Based on the popular 1957 television series starring James Garner and Jack Kelly as Bret and Bart Maverick, the 1994 feature adaptation brought all of the high stakes drama and comedy back to the table. Mel Gibson stars as the smooth-talking, fast-drawing, ever charming Bret Maverick in this adventure about surviving and thriving long enough to make it to the biggest poker tournament of them all. Meg Ryan was initially considered as the honey-tongued thief Annabelle Bransford but in the end, the role went to the incomparable Jodie Foster. And while a slew of famous faces complement the cast at every turn, Garner himself brings everything back full circle, appearing as Marshall Zane Cooper.

It’s only a few days until Commodore Duvall (James Coburn) hosts the “big game” on board his luxury steamer and a $25,000 buy-in is needed. As the story begins, Bret Maverick finds himself just three grand short and combing the west for friends who owe him monetary favors. The first of these attempts leads to a profitable poker game in which he outwits Angel (played by the ethnically dexterous Alfred Molina), who has been sent to stop Maverick. In the process, Maverick makes the now-you-see-her, now-you-don’t acquaintance of the beguiling pickpocket Annabelle. When Bret starts out the next morning, fate conspires to pair him with Annabelle and the fatherly Marshall Zane “Coop” Cooper. After surviving a runaway stagecoach and a pack of bandits, Maverick is taken captive by his Native American friend Joseph (Graham Greene), who helps him con a Russian hunter out of a few more bucks.

But things go from bad to worse as Angel’s band waylays Maverick on the way to the game. Slippery and sly, Maverick squeaks out of death’s grip and makes it to the game-- and a date at the final table where the Commodore, Angel, and Annabelle wait.

With cameos from country music stars (Waylon Jennings, Clint Black, Kathy Mattea, Vince Gill, and more), television western stars (William Smith, Doug McClure, Henry Darrow, and Denver Pyle in his final film), and Danny Glover (as the bank robber “getting too old for this $#%!”), Maverick proved to be every bit as much fun as promised, bringing home over a hundred million dollars at the domestic box office and deck loaded with surprises.