Lay the FavoriteMovies like Lay the Favorite
- Key Features:
- Gambling, Las Vegas, Gambling, Fish out of water, Mentorship, Talent, Stripper
- Tone:
- humorous, witty
- Target Audience:
- Fans of comedies, Viewers interested in gambling stories, People who enjoy quirky characters, Those who appreciate lighthearted entertainment
- Emotional Arc:
- ['Excitement → Complication → Resolution']
Lay the Favorite

A former stripper's talent with numbers lands her a job with a professional gambler who runs a sports book in Las Vegas.
Lay the Favorite
When Scott and Kate Johansen’s daughter gets into the college of her dreams it’s cause for celebration. That is, until Scott and Kate learn that the scholarship they were counting on didn’t come through, and they’re now on the hook for tuition they can’t begin to afford. With the help of their friend and neighbor Frank also in need of a major payday they decide to open an illegal casino in his suburban house, risking everything together on a Vegas-style bacchanal where money flows, inhibitions are checked at the door, and all bets are off.

On her deathbed, a mother makes her son promise never to get married, which scars him with psychological blocks to a commitment with his girlfriend. They finally decide to tie the knot in Vegas, but a wealthy gambler arranges for the man to lose $65K in a poker game and offers to clear the debt for a weekend with his fiancée.

An average kind of guy who has a slight problem with gambling goes to the track, and mystically, it seems as though he can't lose, no matter how he bets; and he has an incredible day.

On the eve of her high school reunion, bored housewife Kathy convinces her single best friend Emily to seduce her old flame Tom, so she can get all the juicy details. But when Emily falls for Tom, it's like high school all over again!

A former college athlete joins forces with a sports consultant to handicap football games for high-rolling gamblers.

A professional poker player whose astounding luck at the table fails to translate into his lonesome love life attempts to win the World Series of Poker while simultaneously earning the affections of a beautiful Las Vegas singer.

After her fiance sleeps with a celebrity on his free pass list, Abby Meyers, with nothing but five names and a fantasy shared by millions, sets out for Los Angeles to sleep with someone from hers.

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.

An unemployed lingerie buyer convinces her bail bondsman cousin to give her a shot as a bounty hunter. Her first assignment is to track down a former cop on the run for murder – the same man who broke her heart years before. With the help of some friends and the best bounty hunter in the business, she slowly learns what it takes to be a true bounty hunter.

A small-time con artist and a Hawaiian real estate developer's mischievous, enterprising mistress team up for a potential $200,000 score.

Mike, an experienced stripper, takes a younger performer called The Kid under his wing and schools him in the arts of partying, picking up women, and making easy money.

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.

Russ Richards is a TV weatherman and local celebrity on the verge of losing his shirt. Desperate to escape financial ruin, he schemes with Crystal the TV station's lotto ball girl to rig the state lottery drawing. The numbers come up right, but everything else goes wrong as the plan starts to unravel and the game turns rough.

Nicky, an accomplished con artist, gets romantically involved with his disciple Jess but later ends their relationship. Years later, she returns as a femme fatale to spoil his plans.

It is 1957. J.C. Cullen is a young man from a small town, with a talent for winning at craps, who leaves for the big city to work as a professional gambler. While there, he breaks the bank at a private craps game at the Gem Club, owned by George Cole, and falls in love with two women, one of them Cole's wife.

An aspiring actress makes a pact with her fiancé to take a job as an exotic dancer to care for her cancer stricken father. Once the pact the couple made is broken, their lives are changed forever.

Lino lives in Turin with the family of his sister. He doesn't have a good job and never enough money. But in a day his life changes: he wins 1 billion dollars in a lottery and... everyone becomes a friend, the girl who he liked becomes his girlfriend and his sister begins to love him. He leaves Turin with his friend Parola and, in a casino, he loses all money! But luck returns...

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.

Gambling addiction bring the stories of three otherwise unconnected people together as it destroys each of their lives.

The Griswold family hits the road again for a typically ill-fated vacation, this time to the glitzy mecca of slots and showgirls—Las Vegas.

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

A private detective is hired to find a missing stripper but the job turns complicated when everyone he questions ends up dead. From the mean streets of Los Angeles to the desolate desert of New Mexico, Cruz must contend with a brutal Russian Boxer, three brash LAPD detectives, an aged billionaire looking for the Big Bang, and the billionaire's stunningly gorgeous wife. The solution to the mystery will cost ten lives, net $30 million and just might explain - well - everything.

