List of Great Trading/Business/Money Movies

Trading, Sales, Business...or any money related movie
Let me know if I've missed any good ones!

Trading Places
Sporting billionaire brothers reverse the roles of a wall street commodities broker and a street hustler. Starring: Eddie Murphy Jamie Lee Curtis Dan Aykroyd


Boiler Room
Seth Davis (Giovanni Ribisi) is a 19-year-old college dropout who strives for approval from his father (Ron Rifkin), a judge who is horrified that his son operates a 24-hour illicit casino. When an old friend visits the casino with a fellow broker, Davis is impressed by their wads of money and yellow Ferrari, and decides to join the firm. In no time he's making sales and settling into the groove of the office and all the after-hours perks, but the dream fades when Davis discovers the scam that is making all of the brokers wealthy beyond their dreams.

Wall Street
In this riveting, behind-the-scenes look at big business in the 1980's, an ambitious young broker (Charlie Sheen) is lured into the illegal, lucrative world of corporate espionage when he is seduced by the power, status and financial wizardry of Wall Street legend Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas). But he soon discovers that the pursuit of overnight riches comes at a price that's too high to pay.

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps
Following a lengthy prison term, Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) finds himself on the outside looking in at a world he once commanded. Hoping to repair his relationship with his daughter, Winnie (Carey Mulligan), Gekko forges an alliance with her fiancé, Jake (Shia LaBeouf). But Winnie and Jake learn the hard way that Gekko is still a master manipulator who will stop at nothing to reclaim his rightful place at the top of Wall Street.


Glengarry Glen Ross
A riveting tale of desperation and betrayal based on David Mamet's Pulitzer Prize-winning play. Al Pacino, Jack Lemmon, Alec Baldwin, Ed Harris, and Kevin Spacey shine in this powerful story set in the world of real estate.


The Pursuit of Happyness
Will Smith stars in an inspirational true story about a struggling single father who dreams of a better life for his young son. Finding themselves homeless, he risks everything by embarking on an unpaid internship in a highly competitive stockbroker training program - where only one in twenty interns make the grade.


Rogue Trader
Based on the book of the same title and the actual events that occurred to collapse the Barings Bank.  Starring Ewan McGregor

Other People's Money
"The film version of Jerry Sterner's 1989 play is an attempt to turn the corporate-takeover frenzy of the Reagan era into the material of farce. The main character is a greedy, unscrupulous Wall Street wizard known as Larry the Liquidator (Danny De Vito), who's trying to buy-and close down-a small, stable, profitable New England wire-and-cable company." --The New Yorker (2006)

Inside Job
From Academy Award®-nominated filmmaker, Charles Ferguson, comes INSIDE JOB, the first film to expose the shocking truth behind the economic crisis of 2008. The global financial meltdown, at a cost of over $20 trillion, resulted in millions of people losing their homes and jobs. Through extensive research and interviews with major financial insiders, politicians and journalists, INSIDE JOB traces the rise of a rogue industry and unveils the corrosive relationships which have corrupted politics, regulation and academia.  2008, Starring Matt Damon

Barbarians at the Gate
Original HBO Comedy Starring James Garner

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
Alex Gibney examines the rise and fall of an infamous corporate juggernaut.



Food, Inc.
Food, Inc. lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing how our nation's food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the
livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. Food, Inc. reveals surprising and often shocking truths about what we eat, how it's produced and who we have become as a nation. 


The Counterfeiters
Winner of the Academy Award® for Best Foreign Language Film, The Counterfeiters tells the true story of Salomon Sorowitsch (Karl Markovics), a swindler who made a name for himself as Berlin's "King of the Counterfeiters." However, his life of women and easy money is cut short when he's arrested and placed in a Nazi concentration camp. With the German army on the verge of bankruptcy, Sorowitsch makes a sobering deal with his captors: in exchange for a comfortable bed, good food and fair treatment, Sorowitsch, along with the other hand-picked specialists, must counterfeit bank notes to fund the Nazi War effort. If he does as they say, he lives another day. If he rebels, he faces the same fate as the rest of the camp's prisoners. But if he lives, will he be able to live with himself?

