Gambling has always made good cinema. The stakes are clear, the tension builds on every card and the audience knows how quickly a lucky streak can turn. What gets less attention is how often Canadians have been at the table, behind the camera or in front of it. From a Toronto-born director’s poker classic to a made-for-TV teen drama about addiction, here are the Canadian films and performers who helped shape the gambling story on screen.
The Cincinnati Kid (1965): Norman Jewison deals the cards
Before In the Heat of the Night and Moonstruck, Toronto-born Norman Jewison took over The Cincinnati Kid after Sam Peckinpah left the production. Steve McQueen plays a young stud poker player in Depression-era New Orleans who wants to take down the reigning champion, Lancey “The Man” Howard, played by Edward G. Robinson. Ann-Margret, Karl Malden and Tuesday Weld round out the cast.
The film is built around a marathon game of five-card stud, and Jewison keeps the camera close on faces and hands rather than on spectacle. Decades later it is still the reference point for poker on film, and the final hand remains one of the most debated in movie history. It is also an early sign of the craft that made Jewison one of the most respected Canadian directors of his generation.
Maverick (1994): Graham Greene steals scenes at the poker table’s edge
Maverick follows Mel Gibson’s charming gambler as he scrambles to raise his entry fee for a high-stakes poker tournament on a riverboat. The tournament is the spine of the plot, but some of the film’s best moments belong to Graham Greene, the Oneida actor from the Six Nations of the Grand River in Ontario, who plays Joseph.
Greene had already earned an Academy Award nomination for Dances With Wolves, and in Maverick he gets to show his comic timing, playing a running con with Gibson that subverts the western’s tired stereotypes. Greene, who died in 2025, remains one of the most admired actors Canada has produced, and Maverick is a reminder of how much range he brought to mainstream Hollywood.
Owning Mahowny (2003): a Toronto bank, a Toronto story
If you want the darker side of gambling on film, start here. Owning Mahowny is a Canadian and British co-production directed by Richard Kwietniowski, based on the true story of Brian Molony, a Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce manager in Toronto who embezzled more than $10 million over about 18 months to feed his gambling. The story was first told in journalist Gary Ross’s 1987 book Stung.
Philip Seymour Hoffman plays the title role (the character’s name was changed to Dan Mahowny) with a stillness that makes the film unsettling. There is no glamour here. Mahowny is not chasing money to spend; he is chasing the next bet. Minnie Driver plays his partner, John Hurt plays a casino manager who sees him as a prize customer, and Maury Chaykin, a fixture of Canadian film and television, appears as a bookie.
The film earned four Genie Award nominations, including Best Motion Picture, and has gained a following as one of the most honest portrayals of compulsive gambling in English-language cinema.
Lucky Girl (2001): Elisha Cuthbert before 24
Long before 24 made her a household name, Elisha Cuthbert, who was born in Calgary and grew up in the Montreal area, starred in Lucky Girl, a Canadian television drama directed by John Fawcett, the filmmaker behind Ginger Snaps and later a co-creator of Orphan Black.
Cuthbert plays a high school student whose gambling spirals into serious debt, a loan shark and danger she cannot get out of on her own. Charlotte Sullivan and Sherry Miller co-star. The film, also released as My Daughter’s Secret Life, is uncomfortable to watch in the best sense. It takes youth gambling seriously and does not end with a neat recovery, which makes it a rare and still relevant piece of Canadian TV.
Molly’s Game (2017): Toronto doubles for Hollywood’s high-stakes rooms
Aaron Sorkin’s directorial debut tells the true story of Molly Bloom, who ran exclusive high-stakes poker games for celebrities and financiers. Although the story is set in Los Angeles and New York, principal photography took place in Toronto from November 2016 to February 2017, and the film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2017.
Brampton’s Michael Cera plays Player X, a celebrity poker player who is a composite character and arguably the film’s most memorable antagonist. Cera trades his usual awkward charm for something colder, and it works. For Canadian viewers, there is also the fun of spotting Toronto locations dressed up as American penthouses and hotel suites.
Uncut Gems (2019): The Weeknd and a New York bet gone wrong
The Safdie brothers’ Uncut Gems is a two-hour panic attack built around Adam Sandler’s Howard Ratner, a New York jeweller who cannot stop betting, including on a Boston Celtics playoff game. Toronto’s own Abel Tesfaye, better known as The Weeknd, appears as himself in a nightclub sequence that ties into the film’s chaotic plot. The film also screened at TIFF in 2019, bringing the cast and the Toronto star to the festival’s red carpet.
It is a small role, but it put one of Toronto’s biggest cultural exports inside one of the most talked-about gambling films of the decade.
Why these stories land
What the best of these films share is an understanding that gambling stories are really stories about people: their nerve, their self-deception and the people around them who pay the price. Canadian filmmakers and actors have often leaned toward the honest version. Owning Mahowny and Lucky Girl in particular show the costs of gambling with a clarity that glossy casino movies rarely attempt.
If a film like Owning Mahowny or Lucky Girl hits close to home, free provincial helplines and tools for setting limits are available across Canada. For viewers curious about how the real thing works today, independent Canadian online casino reviews explain licensing, payouts and safer-play tools province by province. Gambling is for adults only (18+ or 19+ depending on your province). Play responsibly.
Where to start
- For the classic: The Cincinnati Kid.
- For the fun: Maverick.
- For the hard truth: Owning Mahowny, then Lucky Girl.
- For the Toronto connection: Molly’s Game and Uncut Gems.