During a wild vacation in Las Vegas, career woman Joy McNally and playboy Jack Fuller come to the sober realization that they have married each other after a night of drunken abandon. They are then compelled, for legal reasons, to live life as a couple for a limited period of time. At stake is a large amount of money.

Bounty hunter Bucum Jackson teams with the small-time con artist, Reggie Wright, that he is pursuing, in an attempt to locate a missing stash of diamonds and a lottery ticket worth millions of dollars. Bucum and Reggie find themselves in a race to the finish as they embark on an unlikely partnership that should -- when all is said and done -- prove beneficial to them both.

After winning the lottery, François goes to a bar in Pigalle and offers one hundred thousand Euros per month to a prostitute named Daniela to live with him as his wife until his money runs out.

To inherit his mother-in-law's colossal fortune, a hard living gambling addict must change his unhealthy ways before it gets the best of him.

Manhattanite Ashley is known to many as the luckiest woman around. After a chance encounter with a down-and-out young man, however, she realizes that she's swapped her fortune for his.

In an effort to land the guy she's been pining after since grade school, Abby hires a local stripper named Santa Monica to teach her everything she needs to know about confidence and sex.

Charley Pearl, wealthy heir and gadabout, is slated to marry Adele, the daughter of a Hollywood tycoon. But, during a wild bachelor party in Las Vegas, Charley strikes up a flirtation with nightclub crooner Vicki Anderson that soon leads to her bedroom. When the couple are discovered by Vicki's beau, infamous gangster Bugsy Siegel, he makes a surprising pronouncement -- they'd better marry, or Charley is a dead man.

An ex-gambler is lured back into the game by a veteran insurance-fraud investigator.

A gambling addict faces a conflict when entrusted with keeping a bunch of money that isn't his.

Charlie is a charming playboy who doesn't believe in serious relationships. His best friends bet him that if he sticks to one woman for one month, he's bound to get attached. Charlie denies this yet accepts the seemingly easy challenge, until he cross paths with the beautiful and mysterious Eva. They may agree to a casual affair, but eventually Charlie is questioning whether he may actually want more.

Tiffany, Charlie and Vernon are con artists looking to up the ante from their typical scams. They figure a good way of doing this is taking down Dean "The Dean" Stevens, a well-known cardsharp, in a rigged game. However, they first need enough money to enter a game with Stevens, so they decide to strike a deal with fellow crook Larry Jennings to scam a local gangster -- which turns out to be a bad idea.

In an effort to avoid paying off a massive gambling debt to a notorious mobster in England, a couple flees to Los Angeles and hatch a jewel theft plot.

After 6 years together, Mike's girlfriend leaves him, so he travels to LA to be a star. Six months on, he's still not doing very well— so a few of his friends try to reconnect him to the social scene and hopefully help him forget his failed relationship.

All the couples are back for a wedding in Las Vegas, but plans for a romantic weekend go awry when their various misadventures get them into some compromising situations that threaten to derail the big event.

Retired gambling legend Ken returns to Macau, only to be drawn back into action when his daughter becomes entangled in a global mafia scheme. Using his unmatched skills, he must stop a dangerous plot and protect his loved ones.

Two female scam artists, one low rent and the other high class, compete to swindle a naïve tech prodigy out of his fortune. A remake of the 1988 comedy "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels."

A drunken playboy stands to lose a wealthy inheritance when he falls for a woman that his family doesn't like.

A crew of savvy former strip club employees band together to turn the tables on their Wall Street clients.

A womanizer bets that he can get someone to accept his marriage proposal after dating them for just 30 days. What he doesn't know is that the woman he targeted has some serious commitment issues.

Two losers from Milwaukee, Coop and Remer, invent a new game combining basketball with the rules of baseball. When the game becomes a huge success, they, along with a billionaire's help, form the Professional Baseketball League where everyone gets the same pay and no team can change cities. When a rival owner wants to institute major rule changes, Coop and Remer's team is the only one standing in the way.

