Ballad of a Small Player

Movies Like

Ballad of a Small Player (2025)

Crime, Drama

If you loved Ballad of a Small Player, you'll love these similar films. Handpicked based on shared themes, genre, and feel.

Casino

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

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.

The Air I Breathe

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.

Bugsy

Bugsy

1991 ★ 6.3

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.

Killing Them Softly

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.

Owning Mahowny

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 Card Counter

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. But keeping Cirk on the straight-and-narrow proves impossible, dragging Tell back into the darkness of his past.

Hard Eight

Hard Eight

1997 ★ 6.8

A stranger mentors a young Reno gambler who weds a hooker and befriends a vulgar casino regular.

Croupier

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.

The Gambler

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

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.

House of Games

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.

The Gambler

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

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.

Molly's Game

Molly's Game

2017 ★ 7.1

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.

I Smile Back

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.

The Unforgivable

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.

The Most Hated Woman in America

The Most Hated Woman in America

2017 ★ 6.2

The true story of Madalyn Murray O'Hair -- iconoclast, opportunist, and outspoken atheist -- from her controversial rise to her untimely demise.

Winged Creatures

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.

Collision

Collision

2022 ★ 5.8

Over the course of one fateful day, a corrupt businessman and his socialite wife race to save their daughter from a notorious crime lord.

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