March 26th, 2019 | Updated on June 30th, 2022
Success in life is not always easy to get. All the people who are as of now ruling the corporate world have gone through their share of failures before reaching the pinnacle of success.
Their inspirational stories make for great film making ideas and there have been many versions of some of them. We have picked out around 7 such inspirational movies which talk about business success and how hard work pays in the end.
1. The Pursuit of Happiness (2006)
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An earnest story well told The Pursuit of Happiness is a simple story of an honest man. It is based on the life of a man named Chris Gardner who is trying to become successful in this cut throat world. To make things difficult for him, he also has to take care of his toddler son whose responsibility is entirely on him. Chris played by Will Smith has to forgo a lot of his dreams in order to be successful but his sheer will power helps him in achieving what his aims are.
Movie Review: Efilmcritic
Any movie that opens with a male/female “best friend” relationship has probably already telegraphed its inevitably happy ending. But heck – we all knew that Harry and Sally were destined to end up together, and that knowledge certainly didn’t mar a generally brilliant romantic comedy.
That’s not to imply that Pursuit of Happiness is all that comparable to Rob Reiner’s watershed romance, but my point is that a movie can entertain even if it doesn’t harbor any massive surprises.
Always-likeable Frank Whaley plays Alan, a (seemingly) upwardly-mobile young professional who’s just been offered an impressive new position at a swanky dot-com outfit. Unfortunately his new job is in Seattle, and accepting it would require a whole host of unwelcome “life changes”. One such change is thrust upon Alan when he returns home from the interview and finds his fickle (hottie) girlfriend in the midst of moving out.
With his professional and personal lives going down the tubes, Alan clings to his cadre of loyal old pals, chief among them his life-long best friend Marissa (Annabeth Gish) – an affable woman who’s also going through some decidedly tough times with her own marriage.
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2. The Social Network (2010)
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Mark Zuckerberg is a well- known name in the business circles thanks to his successful Facebook platform. This movie is his biopic and reveals how a dream which began in the college can be converted into a full-fledged success. The kind of effort put by him and the results he reaped are proof that even sky is not the limit for people who wish to aim a little high.
Movie Review: THE AGE
By now, most people will be familiar with Zuckerberg’s life story – how his creation, Facebook, went on to attract millions of users worldwide, losing him friends and embroiling him in lawsuits along the way.
Yet The Social Network has little to say directly about the advantages and risks of online communities. Facebook in the film is everywhere and nowhere – like the serial killer in Fincher’s Zodiac (2007) who becomes the absent centre of a web of speculation.
Despite Aaron Sorkin’s witty dialogue, The Social Network would probably be a minor work if it had been directed by anyone but Fincher – not the only ambitious filmmaker who relies on others to originate material, but one of the few who treats each project as a chess game played against the script.
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3. Forrest Gump (1994)
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When the going gets tough, the tough get going. This is the philosophy propagated in this story which has a simpleton breaking all barriers and moving ahead. To be true, the movie Forrest Gump takes us on a journey of self -realization and we understand how dealing with situations in a certain manner leads to positive results in the end. The movie was the most watched on Netflix for a long period of time until they decided to stop its display on their platform.
Movie Review: TheNewRepublic
A surprising number of films have mentally subnormal people as protagonists, but I know of only two in which such a protagonist is seen as a sage or savior. Being There, adapted from Jerry Kosinski’s novel, took its odd hero right up to the brink of a presidential nomination.
Now comes Forrest Gump (Paramount). Made from a novel by Winston Groom, this film follows an Alabaman man with an I.Q. of seventy-five from his schoolboy difficulties through action in Vietnam to postwar wealth and esteem.
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4. Wall Street (1987)
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A highly successful movie of its time, this one is actually a lesson that shortcuts in life do not pay. This drama showcases the life of a Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) who is a broker on Wall Street and who finds a mentor in Gordan Gecko (Michael Douglas). Later, the movie moves on to tell about how his ambition takes over him and he resorts to all tricks to get successful in the trade. Whether he gets what he wants or not is what remains to be seen.
Movie Review: TheWashingtonPost
Like the stock market of late, “Wall Street” has its ups and its downs, but its principal equity is a bullish performance from Michael Douglas as a company-gobbling arbitrageur. Suddenly the lite romantic lead has become a virile dynamo, calling up visions of his father Kirk in this portrait of takeover tycoon Gordon Gekko. He’s a lizardly villain in Money Hell, where men with concrete souls and Versace suits play games with pensioners’ pennies and workers’ paychecks.
