In this new year and in every other year, Las Vegas remains a place that everyone thinks they know. That’s what comes with being a young, fast-growing city that just happens to be one of the most recognizable destinations in the world.

But even visitors who come to Vegas frequently will acknowledge there’s a lot to learn about this place, plenty of details just below the obvious (Strip) surface waiting to be discovered. And like any real city, you need to live it to truly understand its culture—but there’s always a bounty of pop culture that can provide a convenient and creative way in.

So to christen this new year—and maybe offer a bit of direction for anyone who’s recently decided to live it and learn it—the Weekly has created this brisk and bouncy Vegas starter kit. Crack these books, catch these flicks and spin these tracks and you’ll be on your way to enlightenment ... or at least you’ll know enough to argue about stuff over drinks at your neighborhood pub.

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Fantasía/Fantasy: A Decade of Practice 2011-2021 by Justin Favela

Part biography, part graphic novel, part coffee table art book and a complete portrait of one of Las Vegas’ best homegrown artists, Fantasía/Fantasy is a must-have for anyone who’s ever asked, “Why doesn’t Vegas have a strong art scene?”—and those who know it actually does. And it feels good in your hands: it’s printed on crepe paper, like what Favela uses to create his piñata-like works. –Geoff Carter

Flamingo Wash: The Era of Electromagnetic Radiation in Small Las Vegas by Anthony Bondi

Anthony Bondi is a living librarian of Vegas counterculture. He’s a brilliant collage artist, a terrific storyteller and, coincidentally, a longtime nudist. When Anthony Bourdain came to Vegas to shoot an episode of Parts Unknown, Bondi matched him insight for insight. Flamingo Wash is more than Bondi’s memoir, it’s a look at a different, darker and more wondrous Vegas. –GC

Grandissimo: The First Emperor of Las Vegas by David Schwartz

This biography tells the overlooked story of Jay Sarno, one of the architects of the Las Vegas Strip whose influence has endured through every decade since his rise to prominence in the 1960s. This fascinating character study has all the Old Vegas ups and downs you could ever ask for, illustrating Sarno as a true pioneer—one who figured out the trajectory of grand casino resorts before anyone else. –Brock Radke

Las Vegas Then and Now by Su Kim Chung

To appreciate Las Vegas’ magnificent skyline, it helps to know what it used to look like. Las Vegas Then and Now uses historic photographs from UNLV Special Collections and pairs them with specially commissioned photos of the same spots. The side-by-side comparisons are striking. Where artesian wells once sprang up out of the ground, a complex of museums known as the Springs Preserve now exists. Once the city’s main business thoroughfare, Fremont Street was forever changed with the installation of the famous Viva Vision canopy. Now surrounded by a sea of resorts, the original Flamingo, one of the Strip’s earliest casinos, appeared as though it materialized in the middle of the desert. In a town that is constantly imploding and paving over its history, knowing where we’ve been keeps us tethered to the last shreds we have. –Shannon Miller

Learning from Las Vegas by Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown & Steven Izenour

Duck, duck, duck … shed. If for nothing else, you should read this architectural primer to learn the difference between a “duck” (a building with a shape that says what it is; the Luxor and New York-New York are ducks) and a “decorated shed” (boxy buildings that rely on signage to distinguish themselves). You’ll be able to read our skyline like a book. –GC

The Meth Lunches by Kim Foster

Perhaps the only book on Las Vegas that’s given real and compassionate consideration to the lives of the vast number of Valley residents who struggle in poverty, addiction, hunger and incarceration, The Meth Lunches is at times harrowing, but Foster always manages to look to the light—even if it’s coming from an LED billboard. –GC

