This selection contains not just films about money, but filmed cases that will help you see business from the inside. For example, to see and learn what difficulties entrepreneurs face on the way to their business and what can go wrong even in a perfectly worked out plan. Sit back and choose a movie for the evening.
“Joy”
- Business: mop with semi-automatic spin
- Director: David O. Russell
- Main roles: Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Bradley Cooper
Brief information
A young girl named Joy is immersed in worries: she is raising two children, doing the accounting for her father’s company and running the house, where her unemployed mother, grandmother and ex-husband are waiting for her.
One day, Joy had to clean the floor because of a broken bottle of wine: while wrung out the floor rag, she accidentally injured her hands with fragments. At this moment, she comes up with a brilliant idea to create a miracle mop that will allow you not to get dirty and not constantly bend over. This invention will conquer millions of housewives and bring great profits, but on the way to her success, Joy will face difficulties both in her family and in business.
Movie Feature
The heroine of the film has a real prototype – Joy Mangano, which allows you to semi-automatically squeeze a mop and many other convenient household know-how. But the opening credits warn that this is not a biography with pretense of documentary: the film is based on many similar stories about courageous women.
Although this story is partly the imagination of the screenwriters, the film inspires you to look at everyday routine from an entrepreneurial angle: the opportunity to become a millionaire can be hidden even in the most boring and familiar things.
“Oil”
- Business: oil company
- Director: Paul Thomas Anderson
- Main roles: Daniel Day-Lewis, Paul Dano
Brief information
United States of America at the turn of the 20th century. Daniel Plainview is involved in mining and, while conducting analysis and exploration on the California prairies, stumbles upon an oil field. But a small well in the middle of nowhere is just the beginning. The main character sets himself the task of becoming the next predator in the oil business: he buys up the lands of local farmers in order to get to the most delicious deposits.
Movie Feature
Quentin Tarantino said that this film is one of the best of the 2000s, and after the premiere, cinematographer Robert Elswit and actor Daniel Day-Lewis were given an Oscar each. The film may be of interest not only for its artistic merits: the film realistically depicts the world of wild capitalism and provides an opportunity to see how future industrial giants rose to their feet and expanded.
“Founder”
- Business: fast food restaurants
- Director: John Lee Hancock
- Main roles: Michael Keaton
Brief information
The main character, named “Ray Kroc”, is engaged in cold sales of cocktail mixers. Its main clients are owners of roadside restaurants, where visitors are served directly in their cars. The wait for orders here is very long, and the waiters often make mistakes.
For work, Ray visits the Californian town of San Bernardino, where an order was received for eight mixers for the brothers Mac and Dick McDonald – for another restaurant – this was an unusually large purchase. Kroc is amazed by what he sees and tastes: fast service without waiters and delicious hamburgers. At that same moment, he realized that he wanted to participate in this business.
Movie Feature
McDonald’s is a cult franchise, but not everyone knows the history of this fast food restaurant. In this case, it is difficult to identify an antagonist: there is no evil corporation that would strangle an enterprising businessman, as happens in similar films about the success of singles. Instead, the protagonist himself gradually takes on the role of this oppressor.
“Glengarry Glen Ross”
- Business: property For Sale
- Director: James Foley
- Main roles: Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Ed Harris, Kevin Spacey
Brief information
We are invited to look at a day in the life of several real estate agents who have been given an ultimatum by management: the worst of them will be fired, and the one who brings the most profit will receive a brand new Cadillac.
Movie Feature
The film was based on a play, which significantly affected the production: the action takes place exclusively on the dialogues and monologues of the characters. The picture shows the real estate business quite harshly: the one who is successful here is the one who has perfectly mastered the art of selling. Nevertheless, many of the heroes’ statements have long become exemplary for sales specialists.
“Gold”
- Business: gold mining
- Director: Stephen Gaghan
- Main roles: Matthew McConaughey
Brief information
Kenny Wells – inherited a successful exploration company from his father, becoming a hereditary gold miner. But at the moment the business is broke: the company’s shares are worth nothing, and investors refuse to participate in projects.