When jobless Tommy Collins discovers that sequestered jurors earn free room and board as well as $5-a-day, he gets himself assigned to a jury in a murder trial. Once there, he does everything he can to prolong the trial and deliberations and make the sequestration more comfortable for himself.

Fresh to Las Vegas with no connections, Nomi Malone takes a job as an exotic dancer. Her talents are quickly noticed by Cristal, a headlining dancer who senses an opportunity to bolster her own act. But Nomi won’t play second fiddle and soon begins her venomous path to the top, ruthlessly backstabbing anyone who gets in her way.

Four stories intersect in this violent film parody. Exterminators dress as hit men and try to protect the wife of their boss, Montello. Meanwhile, the strippers at Montello's strip club, dressed as nuns, attempt to rob him. Tag-team wrestlers steal Montello's briefcase, thinking its contents are valuable. Finally, Bumpkin, running to deliver a script, loses a lot of the pages.

Bret Maverick is a gambler who would rather con someone than fight them, and needs an additional $3k in order to enter a winner-takes-all poker game beginning in a few days. He joins forces with a woman with a marvelous Southern accent, and the two try and enter the game.

A couple checks into a suite in Las Vegas. In flashbacks we see that he's a computer whiz on the verge of becoming a dot.com millionaire, she's a lap dancer at a club. He's depressed, withdrawing from work, missing meetings with investors. He wants a connection, so he offers her $10,000 to spend three nights with him in Vegas, and she accepts with conditions. Is mutual attraction stirring?

Based on a true story, a hot shot Washington DC lobbyist and his protégé go down hard as their schemes to peddle influence lead to corruption and murder.

Two aspiring boxers and lifelong friends get involved in a money-laundering scheme through a low-level organized crime group.

Les Tuche, a modest french family, change his life after winning a super lottery. Thanks to the money of his parents, the son, Donald (aka "coin-coin") goes to Los Angeles to improve his english. On the L.A. University, he meets Jennifer, daughter of a famous American financier.

After she and her husband lose their jobs, a former Texas homecoming queen inadvertently finds herself in the middle of a prostitution ring after she unknowingly accepts a position at a massage parlor.

Ko Chun, a renowned gambler, loses his memory in an accident and starts behaving like a child. Little Knife, an amateur gambler, offers him shelter and realizes that he has a penchant for gambling.

In the near future, a 'Grand Lottery' has been established - the catch: kill the winner before sundown to legally claim their multi-billion dollar jackpot. When Katie Kim mistakenly finds herself with the winning ticket, she reluctantly joins forces with amateur lottery protection agent Noel Cassidy who must get her to sundown in exchange for a piece of her prize.

Roger Willoughby is a renowned fishing expert, who, unbeknownst to his friends, co-workers, or boss, has never cast a line in his life. One day, he crosses paths with Abigail Paige, a sweetly annoying girl who has just badgered his boss into signing Roger up for an annual fishing tournament.

Writer Alex Sheldon must finish his novel within a month. If he doesn't, he won't get paid. And, if that happens, angry Mafia types to whom he owes money will come looking for him. In order to expedite things, Alex hires typist Emma Dinsmore and begins dictating his novel. The book is about a doomed love affair between a character similar to Alex and a character named Polina Delacroix. But, as Alex falls for Emma, his work takes a different turn.

Two young women will stop at nothing for one to gain a $4 million inheritance of two priceless diamonds, while two detectives try to thwart their plans, but find complications abound.

Small-town bartender Owen Peadman goes to Los Angeles to raise money to help save his father's Minnesota restaurant. He tries to find a way into Hollywood society, where he meets socialite Lisa and her uptight actor boyfriend. Can he balance his growing feelings for Lisa with surviving the sordid lifestyles of the Hollywood elite?

When a Las Vegas performer-turned-snitch named Buddy Israel decides to turn state's evidence and testify against the mob, it seems that a whole lot of people would like to make sure he's no longer breathing.

When a hapless but dedicated talent manager signs his first client who actually has talent, his career finally starts to take off.

Ben Campbell is a young, highly intelligent student at M.I.T. who strives to succeed. Wanting a scholarship to transfer to Harvard School of Medicine to become a doctor, Ben learns that he cannot afford the $300,000 tuition as he comes from a poor, working-class background. But one evening, Ben is introduced by his unorthodox math professor to a small but secretive club of five students, Jill, Choi, Kianna, and Fisher, who are being trained by Professor Rosa to count cards at blackjack.