Quiet Kingmaker of Las Vegas: E. Parry Thomas by Jack Sheehan

It seems as if the Strip creates and perpetually absorbs all the energy of Las Vegas, but once you’ve put some years in, you’ll discover that it’s just a big TV screen. Trace the power cord and you’ll find the outlet is often regular people doing a lot of hard work and taking big risks. The name of Utah-born banker and developer E. Parry Thomas might not be on a neon marquee (but that’s it on the Thomas & Mack Center) and yet few have done more to build Las Vegas, funding casinos, driving out the mob, mentoring Steve Wynn and other visionaries, and setting an early tone for community-altering philanthropy in Southern Nevada. Quiet Kingmaker is essential for a real behind-the-scenes understanding of Las Vegas. –BR

Sun, Sin & Suburbia: An Essential History of Modern Las Vegas by Geoff Schumacher

Schumacher has researched and written more stories about Las Vegas’ history, culture and politics than you’ve had comped drinks. The former Las Vegas Sun and CityLife editor and current VP of exhibits and programs at the Mob Museum pours many of them into this comprehensive city history, from our frontier beginnings to the 2008 crash. –GC

Vegas Gold: The Entertainment Capital of the World 1950-1980 by David Willis

This hefty coffee table book is all about the Vegas myth, but what a myth it is—and you’ve rarely seen it more beautifully depicted. All the usual suspects are present—Elvis, Liberace, Miss Atomic Bomb—but you’re also treated to gorgeous color photos of The Beatles, Ike and Tina Turner, Audrey Hepburn and many more living, working and playing in a Las Vegas big enough to matter, but still small enough for Dino to end his set early enough to wander over to watch Frank’s. The Glass Pool Inn lives on in these pages, as does pre-canopy Fremont Street and gaudy, shag-carpeted penthouse rooms suitable for Austin Powers. Everyone from Tom Wolfe to Barbara Walters chimes in on the Vegas mythos. Vintage postcards and airline travel posters, promotional shots and news photos are combined to present a dizzying and intoxicating look at a Vegas that no longer exists and perhaps never really did. –GC

WATCH

Casino When you think about the mob’s indomitable hold on Las Vegas and its end, you think of Casino. Martin Scorsese’s classic mafia movie is an unflinching deep dive into a mob-run resort thriving in an age of organized crime and opulence. Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci star as Ace Rothstein and Nicky Santoro, characters based on real-life mobsters Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal (who secretly ran the Stardust, among other casinos) and the violent taskmaster Anthony Spilotro. It’s a crime epic for the ages, one with bite and knee-breaking brutality that reminds us how greed, betrayal and fealty shaped our town. The mob’s influence can’t be overstated in this film, but it’s also not a complete glorification. We see the fall of a shadowy empire and its grip on Old Vegas as we knew it. –Amber Sampson 

Cool World This weird animation/live action hybrid from 1992 is directed by Fritz the Cat’s Ralph Bakshi, features a young Brad Pitt, and has an underrated David Bowie theme. But you should watch it only to see Fremont Street transformed into a cartoon hellscape. See also: Things Are Tough All Over with Cheech and Chong (1982) and Leprechaun 3 (1995). –GC

Diamonds Are Forever Most of the action in this late Sean Connery-era James Bond movie happens in Strip hotels, primarily Circus Circus, the Tropicana, the Riviera and the International, now known as Westgate. (The latter doubled as The Whyte House, lair of Howard Hughes analogue Willard Whyte). Two city funeral homes, Palm Downtown Cemetery and Palm Boulder Highway Mortuary, play money-laundering operation Slumber, Inc. But the Fremont Street car chase, made a quarter-century before the canopy was built and with the Plaza still under construction, is flat-out iconic—not just for Las Vegas, but for the Bond franchise as well. Bond drives an American muscle car for a change—a Ford Mustang Mach 1—and pulls some crazy donut turns in Fremont’s intersections, skidding dangerously close to onlookers. But its most remarkable scene is a brief aerial shot: Bond drives through the intersection of Las Vegas Boulevard and Flamingo … and the Strip is bracketed by largely open desert. –GC

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas You should read the book first, if you haven’t already. But Terry Gilliam’s 1998 run-and-gun adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson’s druggy travelogue manages to resurrect a bygone Vegas, from Circus Circus’ Horse-a-Round Bar to a Strip where marijuana use is an exception and not the rule. –GC

