brothers of Franklin County, Virginia, run a multipurpose backwoods establishment that hides their true business — bootlegging. Middle brother Forrest is the brain of the operation; older Howard is the brawn, and younger Jack, the lookout. Though the local police have taken bribes and left the brothers alone, a violent war erupts when a sadistic lawman from Chicago arrives and tries to shut down the Bondurants operation.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisSexy Beast (2001)
Ex-safecracker Gal Dove has served his time behind bars and is blissfully retired to a Spanish villa paradise with a wife he adores. The idyll is shattered by the arrival of his nemesis Don Logan, intent on persuading Gal to return to London for one last big job.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisA Bronx Tale (1993)
Set in the Bronx during the tumultuous 1960s, an adolescent boy is torn between his honest, working-class father and a violent yet charismatic crime boss. Complicating matters is the youngster's growing attraction - forbidden in his neighborhood - for a beautiful black girl.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Absolute CinemaMovies like thisDark City (1950)
War hero Danny Haley fleeces out-of-town dupes in a rigged poker game. He and his pals see Arthur Winant as an easy mark, but they've reckoned without Winant's homicidal brother, who wants revenge after Arthur commits suicide.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHell or High Water (2016)
A divorced dad and his ex-con brother resort to a desperate scheme in order to save their family's farm in West Texas.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisFlashbacks of a Fool (2008)
An aging Hollywood star, Joe Scott, lives a life of narcissistic hedonism, observed by his laconic personal assistant, Ophelia. The death of his childhood best friend, Boots, takes our protagonist, and the movie, into an extended flashback to a sea-side town in 1970s Britain.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisWalking Tall (1973)
Ex-wrestler and Tennessee Sheriff Buford Pusser walks tall and carries a big stick as he tussles with county-wide corruption and moonshining thugs.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisThe Air I Breathe (2007)
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.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTornado (2025)
When her father's puppet samurai show gets ambushed by a notorious gang, Tornado vows to seek vengeance and forge her own destiny by stealing their ill-gotten gold.
Why it matches: Recommended by TMDB viewers · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisHuman Nature (2001)
Obsessive scientist Nathan and his lover, the naturalist Lila, discover Puff: a man born and raised in the wild. As Nathan trains the wild man in the civilized ways of the world, Lila fights to preserve the man’s natural state. In the power struggle that ensues, an unusual love triangle emerges.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisLeaving Las Vegas (1995)
Ben Sanderson, an alcoholic Hollywood screenwriter who lost everything because of his drinking, arrives in Las Vegas to drink himself to death. There, he meets and forms an uneasy friendship and non-interference pact with prostitute Sera.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisShaft's Big Score! (1972)
John Shaft is back as the lady-loved black detective cop on the search for the murderer of a client.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisRain Man (1988)
When car dealer Charlie Babbitt learns that his estranged father has died, he returns home to Cincinnati, where he discovers that he has a savant older brother named Raymond and that his father's $3 million fortune is being left to the mental institution in which Raymond lives. Motivated by his father's money, Charlie checks Raymond out of the facility in order to return with him to Los Angeles. The brothers' cross-country trip ends up changing both their lives.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisA River Runs Through It (1992)
The Maclean brothers, Paul and Norman, live a relatively idyllic life in rural Montana, spending much of their time fly fishing. The sons of a minister, the boys eventually part company when Norman moves east to attend college, leaving his rebellious brother to find trouble back home. When Norman finally returns, the siblings resume their fishing outings, and assess where they've been and where they're going.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisLisbon Story (1994)
Wim Wenders' homage to Lisbon and films. A sound engineer obtains a mysterious postcard from a friend who at the moment is filming a film in Lisbon. He sets out across Europe to find him and help him.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisOnce Were Warriors (1994)
In a violent relationship, it takes a mother’s strength to save herself and her children from the man she loved. Once Were Warriors is a violent love story set against a contemporary urban backdrop.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Worth the HypeMovies like thisA Little Bit of Soul (1987)
A bitter coming-of-age story about boy who grows up in a remote Bosnian village shortly after World War II.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Russian Dolls (2005)
Five years after their summer together in Barcelona, Xavier, William, Wendy, Martine and Isabelle reunite.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Popcorn FlickMovies like thisTake The Bridge (2008)
Four young adults who try to commit suicide on the same day become friends.
Why it matches: Similar story and style · both drama
Like Vegas: Based on a True Story and something else?
Blend two favourites and we’ll find the films in between.
Frequently asked questions
What are the best movies like Vegas: Based on a True Story?
The closest matches to Vegas: Based on a True Story are The Place Beyond the Pines (2013), Hard Eight (1997) and Pale Rider (1985). Below are 27 more, each with the reason it matches.
What should I watch after Vegas: Based on a True Story?
Start with The Place Beyond the Pines (2013), the closest match to Vegas: Based on a True Story.
What is the highest-rated movie like Vegas: Based on a True Story?
Casino (1995), rated 8.0/10 by 6,873 TMDB users.
What is the newest movie like Vegas: Based on a True Story?
Tornado (2025) is the most recent release on this list.
Are there English movies like Vegas: Based on a True Story?
Yes: The Place Beyond the Pines (2013), Hard Eight (1997) and Pale Rider (1985).
How are movies similar to Vegas: Based on a True Story chosen?
First come films that Trakt’s viewers watch alongside Vegas: Based on a True Story, then TMDB’s recommendations and films it rates as similar in story and genre. Each pick says which signal put it there.