GUEST EDITORIAL: The Best Movies About Business

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The Best Movies About Business

by Kevin Gardner

America is a capitalist society fascinated with making money. Therefore, it probably comes as no surprise that so many movies center around starting businesses, making money, selling them off, and all the legal and ethical problems that can arise along the way. Business movies are good for people who like realistic drama and for those looking to learn something about the way the business world works, even if that means learning what not to do.

Startup.com

Today, B2B eCommerce is stable (to a reasonable extent), predictable, and profitable. However, it wasn't always that way. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, eCommerce was still new and speculative. Companies were riding the dot-com bubble, but when that bubble ultimately burst, many went bust. Startup.com is a documentary dating from 2001 detailing the collapse of one such real-life company and the broken friendships it left in its wake.

The Merchant of Venice

Stories centered around business aren't exactly new. As long as there have been transactions, deals, and trades between human beings, there have been stories told about them. The Merchant of Venice is a play by William Shakespeare written in the 16th century and centered around an exploitive money loan and the court case required to settle it. There have been many films made of the play, but the first "big-screen" adaptation was made in 2004 and starred Al Pacino, Joseph Fiennes, and Jeremy Irons. For a 500-year-old story, it holds up remarkably well. Not everyone considers it politically correct, but there is a valid discussion to be had about whether the main character Shylock is an outdated stereotype or a sympathetic character with hidden depths.

The Founder

McDonald's is one of the most popular fast-food chains in the world. The original concept belonged to the brothers whose name the restaurant still bears. Yet the founder of McDonald's is acknowledged to be Ray Kroc, who built on the McDonald brothers' original concept and scaled it so it could support franchises around the world. The Founder is the story of how Kroc and the McDonald brothers first met.

Glengarry Glen Ross

The business world can sometimes be fiercely competitive. In Glengarry Glen Ross, the corporate office of a real estate firm announces that only the top two salesmen will keep their jobs after one week; the rest will be fired. There are four salesmen at the firm, and they all jockey for position following the announcement. For these salesmen, the ends justify the means, and they play by their own rules to try to come out on top.

The Devil Wears Prada

Many movies overlook the role of women in business, but The Devil Wears Prada puts them in the spotlight. While Meryl Streep's character lords it over her young underlings, the movie offers a positive message that hard work eventually pays off and dreams are worth pursuing, but navigating unfamiliar spheres and uncomfortable situations takes some practice.

Office Space

Many businesses create a culture of conformity and predictability. New ideas and outside-the-box thinking are viewed as risky to an established company and stamped down, along with workers' creativity and individuality. Office Space is the story of one office drone who gets ahead by challenging this stifling attitude in his own workplace. It has some interesting things to say about team-building techniques and leadership, and it is also side-splittingly funny.

Wall Street

Wall Street may be the quintessential business movie, providing a social critique of the rollercoaster of the financial world and the effect that the glamour of wealth can have on a young mind. The main character is a stockbroker that adopts the mantra of "greed is good" to rise in the ranks but finds that ambition can be a good servant but a cruel master.

Business movies run the gamut from the factually accurate, the fictional, and the movies in between that tell fictionalized versions of the dealings of real-life companies. While some people may think that the world of business is boring, these movies provide gripping drama and sometimes a few laughs along the way.