Film

High Roller: The Stu Ungar Story

Name: High Roller: The Stu Ungar Story
Genre: Drama
Released: 2003
Cast: Michael Imperioli, Renee Faia, Michael Nouri, Joe La Due, Steve Schirripa

Biopic

A biopic of Stu Ungar, poker's most brilliant and self-destructive virtuoso. Michael Imperioli tracks the Kid's meteoric ascent through Las Vegas casinos, his three World Series of Poker wins, and his catastrophic descent into addiction. It's a portrait of genius corroded by compulsion—less interested in card mechanics than in the particular loneliness of being the best at something that's destroying you. For anyone drawn to stories about talent and its cost.

TMDb rating

3.1

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you enjoy character-driven biopics about obsessive gamblers, where the pleasure is watching one self-destructive talent up close amid the smoky, back-room texture of old-school card rooms.

Skip it if you want a slick, fast-cut sports picture; this is a talky drama that lingers on its central figure's restlessness and can feel repetitive across its two hours.

What it asks of you: Two hours at the unhurried pace of a long night, mostly talk in dim rooms, so you need to be willing to sit with one man's restlessness.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

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The Sting1973

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Barfly1987

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Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from High Roller: The Stu Ungar Story

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

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The Gambler1974

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The Hustler1961

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Casino1995

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Both men chasing certainty through risk, knowing the odds, unable to stop. The compulsion isn't about money—it's about proving you're still in the game.

Adam Sandler in a Safdie brothers fever dream. A jeweler spiraling through debt and compulsion in New York. The film *is* the anxiety—the editing, the music, the production design all crash together. It's about the addiction to the next score.

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Shah Rukh Khan in a Bollywood drama about grief and identity after 9/11. It has nothing to do with cards, but it understands what it means to be brilliant and isolated, to have a gift that doesn't protect you from catastrophe. A completely different register—lyrical, generous, heartbroken.

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