This week’s brocentric The Hangover may be an acquired taste, but its main character, Las Vegas, has long offered something for everyone. Either way, the city sure brings out the unhinged in Hollywood. And of course, we have our favorites. No Swingers here—and don’t you dare make a “money” joke.

SHOWGIRLS
That pole needed cleaning anyway, so thanks. Knives were out for Paul Verhoeven’s 1995 tits-heavy spectacular, his first movie after Basic Instinct. Stinky garbage or a trove of trash manna? Neither: Showgirls plays more and more like an aerobicized parody of sex and love. Don’t call it intentional, but thank pervy screenwriter Joe Eszterhas for all the head-slappingly inane trampdom on reality TV these days.

FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS
The stakes were huge for Brazil’s Terry Gilliam: Deliver Vegas’s most notorious bit of bizarreitude faithfully. So why not go all in? Gilliam doubled down with two of the strangest performances ever released by a major studio. Johnny Depp uncorked a pre-Pirates mumbler as the Hunter S. Thompson surrogate, while Benicio Del Toro gained 45 pounds to channel his companion “Dr. Gonzo.” Were drugs even necessary on this set? Today, the 1998 romp plays like Gilliam’s purest.

MELVIN AND HOWARD
He is Las Vegas’s spookiest ex-resident: Howard Hughes. And to think that one night in the breezy desert, the aging billionaire (Jason Robards) was rescued by a simpleminded Good Samaritan (Paul Le Mat) who noticed his exhausted body sprawled on the highway. After a strange midnight conversation, they’re back at the Sands, Hughes in quiet gratitude. Such is the mythical setup of Bo Goldman’s touching original script, transformed by director Jonathan Demme into what still may be his finest, kookiest picture, arguably 1980’s best.

MARS ATTACKS!
If aliens did attack, would Tom Jones be on hand to save us via some golden, not-unusual tones? Only in a perfect world, i.e., Tim Burton’s schlocky 1996 fantasy, which barely comes together during its manic Las Vegas scenes set on the Strip. But oh, the cast: Annette Bening’s spacey New Age alcoholic; Pam Grier’s furious, no-nonsense bus driver; Jack Nicholson’s slimy hotel magnate; Jim Brown’s exploited King Tut. Are they really worth saving? Undeniably.

CASINO
Martin Scorsese’s 1995 mobbed-up fall of Rome was compared unflatteringly to Goodfellas (what wouldn’t be?) but actually has a frenetic rhythm all its own. Casino begins with an operatic flourish—a falling man plunging into neon hell—and never slackens. The story is the gutting of the golden goose: how Vegas became a money machine for the mob but was lost to the “yokels.” No Scorsese movie better captures his mouthy sense of class war and cultural outsiderness. The biggest gamble? Casting Sharon Stone as blond hustlerette Ginger. The payoff was enormous—her finest performance.

X: THE MAN WITH THE X-RAY EYES
This 1963 Roger Corman stunner actually only climaxes in Las Vegas; up to then, it’s a freak-on-the-run thriller starring former A-lister Ray Milland as a scientist who can see through blouses. But then he falls in with Don Rickles, who pimps him out at carnivals. Ultimately, we’re in a casino, where the money comes easy, but our hero is driven mad by his godlike powers—and he’s out in the desert by film’s end. The ultimate movie about gambling.

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