American Psycho
Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) is a Wall Street yuppie obsessed with success, status and style, with a stunning fiancé (Reese Witherspoon). He is also a psychotic killer who rapes, murders and dismembers both strangers and acquaintances without provocation or purpose. Based on the controversial novel by Bret Easton Ellis, the film offers a sharp satire to the dark side of yuppie culture in the ‘80s, while setting forth a vision that is both terrifying and chilling.


Startup.Com
Directors Chris Hegedus (The War Room) and Jehane Noujaim couldn't have imagined the drama that awaited when they began documenting the creation of the pioneering e-commerce site govWorks.com. For over a year they followed the company, the brainchild of childhood-friends-turned-business-partners software geek and doting single dad Tom Herman, and ambitious young business-school-grad-turned-company-CEO Kaleil Isaza Tuzman. During the rise of the Internet investment frenzy and the subsequent crash of the dot-economy, the cameras remain keyed into the human dynamic: the lifestyle compromises, the personal sacrifices, and the clash of philosophies and personalities that ultimately tear boyhood buddies Tom and Kaleil apart...almost. Startup.com's portrait of the cutthroat nature of American business culture and the choices one makes (or doesn't) to succeed poses the one question most documentaries ignore: Is it worth it? --Sean Axmaker

Pirates of Silicon Valley
The revolution came when we weren't looking. It happened in a garage. In a dorm room. In countless hours of effort, imagining and intrigue. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates were changing the way the world works, lives and communicates. The event-packed saga of the quirky visionaries who jump-started the future unfolds with exhilarating, cutting-edge style in Pirates of Silicon Valley. Noah Wyle (ER) portrays Jobs and Anthony Michael Hall (The Dead Zone) portrays Gates in this chronicle of the fierce and often humorous battle to rule the fledgling personal computer empire. "The story is almost Shakespearean... it's a tale of lust, greed, ambition, love and hate," writer/director Martyn Burke reflects. And it's a success story unlike any other.

E-Dreams
They were handed $280 million dollars at age 28. They were on top of the world with a revolutionary idea to change our daily lives. And then it all came crashing down! This is the unbelievable story that follows the ups and downs of Joseph Park and Yong Kang, the founders of Kozmo.com. It's about the madness of chasing wealth, the lure of excess and the struggle for the American Dream. The Seattle Weekly raves - Filmmaker Wonsuk Chin manages to make the dot-com saga captivating again, thanks in part to his charmingly sympathetic central character.


Slumdog Millionaire
Jamal Malik (Dev Patel) is just one question away from winning a fortune on India's version of "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?" But how has this uneducated young man from the slums succeeded in providing correct responses to questions that have stumped countless scholars before him? And will he ultimately win it all or lose everything, including his true love?

Office SpaceUnable to endure another mind-numbing day at Initech Corporation, cubicle slave Peter Gibbons (Ron Livingston) gets fired up and decides to get fired. Armed with a leisurely new attitude and a sexy new girlfriend (Jennifer Aniston), he soon masters the art of neglecting his work, which quickly propels him into the ranks of upper management! Now the stage is set for Peter to carry out a high-tech embezzling scheme that's sure to mean the end of his job and a one-way ticket to easy street. Can he pull it off before all corporate hell breaks loose?

Maxed Out
A look at America's Debt Crisis

Owning Mahowny
"Philip Seymour Hoffman adds another great performance to his gallery of losers in Owning Mahowny, an engrossing, fact-based comedy-drama about the perils of compulsive gambling. The subject is hardly new to movies, but as Toronto bank-loan manager Dan Mahowny, Hoffman brings fresh depth and tortured humanity to his portrayal of a man who helplessly feeds his pathological need to gamble with millions in embezzled bank money that he can't afford to lose....Set in the early 1980s but timeless in its study of dysfunctional behavior, Owning Mahowny is a safe bet for film lovers everywhere. --Jeff Shannon"


The Bank
Welcome to the world of The Bank, ripe with avarice and corruption, where O'Reilly and his ilk can thrive and honest Aussie battlers lose everything. Enter Jim Doyle (David Wenham) a maverick mathematician who has devised a formula to predict the fluctuations of the stock market. When he joins O'Reilly's fold, he must first prove his loyalty to the "greed is good" ethos. Which way will he go? What does he have to hide?

9to5: Days In Porn
An in-depth look into the business of the porn industry.