Frank & Lola Filmed in Downtown Las Vegas just as the Downtown revival was beginning to take hold—filming locations include Carson Kitchen, Commonwealth and the El Cortez—this 2016 neo-noir, starring Michael Shannon and Imogen Poots, is flat-out beautiful to look at. For the first time, a film gave the clear impression that people live in Vegas by choice. It’s a real place where we live, love and suffer. –GC

GLOW Playwright and producers Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch were the ultimate tag team when it came to recreating the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling in this Netflix series. The inherently campy dramedy starring Alison Brie and Betty Gilpin is based on the real-life cast who filmed the syndicated wrestling show at the Riviera in the 1980s. G.L.O.W. captured lightning—and a bit of glitter—in a bottle. The spandex was flashy, the stunts over the top and the storylines even more so. Locals like Folies Bergere showgirl Lauri Thompson even squared off in the ring as the spunky Susie Spirit. And Netflix’s GLOW honors those wrestling divas through its own fictionalized characters. In the third season, the women settle into their Las Vegas residency and it’s a nostalgic blast to see all the big lights and buffets. But there’s moments of reflection too, like when they visit Red Rock Canyon. G.L.O.W. arrived in Vegas at a very special time, and GLOW offers a colorful way to revisit. –AS

The Hangover There are those who would argue an off-the-rails bachelor party with accidental extreme intoxication could be the most obvious Vegas cliché to build a movie upon, and therefore such a comedy caper couldn’t have anything profound to say about actual Vegas. But the idea of escapism with some degree of debauchery is still closely connected with the perception of Vegas for many people, not just the bored white men in this movie. Whether or not you wake up with a tiger in the bathroom, the possibility of it—and the infinite potential of the story you’ll have to tell—is the powerful force that has drawn anyone and everyone to Las Vegas. Some kind of adventure always awaits. Maybe Mike Tyson will be involved. –BR

The Last Showgirl The team behind Gia Coppola’s 2024 film didn’t just parachute into Las Vegas and presume to know how to represent our city on screen. They consulted local Las Vegans and even utilized local Spiegelworld performer Gypsy Wood’s home as a set for the main character’s house. In a Golden Globe-nominated performance by Pamela Anderson, Shelly struggles to come to terms with the closing of a show in which she’s been performing for decades. The Blue Angel, a still-standing statue which originated from a defunct motel of midcentury Vegas, makes several appearances as a tender Hail Mary reference. And as showgirls make quick changes in between numbers, it’s a treat to go backstage and get up close to the gorgeous Jubilee costumes loaned by Caesars Entertainment. The movie is a true ode to Vegas workers, entertainers and our visual culture. –SM

Mars Attacks Tim Burton’s outrageous 1996 sci-fi comedy isn’t strictly a Vegas movie, but the city features heavily. It includes the implosion of the Landmark hotel tower, a chase through an early version of the Neon Museum boneyard, and Tom Jones performing “It’s Not Unusual” with a band of Martians at the Luxor. So implausible. The Luxor. –GC

Ocean’s Eleven Yes, the 1960 original has the Rat Pack and a bunch of defunct hotels. But this 2001 Steven Soderbergh heist movie featuring George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Matt Damon is something the original is not: a sentimental and even alluring depiction of the city we work in, and the mythology that fuels it. –GC

Showgirls Moviegoers in Las Vegas and everywhere else were equally displeased when this notorious bomb hit theaters in 1995, but 30 years later, Showgirls has become a campy and fun cult classic. There’s even a little truth to be found in this version of Vegas, primarily the reassuring knowledge that sexy stage spectaculars like Goddess (now starring Nomi Malone!) were once the main attraction along the Strip. –BR

