Film

Atlantic City

Name: Atlantic City
Genre: Crime, Drama, Romance
Released: 1980
Cast: Burt Lancaster, Susan Sarandon, Kate Reid, Michel Piccoli, Hollis McLaren

Gangster

Atlantic City is a 1980 crime romance about small-time hustlers chasing reinvention in a collapsing seaside town. Louis Malle directs with elegant fatalism, finding genuine intimacy between damaged people amid cocaine, desperation, and Atlantic City's neon decay. It's for anyone who loves character-driven crime films where romance blooms in unlikely places and nobody quite gets away clean.

TMDb rating

3.4

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After Dark, My Sweet1990

A noir-inflected love story between a drifter and a widow spiralling into crime. Like Atlantic City, it finds tenderness and eroticism in the margins, with a jazz-scored fatalism and two leads genuinely lost in each other.

But Slower and more deliberately paced than modern thrillers. The print quality of most copies can be grainy and the film has aged into obscurity.

Thief1981

Michael Mann's portrait of a professional thief trying to build a legitimate life. Both films balance romantic yearning with criminal entanglement, and both ask whether reinvention is possible or just another con.

But It's very of its era—synth-heavy score, deliberate '80s style. Some find Mann's precision cold rather than poignant.

Night and the City1950

Jules Dassin's London noir about a small-time hustler caught between crime and respectability. Like Atlantic City, it's suffused with genuine sadness beneath the scheme-making, and the city itself becomes a character.

But Shot in grainy black-and-white on real London streets. The pacing is slow by modern standards and the ending offers no comfort.

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The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

In a Lonely Place1950

Both films center on a romance that exists because two people have nowhere else to go, and both directors are more interested in the texture of that intimacy than in whether love can save anyone.

Ray's film noir about a volatile man and the woman who loves him despite knowing what he is. Like Atlantic City, it's interested in how attraction survives knowledge of corruption. But where Atlantic City is elegiac, this is psychologically claustrophobic—intimate in a way that feels dangerous.

But Bogart's performance is deliberately off-putting; the film asks you to understand attraction to someone who frightens you. Some viewers find it misogynistic rather than tragic.

Blood Simple1985

The Coen brothers' Texas noir about betrayal and violence spiralling from one bad decision. It shares Atlantic City's mood: moral decay, doomed lovers, a world where nothing stays hidden.

But More violent and graphically cynical. If you need your criminals to have redeeming qualities, this will alienate you.

Pickup on South Street1953

Sam Fuller's Cold War noir about petty crooks and the women who love them. Like Atlantic City, it finds authentic passion between flawed people and treats street-level life with genuine respect.

But It's shot in a deliberately flat, documentary style that can feel austere. Fuller's moralism might read as dated to modern viewers.

Farewell, My Lovely1975

Dick Richards' remake preserves the novel's fatalism while wallowing in 1970s Los Angeles decay. Like Atlantic City, it's an elegiac crime film where nobody wins and the real subject is entropy.

But Robert Mitchum is brilliant but aged; if you need quick-witted protagonists, his exhausted detective will frustrate you.

The Killing1956

Kubrick's racetrack heist noir told in fractured time. Both films share a tight fatalism: a crew of desperate people executing a plan that's already doomed by forces beyond their control.

But The narrative structure is deliberately disorienting and some find the dialogue stilted. It takes patience and rewards it unevenly.

Killer Joe2012

David Cronenberg's Texas crime tragedy about poor people making terrible decisions for small sums of money. Like Atlantic City, it refuses to sentimentalize desperation and finds sex amid moral bankruptcy.

But It's genuinely transgressive and graphically disturbing. The violence is sexual and the desperation is often humiliating in ways that feel cruel rather than cathartic.

Fast Color2019

Julia Hart's science-fiction drama about a woman on the run trying to build a life. It shares Atlantic City's focus on character over plot and its conviction that small moments between damaged people matter more than spectacle.

But The genre elements feel underdeveloped; pure sci-fi fans might find it frustratingly abstract. It's deliberately intimate rather than broadly entertaining.

The Comfort of Strangers1990

Both films find romance and danger in decaying spaces, and both understand that tourism or reinvention can mask deeper self-destruction. Both have an European sensibility despite very American subjects.

Paul Schrader adapts Ian McEwan in Venice, following a couple whose romantic holiday becomes a trap. It's shot with the same painterly fatalism as Atlantic City but trades American urban decay for European architectural beauty. The mood is almost unbearably tense.

But It's austere and slowly building; most of the film is mood rather than plot. The climax will feel inevitable rather than shocking, which some find dramatically unsatisfying.

Red Lights2012

Both films believe that the real drama is in how people talk to each other and negotiate intimacy under pressure. Both are character studies disguised as crime or romance narratives, and both have a distinctly European approach to American or contemporary life.

Céline Sciamma's French drama about desire between two women in a car, on a roadtrip to confront the past. Like Atlantic City it's intimate and morally murky, but it privileges conversation and emotional truth over plot. The film trusts you to feel the weight of small interactions.

But It's entirely interior—if you need external action or clear dramatic structure, this will feel static. The emotional payoff is quiet and some will find it insufficiently conclusive.