Wells decides to take an adventure and uses his last cash to go to Indonesia to find a geologist there – the author of the controversial theory of the ring of fire, which promises huge deposits of gold on the island of Borneo.
Movie Feature
This story shows us how at one moment a business can turn into a pumpkin. The adventurous plot prepared for the audience a sudden turn and a memorable image of the main character – he is played by McConaughey with a fake bald head and a beer belly.
“Risk limit”
- Business: investment bank
- Director: J.C. Chandor
- Main roles: Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany, Jeremy Irons, Zachary Quinto
Brief information
A large investment bank is making layoffs and firing the head of its risk management department. Before leaving, he gives the flash drive to one of the specialists and ominously says: Be careful. The flash drive contains an analysis with a forecast for the collapse of the entire market.
Movie Feature
A look at the beginning of the financial crisis inside the bank, whose activities played a key role in the upcoming economic storm. The bank from the film has a real prototype – Lehman Brothers, which went bankrupt in 2008 and crashed world markets.
“Social network”
- Business: website
- Director: David Fincher
- Main roles: Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, Justin Timberlake
Brief information
Mark Zuckerberg is studying at Harvard and has already earned a reputation as a promising programmer – he was approached with an offer of cooperation from Microsoft itself.
The Winklevoss brothers, also Harvard residents, pay attention to him and want him to assist them in developing the university social network HarvardConnection. But instead, Mark is developing his own website, the capabilities of which go far beyond the boundaries of the university’s local network.
Movie Feature
The script is based primarily on the fictional novel by writer Ben Mezrich, and only then on the real biography of Zuckerberg. For this reason, this is a flawed but fascinating story of how Facebook came to be: how you lost your only friend, became a billionaire, and forever changed the structure of social relationships around the world.
“Tucker: The Man and His Dream”
- Business: automotive industry
- Director: Francis Ford Coppola
- Main roles: Jeff Bridges
Brief information
Preston Tucker always has ideas in his head and is literally burning with the desire to create. This time Tucker set his sights on developing the car of the future: it would be a revolution on the road with a number of unique innovations. Ordinary people are delighted, but some are not happy with the appearance of such a competitor.
Movie Feature
The film is stylized as the second half of the 40s, not only thanks to the painstaking work of costumers and designers, but also with the help of acting: the cheerful and purposeful main character behaves as if he was forever stuck in a television commercial of that time. But the case of Tucker Corporation is quite true: cars of this model are still driving around America, although the company only managed to produce 50 units.
“The man who changed everything”
- Business: baseball team
- Director: Bennett Miller
- Main roles: Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill
Brief information
Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane faces a daunting task as his baseball team recovers from the departure of key players and performs well next season. Very little money has been allocated, and we have to compete with teams whose budget is several times larger.
Bean decides to experiment: he abandons traditional approaches to finding athletes and uses statistical calculations to analyze the abilities of future players. The old guard and the entire baseball community are hostile to innovation, and only practice will show who is right.
Movie Feature
The main character is a real revolutionary in the world of baseball. He popularized statistical methods of player selection, which are now used by many teams in the United States. Beane has yet to win a significant trophy, but he has accomplished another challenge: on a minimal budget, he has been able to compete with baseball giants who spend huge sums on their players’ fees.
“Laundry”
- Business: laundering of money
- Director: Steven Soderbergh
- Main roles: Gary Oldman, Antonio Banderas, Meryl Streep
Brief information
Ellen is a retiree who is trying to get through to her insurance company to get benefits for her husband, who recently died in an accident. In the process, she begins to realize that there is no point in waiting for money, since insurers are scammers.
Movie Feature
This film is like a mosaic of several stories with all sorts of characters who are connected by one thing – a large-scale offshore network. And it is not fictional; the film’s script is based on data from the Panamanian archives.
Lawyers played by Oldman and Banderas help you avoid getting lost in finances by addressing the viewer directly, explaining the essence of offshore companies and describing ways to avoid taxes. This can hardly be called instructions for working with business, rather a pamphlet against the modern economic system.
