It stars Burt Lancaster and Susan Sarandon in the leading roles, with a supporting cast featuring Kate Reid, Michel Piccoli, Robert Joy, Hollis McLaren, and Al Waxman.

A co-production between French and Canadian companies[3] filmed in late 1979, it was released in France and Germany in September 1980 and in the United States later that year by Paramount Pictures.

The film opened to critical acclaim[6] and was nominated for the Big Five Academy Awards: Best Picture,[7] Best Director,[8] Best Actor (for Lancaster),[9] Best Actress (for Sarandon),[10] and Best Original Screenplay,[11] but did not win in any category.

In 2003, Atlantic City was among the 25 motion pictures added annually to the United States National Film Registry of the Library of Congress, being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and recommended for preservation.

[12][13] Sally Matthews is a young waitress from Saskatchewan, Canada, working at an oyster bar in an Atlantic City casino.

Sally's estranged husband Dave and her pregnant sister Chrissie show up one day with the intention of selling a $10,000 (equivalent to $38,000 in 2024) bag of cocaine he had stolen from a mob dead drop in Philadelphia.

Dave meets Lou, an aging former gangster who lives in Sally's apartment building and runs a small time numbers game in poor areas of the city; Lou also acts as a caretaker for Grace, a seemingly bedridden, aging beauty queen whose gangster husband he used to work under, and who constantly berates and demeans him.

Sally wakes and takes half of the money with the intention of sneaking off; Lou witnesses this, allowing her to leave and giving her the car keys so she can escape to France, rather than go to Miami with him.

Other cast members in the film include Moses Znaimer (Felix), Angus MacInnes (Vinnie) and Sean Sullivan (Buddy) as a trio of mob thugs, Louis Del Grande as casino manager Mr. Shapiro, Norma Dell'Agnese as Jeanne, John McCurry as Fred, Cec Linder as the hospital president, Sean McCann as a police detective, and Harvey Atkin as a bus driver.

To frame the picture, Malle foreshadows the great transition of the famous resort town in the opening credits by featuring footage of the implosion of the once-grand and historic Traymore Hotel on the Atlantic City Boardwalk.

The music that Susan Sarandon's character plays from her tape player is the aria "Casta Diva" from Vincenzo Bellini's opera Norma.

Featured in the beginning of the film, when Dave and Chrissie enter Resorts, and during the credits is the song On the Boardwalk (In Atlantic City).

[16] The critics consensus reads "Bittersweet and reflective, Atlantic City is a modest romance given raw power by Burt Lancaster and Susan Sarandon's heartfelt performances along with director Louis Malle's eccentric eye for detail.