These modern-day Midases come under the critical eye of ax-grinding Oliver Stone, as the “Platoon” director goes from the foxhole to the trading floor with this Faustian yarn, an entertaining morality play full of flaws, flair and finger-wagging. With its posturing politics and cardboard characterizations, “Wall Street” is not up to the director’s past standards.
Stone again has chosen Charlie Sheen for his naive protagonist, a man-child in a moral mine field called the Bull Market of 1985. This time Sheen’s disillusioned soldier is a facile broker struggling with the dark side of his nature.
Surely no MBA was ever so fresh-scrubbed as Sheen’s Bud Fox, a model go-getter who falls under the spell of the avaricious Gekko, guru of greed. Bud comes from a wholesome, working-class family in Queens. His father, played by Charlie’s father Martin Sheen, is a crusty trade unionist whose good example is lost on his money-hungry offspring. Bud looks down his nose at Dad’s blue-collar values in this fiduciary variation on “The Flamingo Kid.”
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5. Jerry Maguire (1996)
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Tom Cruise claims this role with top-notch acting skills. The movie is a story of a talent manager who is losing out on the valuable customers he was having till now. With time he realizes his folly and then he and his football star client find out ways to get what they have lost till now. A truly inspirational story showcasing some amazing acting talent the movie is worth a watch.
Movie Review: The Hollywood Reporter
As “plastics” was the defining word in The Graduate, “shoe contracts” says it all in Jerry Maguire, as writer-director Cameron Crowe etches a comprehensive, behind-the-scenes look into the juggernaut jock world where teenage kids become instant millionaires and whose immature whims and excesses drive the lives of all those around him. The athletes are the cash cows, and it’s the agents’ job to milk every last penny out of their short-term sports careers.
SMI sports agent Jerry Maguire (Cruise) is not only caught up in this world, he’s been a driving force in shaping it. Then one day — klonk — he sees the error of his ways. He sees it in the look of a little boy whose hockey-star father has suffered yet another concussion and whom Cruise, with commission signs flashing in his eyes, encourages to get back on the ice as soon as possible.
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6. Moneyball (2011)
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Often, if you have sincere intentions you achieve success despite the fact that there is no one to support you. Money Ball is the story of an Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane a role convincingly played by Brad Pitt. He has a struggling team and his intention is to make them get their due. How he does that without any help is what the rest of the story is about.
Movie Review: Sandiegoreader
The one baseball game given serious time in Moneyball is the Sept. 4, 2002, showdown in Oakland. Over 55,000 fans saw the Athletics blow a huge lead over Kansas City, then win on Scott Hatteberg’s homer. It extended their great winning streak to 20 games, and is now the movie’s sweet spot.
But Moneyball is not sweet. Nor is it much about the mystique and glory, the fabled field of dreams. It sticks close to Oakland’s general manager Billy Beane, a former hot prospect (raised in San Diego) who bombed in the major leagues as a player.
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7. Pirates of Silicon Valley (1999)
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An iconic tale of two major stalwarts of the IT industry i.e. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs the movie is a delight to watch. It shows everything related to their rivalry and how they became the highest authorities of this industry. The movie is for those who want to be successful but don’t know how.
If you are feeling a little low these days these popular and inspirational movies would remove any iota of doubt you might be having. Most of them are being streamed on all online platforms and make for some interesting watch when building up courage for a new dream.
Movie Review: salon
As the new biopic “Steve Jobs” continues to receive rave reviews, it seems appropriate to stop and take a look at its predecessor — the “Citizen Kane” of made-for-TV movies, “Pirates of Silicon Valley.” I’m not simply comparing this film to “Citizen Kane” as a way of drawing attention to its quality. Much like Orson Welles’ 1941 magnum opus based loosely on the life of William Randolph Hearst, Martyn Burke’s 1999 motion picture is at its core the tale of how massive business empires can be built and destroyed by the egos and weaknesses of their creators’. That said, there are two key differences between these films:
- “Pirates of Silicon Valley” focuses on two personalities, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, instead of just one.
- “Pirates of Silicon Valley” is surprisingly accurate.
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