Buddy Amaral, a successful and self-absorbed Los Angeles advertising executive, switches airline tickets with a stranger just before boarding a long-delayed flight so that he might enjoy an overnight fling with a pretty Dallas businesswoman. When the plane goes down, killing all aboard, Buddy's guilt soon turns into an alcohol problem. As part of his 12-step program, Buddy seeks atonement and decides to seek out the woman he thinks he's left a widow.

A failed New York playwright stages a suicide in an attempt to win back her ex, only to wind up in the custody of her gambling-addict mother.

A womanizer meets his match when he falls for the daughter of a gambling addict who is in debt to the mob.

Charlie Lang is a simple, kindhearted New York City cop. When he realizes he has no money to tip waitress Yvonne Biasi, Lang offers her half the winnings of his lottery ticket. Amazingly, the ticket happens to be a winner, in the sum of $4 million. True to his word, Lang proceeds to share the prize money with Biasi, which infuriates his greedy wife, Muriel. Not content with the arrangement, Muriel begins scheming to take all the money.

After years of putting her career ahead of love, stand-up comic Andrea Singer has stumbled upon the perfect guy. On paper, he checks all the boxes, but is he everything he appears to be?

Gabriel Caine has just been released from prison when he sets up a bet with a business man who owns most of Diggstown, a boxing-mad town. The bet is that Gabe can find a boxer that will knock out 10 Diggstown men, in a boxing ring, within 24 hours. Roy 'Honey' Palmer is that man that, at 48, many say he is too old.

When lawyer Charlie is sent to a small Nevada town to file a continuance request for a client, his actor friend Richard turns up to throw a surprise bachelor party celebrating his upcoming marriage to the boss's daughter. When Charlie is too hung-over to make it to court for the hearing, Richard fills in, inadvertently committing felony fraud, and Charlie is left with no choice but to coach the clueless Richard through the whole trial.

Con artist Lawrence Jamieson is a longtime resident of a luxurious coastal resort, where he enjoys the lavish fruits of his deceptions -- that is, until a competitor, Freddy Benson, shows up. When the new guy's lowbrow tactics impinge on his own sophisticated work and believing him to be the infamous conman 'The Jackal', Lawrence resolves to get rid of him. Confident of his own duplicitous talents, he challenges Freddy to a winner-takes-all competition: whoever swindles their latest mark, American heiress Janet Colgate, out of $50,000 first can stay, while the other must leave town.

Eddie Krumble works as a paid audience member for infomercials and experiences a whirlwind of overnight fame after a late-night talk show host publicizes his frequent infomercial appearances.

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.

Career gambler Dan Milner agrees to a $50,000 deal to leave the USA for Mexico, only to find himself entangled with fellow guests at a luxurious resort and suspecting that the man who hired him may be the deported crime boss Nick Ferraro aiming to re-enter to the USA.

A middle-aged Louisiana governor falls in love with a young stripper, which jeopardizes his political career and the radical policies which have made him a controversial figure.

A man and woman meet and try to have a romantic affair, despite their personal problems and the interference of their disapproving friends.

As an ex-gambler teaches a hot-shot college kid some things about playing cards, he finds himself pulled into the world series of poker, where his protégé is his toughest competition.

Veterinarian Dr. Carly Monroe makes it a habit to stop by the local dog shelter as often as possible because she loves dogs and secretly loves the shelter’s owner, Dan. Unfortunately, he has agreed to marry his glamorous TV personality girlfriend and move to the Big Apple. With Dan’s big move looming, his sister decides to take matters into her own hands.

Rich, successful Bryce meets beautiful Lissa at a bar one night and invites her back to his house, not suspecting for a moment that Lissa isn't really who she seems. What unfolds next is a dangerous, tangled web of double-crosses and seduction.

In a vibrant tapestry of love and longing, nine interconnected souls navigate romance and heartbreak in L.A., where passions collide and truths unfold, revealing that the heart's desires often lead us where we least expect.

When fluffy, bubble gum movie star Megan Valentine suddenly finds herself broke and humiliated in the public eye, she wanders from the wreckage of a car accident and witlessly enlists in the U.S. Army hoping in vain that it will change her life.

