What happens in Vegas does not stay in Vegas. The gambling resort has always been an exceptional place in movie screenplays, a playground where the usual rules of puritanical society don’t apply, but because Hollywood believes in just desserts, it’s a place where whatever mischief you get up to, you have to pay for eventually. Take the oldtimers celebrating a bachelor party in this week’s new comedy Last Vegas — think those seniors are going to get to party like the guys in The Hangover without slipping a disc or two?
Still, the Las Vegas dream of getting something for nothing persists. In that sense, the movies do Vegas better than Vegas does itself. We get to watch all the lust, avarice, and gluttony, and then we get to watch someone else pay for it. Here are ten such Vegas movies, where the indulgence is ours, and the bill is someone else’s.