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Life Health > Life Insurance

25 best business movies: 6-10

By Daniel Williams

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10. The Apartment (1960)

Starring  Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine, Fred MacMurray 

Directed by Billy Wilder

What it’s about: C. C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon) is a lower-middle manager in one of the five largest companies in the country. He also has an apartment that’s convenient to the corporate headquarters and the perfect lover’s nest for Baxter’s bosses to bring their mistresses. 

Why watch it: For the education on office politics and the perfect comic timing of Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine, who plays his love interest. 

Business takeaway: The climb to the top might be rife with pitfalls and other moral judgments. How much do you want that promotion, and can you live with yourself if you compromise your morality?

Memorable scene: The scene where Baxter makes Fran a spaghetti dinner and, in typical bachelor fashion, strains the noodles with his tennis racket. 

Memorable quotes: 

C.C. Baxter: [narrating] On November 1st, 1959, the population of New York City was 8,042,783. If you laid all these people end to end, figuring an average height of five feet six and a half inches, they would reach from Times Square to the outskirts of Karachi, Pakistan. I know facts like this because I work for an insurance company, Consolidated Life of New York. We’re one of the top five companies in the country. Our home office has 31,259 employees, which is more than the entire population of, uhh … Natchez, Mississippi. I work on the 19th floor. Ordinary Policy Department, Premium Accounting Division, Section W, desk number 861.

C.C. Baxter: Miss Kubelik, one doesn’t get to be a second administrative assistant around here unless he’s a pretty good judge of character, and, as far as I’m concerned, you’re tops. I mean, decency-wise and otherwise-wise. 

 

Next up: Wall Street

9. Wall Street (1987)

Starring Michael Douglas, Charlie Sheen, Martin Sheen, Daryl Hannah

Directed by Oliver Stone

What it’s about: A young stock trader (Charlie Sheen) is willing to do anything to get to the top, including working with illegal inside information. His mentor, Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) casts a dark mentorship.

Why watch it: For Douglas’ performance as Gordon Gekko, which makes the movie. In rewatching 25 years after it debuted, Wall Street seemed dated in places, and Daryl Hannah’s performance as Sheen’s love interest was distractingly awful. With that said, the basic theme of being seduced by success, along with Douglas’ great take on corporate greed, keeps this a cult favorite.

Business takeaway: Is greed good? The bubbles and market crashes and outright insidious behavior by many who control the global financial levers would tend to disagree with that notion.

Memorable scene: Gekko’s speech to shareholders about greed is one of the most quoted scenes in film and won Douglas the Oscar for best actor.

Memorable quotes: 

Gekko: I am not a destroyer of companies. I am a liberator of them! The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA.

Gekko: You got ninety percent of the American public out there with little or no net worth. I create nothing. I own. We make the rules, pal. The news, war, peace, famine, upheaval, the price per paper clip. We pick that rabbit out of the hat while everybody sits out there wondering how the hell we did it. Now you’re not naive enough to think we’re living in a democracy, are you buddy? It’s the free market. And you’re a part of it. You’ve got that killer instinct. Stick around pal, I’ve still got a lot to teach you. 

Next up: Death of a Salesman

 

8. Death of a Salesman (TV 1985)

Starring Dustin Hoffman, Kate Reid, John Malkovich 

Directed by Volker Schlöndorff

What it’s about: The Arthur Miller play comes to life in this made-for-TV version, which was also penned by Miller. It’s the classic tale of Willy Loman (Dustin Hoffman) a traveling insurance salesman who is slowly losing his mind and his will to live.

Why watch it: You might be familiar with the play, but Hoffman’s incendiary performance as Willy Loman makes it well worth another viewing.

Business takeaway: You are only as big as your dreams, but to realize those dreams you have to be willing to take the first step.

Memorable scene: Where Biff (John Malkovich) visits Willy at the hotel in Boston, forever changing the direction of both of their lives.

Memorable quotes: 

Biff Loman: [arguing with Willy] Pop, I’m a dime a dozen and so are you… 

Willy Loman: [shouting] I am not a dime a dozen! I’m Willy Loman and you are Biff Loman! 

Biff Loman: [to his father] Will you let me go, for Christ’s sake? Will you take that phony dream and burn it before something happens? 

Next up: Office Space

7. Office Space (1999)

Starring Ron Livingston, Jennifer Aniston, David Herman, Gary Cole

Directed by Mike Judge

What it’s about:  If the cartoon character Dilbert were not animated, he’d probably work at Initech, the kind of data- and process-driven company where careers go to die. Instead of Dilbert, we get Peter Gibbons (Ron Livingston) who has had enough with all the systems and processes and paper pushing that goes on at Initech. 

Why watch it: In 90 minutes, Office Space is able to capture the claustrophobic frustration of cubicle office life that has taken Dilbert and The Office years and years and years to tell.

Business takeaway: If you’re disgruntled about a current job, go take a long look in the mirror. If it’s you, change your attitude; if it really is the job, then hit the road and get on with your life and career.

Memorable scene: Where Peter Gibbons and his cohorts go to the empty field to destroy the white collar crime evidence on the computer.

Memorable quotes: 

Bill Lumbergh: Hello Peter, what’s happening? Ummm, I’m gonna need you to go ahead and come in tomorrow. So if you could be here around 9 that would be great, mmmk… oh oh! and I almost forgot ahh, I’m also gonna need you to go ahead and come in on Sunday too, kay. We, ahh, lost some people this week and, ahh, we sorta need to play catch up. 

****

Bill Lumbergh: Oh, and remember: Next Friday… is Hawaiian shirt day. So, you know, if you want to, go ahead and wear a Hawaiian shirt and jeans. 

**** 

Dom Portwood: Hi, Peter. What’s happening? We need to talk about your TPS reports. 

Peter Gibbons: Yeah. The coversheet. I know, I know. Uh, Bill talked to me about it. 

Dom Portwood: Yeah. Did you get that memo? 

Peter Gibbons: Yeah. I got the memo. And I understand the policy. And the problem is just that I forgot the one time. And I’ve already taken care of it so it’s not even really a problem anymore. 

Dom Portwood: Ah! Yeah. It’s just we’re putting new coversheets on all the TPS reports before they go out now. So if you could go ahead and try to remember to do that from now on, that’d be great. All right! 

Next up: Moneyball

6. Moneyball (2011)

Starring Brad Pitt, Robin Wright, Jonah Hill

Directed by Bennett Miller

What it’s about: In 2001, faced with an ever widening gap between the money teams (Yankees, Red Sox) and small market teams (his own Oakland A’s), GM Billy Beane knows he has to find another way to compete. The direction he takes, which relies on statistical analysis more than old fashioned scouting, disrupts the order handed down for a century by the baseball gods.

Why watch it: If you want to get a better understanding of the business of sports as well as how to compete with less, this is the one movie to see.

Business takeaway: Sometimes you have to break the traditional models and step outside the age-old norms to find success. 

Memorable scene: Watching Beane (Brad Pitt) unable to watch his own team’s games. Instead, he spends his time working out on an elliptical machine or driving donuts in his pickup truck.

Memorable quotes: 

Billy Beane: I pay you to get on first, not get thrown out at second. 

Peter Brand: People who run ball clubs, they think in terms of buying players. Your goal shouldn’t be to buy players; your goal should be to buy wins. And in order to buy wins, you need to buy runs.  

Billy Beane: You get on base, we win. You don’t, we lose. And I hate losing, Chavy. I hate it. I hate losing more than I even wanna win. 

 

For the rest of the list, visit www.lifehealthpro.com/bestbusinessmovies.

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