Catch Me If You Can
"An enormously entertaining (if somewhat shallow) affair from blockbuster director Steven Spielberg. Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Frank Abagnale, Jr., a dazzling young con man who spent four years impersonating an airline pilot, a doctor, and a lawyer--all before he turned 21. All the while he's pursued by a dedicated FBI agent named Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks)" --Bret Fetzer

There Will Be Blood
A sprawling epic of family, faith, power and oil, THERE WILL BE BLOOD is set on the incendiary frontier of California’s turn-of-the-century petroleum boom. The story chronicles the life and times of one Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis), who transforms himself from a down-and-out silver miner raising a son on his own into a self-made oil tycoon. When Plainview gets a mysterious tip-off that there’s a little town out West where an ocean of oil is oozing out of the ground, he heads with his son, H.W. (Dillon Freasier), to take their chances in dust-worn Little Boston. In this hardscrabble town, where the main excitement centers around the holy roller church of charismatic preacher Eli Sunday (Paul Dano), Plainview and H.W. make their lucky strike. But even as the well raises all of their fortunes, nothing will remain the same as conflicts escalate and every human value – love, hope, community, belief, ambition and even the bond between father and son – is imperiled by corruption, deception and the flow of oil.

Blood Diamond 
An ex-mercenary turned smuggler (Leonardo DiCaprio). A Mende fisherman (Djimon Hounsou). Amid the explosive civil war overtaking 1999 Sierra Leone, these men join for two desperate missions: recovering a rare pink diamond of immense value and rescuing the fisherman's son, conscripted as a child soldier into the brutal rebel forces ripping a swath of torture and bloodshed across the alternately beautiful and ravaged countryside. Directed by Edward Zwick (Glory, The Last Samurai), this urgent, intensely moving adventure shapes gripping human stories and heart-pounding action into a modern epic of profound impact.


Fun with Dick and Jane
Fun With Dick And Jane provides comic relief alongside a relevant look at today’s corporate scandals. In the film, Dick Harpers’ (Carrey) years of hard work finally pay off when he is promoted to vice president of Globodyne, a worldwide business leader. After exactly one day at his new job, Globodyne is destroyed, leaving him and his loving wife, Jane (Leoni) without financial security. This sudden reversal of fortune has left them both unprepared to give up their comfortable lifestyle and Dick comes up with the brilliant idea of turning to robbery to pay the bills. Utilizing newfound skills, Dick and Jane exact hilarious revenge while teaching big business a lesson.


Ocean's Eleven 
Danny Ocean likes his chances. All he asks is that his handpicked squad of 10 grifters and cons play the game like they have nothing to lose. If all goes right, the payoff will be a fat $150 million. Divided by 11. You do the math.

Ocean's Thirteen
It's bolder. Riskier. The most dazzling heist yet. George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and more reteam with director Steven Soderbergh for a split-second caper that stacks the deck with wit, style and cool. Danny Ocean again runs the game, so no rough stuff. No one gets hurt. Except for double-crossing Vegas kingpin Willy Bank (Al Pacino). Ocean's crew will hit him where it hurts: in his wallet. On opening night of Bank's posh new casino tower The Bank, every turn of a card and roll of the dice will come up a winner for bettors. And they'll hit him in his pride, making sure the tower doesn't receive a coveted Five Diamond Award. That's just the start of the flimflams. The boys are out to break The Bank. Place your bets!


Rounders
Academy Award(R) winner Matt Damon and Edward Norton star in this story of passion, risk, and the extreme price of friendship! After losing a high-stakes card game, Mike (Damon) gives up gambling for law school and a fresh start with his girlfriend. But then his best buddy (Norton) gets out of prison and in over his head with a ruthless card shark (John Malkovich). From there, Mike's strong sense of loyalty –- and the lure of the game -– draw him back to the tables in a game he cannot afford to lose! 

21
Academy Award Winner Kevin Spacey and young Hollywood super star Kate Bosworth star in this clever & adreniline filled heist film. An MIT math whiz is recruited by a teacher to join a specialized team of card counters. They break away from their mentor before casino security finally catches up with them. Based on book "Bringing Down the House." It co-stars Lawrence Fishburne.


Two for the Money
Academy Award winner Al Pacino and Matthew McConaughey star in this adrenaline-charged thriller about the sexy, high-stakes world of sports betting, where fortunes can be made and lost with a flip of a coin.
When Brandon Lang (McConaughey) becomes the protégé of sports gambling's power player, Walter Abrams (Pacino), he swiftly becomes the golden boy of the high-rolling world for consistently picking football winners. Now, with millions on the line, he finds himself in a deadly game of con-versus-con with his new mentor.


