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"Melvin and Howard" (1980): Jonathan Demme's Altman-esque masterpiece finds the Vegas dream in Vegas (the Strip looked so teeny and quaint back in 1980), but it's really about how the jackpot mentality permeates American culture -- from TV game show prizes to plentiful consumer credit. Get now, pay later, the important thing is the instant gratification. Just about everything Melvin Dummar (Paul Le Mat) has ever bought has been repossessed because he couldn't keep up the payments, and that includes his wife Lynda (Mary Steenburgen). One night by the side of the highway he picks up a scraggly old man who claims to be the Spirit of Las Vegas himself, Howard Hughes (Jason Robards), and gives him a lift. Even forks over his last few pieces of change when he drops off the coot in the Desert Inn parking lot. Years later, one of several Hughes wills purports to leave part of the billionaire's fortune to a man best known for being Milkman of the Month. There's a true story in here, and it has nothing to do with the authenticity of the will.

"Lost in America" (1985): A boomer couple from Los Angeles pack up their "nest egg" and take to the open road to discover America, just like their Harley-riding heroes in "Easy Rider." Except they drive a Winnebago and never make it beyond the iconographic Desert Inn (former home of Mr. Hughes) and Hoover Dam. When his dreams are decimated by his wife's gambling fever, David Howard (writer/director/star Albert Brooks) pitches "the boldest experiment in advertising history" to the casino manager (Garry Marshall): "You give us our money back!" David explains that he and his wife (Julie Hagerty) are not gamblers, they are bold seekers, looking for themselves in America. "You lost," the manager replies. His logic is irrefutable.

"Knocked Up" (2007): When Tony Soprano took peyote in Vegas, he had a breakthrough and shouted, "I get it!" into the desert sunrise. Not long afterward, he couldn't exactly remember what he got. When Ben (Seth Rogen) and Pete (Paul Rudd) take mushrooms in Vegas, they get freaked out by the realization that a chair is still a chair, even when there's no one sitting there. Both of these are part of the mescaline -- er, masculine -- rite-of-passage known as the Vegas Guy Trip, the ultimate example of which is perhaps Peter Berg's "Very Bad Things," a nightmare comedy about a Vegas bachelor party that goes horribly wrong. In "Swingers," party boy Trent (Vince Vaughn) drags his dumped and depressed friend Mike (Jon Favreau) to Vegas with the promise of a fresh restart and an obligatory good time: "They're gonna give daddy the 'Rain Man' suite, you dig that? ... Vegas, baby! Vegas!" The Vegas Guy Trip is often a therapeutic getaway, a bonding ritual and a disillusioning experience that the participants may romanticize in some respects and repress in others -- not unlike the canoe trip in "Deliverance" or the fishing excursion in "Short Cuts."

"Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" (1998): The Ultimate Trip. Hunter Thompson observed that Las Vegas was not a good town for psychedelic drugs because extremely menacing vibrations are all around. On the other hand, it's a place that makes hallucinogens superfluous because overstimulation is already built into the experience. Thompson (Johnny Depp) and his attorney (Benicio Del Toro) spend most of their time downtown (this is 1971, long before the air-conditioned overhead hallucinogenic animation of the Fremont Street Experience) where Circus Circus-freakiness includes gigantic neon cowboys, coupons for free shrimp cocktails and swirling carpet that bleeds up the walls. (See "The Cooler" for more downscale downtown action.) The other Vegas is up on the Strip where Debbie Reynolds does her tribute to "Sgt. Pepper." "This was Bob Hope's turf. Frank Sinatra's. Spiro Agnew's," Thompson observes. "The place fairly reeked of high-grade Formica and plastic palm trees. Clearly, a high-class refuge for Big Spenders." Again, the drugs aren't really necessary -- adrenaline, endorphins and sleep deprivation will bring on the same symptoms. So will this relentlessly bad-trippy movie, which makes you feel like you've been up for a week past your crash time.

"Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery" (1997): Is there a sweeter, more innocent and romantic vision of Vegas than the ménage à quatre between Austin Powers (Mike Myers), Vanessa Kensington (Elizabeth Hurley), Burt Bacharach and the town itself in the classic night-on-the-town montage from the first "Austin Powers"? While Austin and Vanessa sip their bubbly and waltz on a dance floor for two -- atop an open-air piano bar built on the upper level of a double-decker London bus cruising the Strip -- the maestro serenades them with "What the World Needs Now Is Love," the utopian 1965 anthem from Austin's era. This segues into a marvelous sequence in which Austin and Vanessa, holding hands while walking on a treadmill and taking in the glittering sights, are surrounded by floating, spinning symbols of Las Vegas, some of which swoosh down upon them so closely that they have to duck. (We won't even mention Alotta Fagina's geisha hot-tub penthouse at the Imperial Palace but ... wow.)

"Leaving Las Vegas" (1995): Ben Sanderson (Nicolas Cage) had one dream as a Hollywood screenwriter, but trades it in for another. He moves to Las Vegas and lives the ultimate bittersweet, booze-drenched Vegas fantasy. Not only does he meet a prostitute, Sera (Elisabeth Shue), who loves him for who he is and doesn't try to change him, but he also earns a seat at the table with the highest stakes imaginable. Ben is aiming for the ultimate crap-out, ready to cash in all his chips. All he wants is to drink himself to death, and what better town for it than the one where outside rules don't apply? The title is melancholy and ironic, offering a twist on the Eagles' take on life in the fast lane at the megaresort Hotel California: You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave. In the end, what happens in Vegas ...

What is your favorite film about Sin City? Write us at heymsn@microsoft.com.

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Jim Emerson is the former editor of Microsoft's online/CD-ROM movie encyclopedia, Cinemania. He has written a lot over the years, mostly about movies, for many publications and Web sites, and is now the editor of RogerEbert.com, where he also publishes his blog, Scanners (blogs.suntimes.com/scanners).