Swingers Make no mistake: This is a movie about life in Los Angeles. There’s only a wee bit shot in Las Vegas (mostly at the Stardust and Fremont casinos) and yet the first thing anybody remembers or says about Swingers is “Vegas baby, Vegas!” And that’s because LA folks taking a last-minute trip to Vegas is definitely a thing, though maybe slightly less than it was in 1996. And LA folks coming to Vegas all the time—often moving to Vegas and influencing local culture in every way possible—is absolutely a thing, actually one of the biggest things to ever happen in Las Vegas. –BR

Viva Las Vegas You couldn’t ask for a better city time capsule than this 1964 Elvis Presley and Ann-Margret musical. It rambles from Strip hotels (Tropicana, Flamingo) to UNLV (its former gymnasium, now the Barrick Museum) to the great outdoors (Lake Mead, Mount Charleston). –GC

Guest Pick: Hacks

Selected by artist Justin Favela

“HBO’s Hacks is a good representation of old-school Vegas and how the city was run—and in a lot of ways, is still run, when it comes to comedians headlining at a Strip casino and the deals they do, the sacrifices they make and the unspoken rules that apply. Sure, it’s a comedy, it’s wacky, it’s about showbiz, but it’s close to accurate in a lot of ways, like the way that they portray the mayor as just hanging out, drunk, getting into mischief. … It’s modern Vegas, but it’s also a throwback, celebrating the dying art of the old dinner casino act. And viewing it as [a Vegas local], it’s fun to see how Hollywood portrays Las Vegas. You’re like, ‘Yeah, that’s in Burbank; we don’t have those kinds of trees.’ But care was taken to also shoot some things on the Strip, which is cool.”

Guest Pick: Parkway of Broken Dreams

Selected by filmmaker Shahab Zargari

“Parkway of Broken Dreams is a documentary by Pj Perez about the vibrant 1990s arts and music scene along Las Vegas’ Maryland Parkway. It uses archival footage and interviews to show how poets, musicians, and creatives built a thriving culture that later faded away. While the film spotlights what Maryland Parkway looked and sounded like in the ’90s (hint: nothing like it does now), it also offers a very realistic portrait of Vegas artists, poets and musicians, told by those who lived it. It’s a look at how Las Vegas creatives are scrappy, hungry and not afraid to experiment, yes, but also about how we support each other with or without sponsors or big money.”

LISTEN

“The Happening” by the Pixies

These alt-rock legends regularly slip Vegas references into their albums, but this nod to our UFO lore takes the cake. Frontman Black Francis fixates on a highly classified “ranch they call No. 51.” It’s virtually undetectable “unless you’re flying by,” but our otherworldly visitors have found us. The track escalates as Francis describes a close encounter with a spaceship that lands on the Strip. “They’ve come this far, I’ve lived this long. At least I must just go and say hello,” he sings, proving that the truth is out there, and the Pixies believe. –AS

“Heaven or Las Vegas” by Cocteau Twins 

The second single off Cocteau Twins’ eponymous sixth album is a dizzying blur of melodies. Some might confuse it with The Weeknd’s darkly sensual track of the same name (Abel Tesfaye himself has cited Vegas and Cocteau Twins as pivotal parts of his sound), but it’s truly this trio’s own, prismatic and blissful, dreamlike and in sharp contrast to the role Vegas plays in the song. With temptation being a theme of “Heaven or Las Vegas,” vocalist Elizabeth Fraser paints a portrait in which she’s caught somewhere in between vice and virtue, innocence and iniquity, heaven and the sinful archetype of Las Vegas. While recording this album, Fraser navigated motherhood and a rough relationship with guitarist Robin Guthrie, who had struggled with addiction. Wrestling with that tension, of purity versus depravity, mirrors how many outsiders looking in tend to see our city as sin personified. –AS

“Las Vegas Man” by Suicide

You may not know this band, but you know its sound and legacy: Suicide was one of the first bands to call itself “punk,” and its dark, relentless electro inspired everyone from Nine Inch Nails to Sleaford Mods. Being seen by Suicide, even in a minor track like this, is kind of a huge honor. Makes Vegas cooler by association. –GC

