Viva Las Vegas: Top 10 Movies Filmed In Vegas, Nevada
Vegas is known for many things. First and foremost, it’s known for its many casinos, overflowing with loud jingles and flashing lights. It’s known for the Sunset Strip, where celebrities, exotic dancers, beggars, and priests all find themselves in awe of the Vegas skyline. It is also famous for the number of films and series about gambling and a range of other topics that are filmed there every year. Nothing can compare to the allure of the bright lights of Vegas, and that makes it a perfect place to set and film a movie or a TV show. There’s no shortage of exciting locations, and things that might seem unbelievable anywhere else on earth seem like they just might happen in Vegas. Let’s count down the top ten movies ever shot in Las Vegas.
10. What Happens in Vegas
This rom-com stars Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher as a mismatched pair who both end up in Vegas on one fateful night for completely different reasons. Discovering that the two and their best friends have been double booked into the same room, they all go out and get drunk together, resulting in an unexpected marriage.
9. Con Air
Though a large part of Con Air is filmed in a prop plane, the electrifying finale is all Vegas. Con Air stars the one and only Nicholas Cage as an army man who throws a deadly punch in a fight defending his wife. Many years later, as he is being released from jail, he finds himself on a prisoner transport back home with some incredibly dangerous, still incarcerated, prisoners.
8. Ocean’s Eleven
This is probably one of the best film remakes in remake history! Ocean’s Eleven, starring Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, and George Clooney, is a daring tale of an enormous heist with an incredible number of moving parts. To pull off the heist of the century, they’ll need to use every card in their deck. Deception, incredible comedic timing, and loads of chemistry make this movie a must-watch.
7. Last Vegas
In Last Vegas, a heartwarming comedy, four childhood friends reunite in much later life to celebrate a bachelor party. Morgan Freeman, Michael Douglas, Robert De Niro, and Kevin Kline need to make serious adjustments to fit in with the party scene in Vegas after a long time on the bench. Each of them finds awakening in their own unique way.
6. Casino
A true nineties classic, Casino is the epitome of a Vegas movie. We meet a mafia associate who has to marshal all of his resourcefulness to run a Vegas casino. His volatile outbursts and encounters with his love and his best friend complicate matters along the way.
5. Now You See Me
Another beloved Vegas tradition, magicians, is what we encounter in Now You See Me. The exciting build-up and the impossible tricks performed in the film starring Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harelson, Isla Fisher, and Dave Franco will keep you on the edge of your seat throughout the film. They play a group of magicians brought together by a secret council who continue to stump the law enforcement officers who are hot on the trail of their careers.
4. Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas
To say that this surreal trip into Hunter S Thompson’s wild mind is bewildering is the understatement of the year. A journalist and his lawyer, Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro head to Vegas for the journalist to cover a motorcycle race. The chaos that ensues is mind-bending and well worth a watch. Based on the book of the same name, Fear and Loathing is a classic that you just can’t miss.
3. The Hangover
The bachelor party to beat all bachelor parties is held (and then some) in The Hangover. The night begins innocently enough, but before long, the wheels come off, and the groom is missing in the morning. Best friends and a brother-in-law must now retrace their convoluted steps to find the groom and set right the trail of hilarious destruction that they’ve left across the city.
2. Pay It Forward
The ultimate feel-good movie starring Helen Hunt, Kevin Spacey, and Hayley Joel Osmont, Pay It Forward is one of the most warm and fuzzy films ever made in Vegas. A young boy inspired by his school assignment ends up starting a movement that changes many lives.
1. Fright Night
A re-telling of an old tale in an exciting new setting, Fright Night follows young lovers as they learn that there’s a vampire next door. They must keep their loved ones safe from this menace and stay alive long enough to end his centuries-long killing spree. With the help of a disappointing magician, they need to tackle this threat before he takes over Vegas.
Wrap Up
Any of these movies will put you in a thoroughly Vegas state of mind in a different way; which ones will you watch first?