American Gangster
Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe team with Director Ridley Scott in this powerful epic inspired by a true story. American Gangster is "a gritty masterpiece" (GQ).

Fight Club
Brad Pitt, Edward Norton and Helena Bonham Carter turn in powerful "performances of which movie legends are made" (Chicago Tribune) in this action-packed hit. A ticking-time-bomb insomniac (Norton) and a slippery soap salesman (Pitt) channel primal male aggression into a shocking new form of therapy. Their concept catches on, with underground "fight clubs" forming in every town, until a sensuous eccentric (Bonham Carter) gets in the way and ignites an out-of control spiral toward oblivion.

A couple more Very Loosely Business....
Tommy Boy 
Party animal Tommy Callahan (Chris Farley) is definitely a few cans short of a six-pack. But after seven years, Tommy's finally earned his diploma - and a cushy job at Callahan Auto Parts. Returning home, Tommy gets some more great news: his dad (Brian Dennehy) is marrying a real "10" (Bo Derek), and Tommy will get the stepbrother (Rob Lowe) he always wanted. Awesome! But as fast as you can say "Who killed the keg?", the family business starts tanking. Now Tommy's got to hit the road with his dad's right-hand man, a smug number-cruncher (David Spade). 

The Big Lebowski - Hey...the Dude is in charge of the randsom money to get "Bunny" back!
This Coen brothers' hilariously twisted and irreverent cult comedy-thriller stars Jeff Bridges, John Goodman, Steve Buscemi and Julianne Moore. Join the "Dude" and his bowling buddies on their journey that blends unforgettable characters, kidnapping, a case of mistaken identity and White Russians. Enter the visually unique and entertaining world from the creative minds of the Coen brothers and remember: the Dude abides.


For Reading:  A Few of my Must Read Trading Books


Reminiscences of a Stock Operator
Classic tale of trading of Jesse Livermore - A must read for any trader to understand the ups and downs of trading.

How I Made $2,000,000 In The Stock Market
Similar to Reminiscences of a Stock Operator.  A great motivator to pursue trading, especially for beginners..

The Complete Trading for a Living: The Legendary Approach to Trading with the Companion Study Guide
Psychology, chart patterns, risk management, and basically everything you need to know for Swing Trading

The New Market Wizards: Conversations with America's Top Traders
Interviews with a wide range of traders of different diciplines.  Each converstion will give you a different perspective and open your mind to new approaches to your own trading

Trader Vic: Methods of a Wall Street Master
A must read that details how to position your trades to maximize gains while protecting your capital.

Ugly Americans: The True Story of the Ivy League Cowboys Who Raided the Asian Markets for Millions
 Actual Account of John Malcolm, a securities trader in the 90's who went to Japan and exploited the markets.  From the author that wrote "Bringing down the House" that was made into the movie "21"

The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing. A Book of Practical Counsel 
 Learn all about value investing

Japanese Candlestick Charting Techniques, Second Edition
Must have charting book for the Japanese Candlestick Charting Method.  This method provides some better visual representation of the actual price movements of stocks on an intraday/week basis.    

The Trading Athlete: Winning the Mental Game of Online Trading
Traders, just like athletes, face tremendous pressure, stress, and expectations that would crush the ordinary, unprepared individual. The Trading Athlete utilizes sport psychology strategies to provide you with the knowledge, confidence, and discipline needed to succeed and profit in the sink-or-swim world of online trading.


The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine
The real story of the crash began in bizarre feeder markets where the sun doesn't shine and the SEC doesn't dare, or bother, to tread: the bond and real estate derivative markets where geeks invent impenetrable securities to profit from the misery of lower--and middle--class Americans who can't pay their debts. The smart people who understood what was or might be happening were paralyzed by hope and fear; in any case, they weren't talking. 

Liar's Poker

The time was the 1980s. The place was Wall Street. The game was called Liar’s Poker.
Michael Lewis was fresh out of Princeton and the London School of Economics when he landed a job at Salomon Brothers, one of Wall Street’s premier investment firms. During the next three years, Lewis rose from callow trainee to bond salesman, raking in millions for the firm and cashing in on a modern-day gold rush.