“Leaving Las Vegas” by Sheryl Crow

Figures that LA gets the Sheryl Crow song that begins “All I wanna do is have a little fun before I die” and Vegas gets the one that starts off with “Life springs eternal on a gaudy neon street/not that I care at all,” and becomes steadily more pessimistic about the town. The disillusioned showgirl of the lyrics even gets so bored with Vegas that she flees to Barstow for a date with a trucker—Barstow? For serious? Still, Crow neatly captures the “I’ve had enough” speech every Las Vegan eventually gives, down to the bit where we insist, “And I won’t be back. Not this time.” (Yes, you will. Everyone comes back. I went away for 10 years and came back, so gimme a break.) And “Leaving Las Vegas” has something few songs about Vegas (that aren’t by the Killers) possess: A rousing, sing-along chorus. “I’m leaving Las Vegas! Lights so bright! Blackjack on a Saturday night!” –GC

“Ooh Las Vegas” by Gram Parsons & Emmylou Harris

This upbeat country rocker is perhaps the happiest song ever written about losing your money and your soul. “Every time I hit your crystal city you know/You’re gonna make a wreck outta me,” Parsons harmonizes with Harris, barreling joyfully and headlong into disaster. It’s the pragmatic twin of “Viva Las Vegas,” and a better song, too. –GC

“Paper Rain” by Andrew McMahon

“Paper Rain” fully embraces the “anyone can make it in Vegas” mentality. McMahon describes a desperate drive to climb out of debt and win big, passing “the lake as fake as a showgirl’s lashes,” and pawning the last of his precious metals in hopes of turning his luck around. It’s every tourist’s dream. –AS

“Queen of Las Vegas” by The B-52s

Buried on side 2 of the B-52s’ third album Whammy, “Queen of Las Vegas” is not the band’s best song about taking money that’s not yours. (That would be “Legal Tender,” side 1.) But it’s found a place in the band’s residency setlist at the Venetian, and that’s neat. First they sang it, then they became it. –GC

“Vegas” by Big Thief

“Holed up in Vegas for only one week,” is how Big Thief vocalist and guitarist Adrienne Lanker opens this intimate snapshot of a relationship on the road. Vegas as escapism isn’t anything new. Millions do it every year, the transience allowing them to be whoever they wish for the week. But under marching melodies and vulnerable visuals, Lanker sings about finding something real in a town of daydreams. –AS

“Vegas Lights” by Panic! At the Disco 

It was track 3 on 2013 album Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die!, didn’t even make the cut as a single. This was back when Panic was a band and not just the main project of Brendon Urie, who described “Vegas Lights” as something of an anthem for a night out club-hopping. And then, in 2017, it became an undisputed Vegas anthem, booming through T-Mobile Arena every time the Golden Knights score a goal. And there were a lot of goals back then, and ever since. It was simply meant to be, given the last line of the chorus: “We’re winning till the curtain’s coming down.” –BR

“Viva Las Vegas” by Elvis Presley

You may like it, may be sick of it. But as a city theme, we could do worse than this Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman tune, written for the 1964 Elvis Presley film of the same name. See also: Covers by ZZ Top, Dead Kennedys, Bruce Springsteen, The Killers and many more. –GC

Guest Pick: “For Vegas”

Selected by musician Coco Jenkins

“My favorite piece of media that represents the vibe of Vegas is a song called ‘For Vegas’ by local beatmaker and rapper Trade Voorhees. It’s a timeless track featuring X and T.R@bb. The sample that Trade uses is “Dimension 5ive” by The 5th Dimension. It’s a classic ’70s jazz tune. And to me, the sample helps connect you with the Frank Sinatra-type of Vegas. It’s not from that era, but it could still live in a jazz lounge or in a Vegas lounge. It would be the evolution of the Rat Pack era. I also really align with Trade’s hook: ‘I do this for Vegas/I run around other cities/And do this for Vegas.’ I wish I wrote this song, that’s how Vegas it is. I feel like it encapsulates how I feel, how the city should feel and anybody who’s moving for Vegas culture. To me, it should be the Vegas anthem—until I write a new one.”