An aimless young man who is scalping tickets, gambling and drinking, agrees to coach a Little League team from the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago as a condition of getting a loan from a friend.

Two wannabe Black American princesses aim to marry rich men, who will pay for their world's first combination hair salon and soul food restaurant.

Intertwining couples and singles in Los Angeles break-up and make-up based on the pressures and expectations of Valentine's Day.

Two men, working as professional boxers, come to blows when their careers each begin to take opposite momentum.

Trying to get his act together, a con artist gets a job in a credit card company. He falls in love with a fellow employee, he steals a couple of cards, everything is going great. But soon, the chief of security drags him into the big leagues of criminals...

Ali leaves behind a troubled life and follows her dreams to Los Angeles, where she lands a job as a cocktail waitress at the Burlesque Lounge, a once-majestic theater that houses an inspired musical revue. Vowing to perform there, she makes the leap from bar to stage, helping restore the club's former glory.

This is the story of four French friends: the Greek (an osteopath), Fifi (who lives with his mother), Fortuné (a West Indian) and Freddy (a gambler). They meet up regularly at a Parisian bookmakers’, their favourite haunt. Tired of frittering away the little spare cash they have, they agree to give up gambling. But no sooner have they taken this pledge than Fate intervenes, in the guise of the turf king, Monsieur Paul. The latter persuades the four friends to buy a champion racehorse, not knowing that it is in fact an old nag…

After striking it rich on a large gold strike, a prospector retires to the quiet life on a Caribbean island but ends up coping with an alcoholic wife, a headstrong daughter, and Miami mobsters who want to build a casino.

A bumbling government agent recruits a trucker whose gambling knowledge can help crack an illegal Florida operation.

San Francisco's premiere wedding planner, Mary Fiore is rescued from an accident by the man of her dreams, pediatrician Steve Edison, only to find he is the fiancé of her latest client. As Mary continues making their wedding arrangements, she and Steve are put into a string of uncomfortable situations that force them to face their mutual attraction.

When Rachel Phelps inherits the Cleveland Indians from her deceased husband, she's determined to move the team to a warmer climate—but only a losing season will make that possible, which should be easy given the misfits she's hired. Rachel is sure her dream will come true, but she underestimates their will to succeed.

Bernie works at a Las Vegas casino, where he uses his innate ability to bring about misfortune in those around him to jinx gamblers into losing. His imposing boss, Shelly Kaplow, is happy with the arrangement. But Bernie finds unexpected happiness when he begins dating attractive waitress Natalie Belisario.

After receiving a tip-off, compulsive gambler Sergio returns to the betting house trying to recover all the money he has lost , but another gambler bursts into the place with a gun and a gunshot will change his life forever.

Heiress Joanna Stayton hires carpenter Dean Proffitt to build a closet on her yacht—and refuses to pay him for the project when it's done. But after Joanna accidentally falls overboard and loses her memory, Dean sees an opportunity to get even.

After waking from a coma, Tino learns his future in-laws have given him a high-powered financial job, for which he is woefully unqualified.

After moving to Palm Springs, a young married couple puts their love to the test when they discover that their neighbors are swingers.

After his mistress runs over a black teen, a Wall Street hotshot sees his life unravel in the spotlight; A down-and-out reporter breaks the story and opportunists clamber to use it to their advantage.

Career criminal Johnny Clay recruits a sharpshooter, a crooked police officer, a bartender and a betting teller named George, among others, for one last job before he goes straight and gets married. But when George tells his restless wife about the scheme to steal millions from the racetrack where he works, she hatches a plot of her own.

Sweet Gordon, an affable English teacher in Brooklyn, has beaten the odds; a French Girl has fallen in love with him and he’s fallen even harder back. But their future is thrown into limbo when she interviews for an executive chef position in her hometown of Quebec City. To Gordon’s dismay her future boss also happens to be her former lover, a celebrity Chef with oceanic eyes and a hit TV show. Good luck Gordon.

While on a business trip in Los Angeles, Edward Lewis, a millionaire entrepreneur who makes a living buying and breaking up companies, picks up a prostitute, Vivian, while asking for directions; after, Edward hires Vivian to stay with him for the weekend to accompany him to a few social events, and the two get closer only to discover there are significant hurdles to overcome as they try to bridge the gap between their very different worlds.

