Pursuit of happyness: Chris Gardner is an intelligent, energetic guy who can't catch a break. In the sluggish Bay Area economy of 1981, he's losing ground, by investing all his family's money in high cost bone-density scanners. His wife leaves him, he loses his apartment, and with his 5-year-old son in tow joins the ranks of the homeless, if not the hopeless. Bounced from shelter to shelter, he finds himself a single dad who has to support and care for a young child. Impressing a Dean Witter higher-up by solving a Rubik's cube during a taxi ride, Chris gets a place in a stockbroker-training program. But internships don't pay, and there's no guarantee he'll be offered a job at the end of it. Against all odds, he pushes toward success, and eventually turns his life around.
The wolf of Wall Street: Sex. Money. Power. Drugs. Brace yourself for an outrageous true story from legendary filmmaker Martin Scorsese. Jordan Belfort, a young stockbroker, is hungry for fame and glory in New York City, where corruption is king and more is never enough.
The secret of my success: In this lampoon of corporate business life, a kid from Kansas (Michael J. Fox) comes to New York, conquers the business world and maneuvers his way from the mailroom to the boardroom in a matter of weeks.
The big short: The financial meltdown from the perspective of a number of players: Michael Burry, a bizarre autistic-like stock-picking genius, and the first to realize that the market's housing boom is based on a "house of cards" sham; Mark Baum, self-loathing fictional character whose firm picks up insider trading information from a wrong number phone call; Jared Vennet, a smart-aleck broker who confirms the ominous suspicion; and Charlie Gellar and Jamie Shipley, small-time players who hit it big.
Boiler room: Seth runs a small-time casino operation out of his apartment. With his streetwise business smarts, he's recruited to join the city's newest and hottest stock brokerage firm, and quickly takes to his new job's instant riches and fast-life pleasures. When he wins the eye and heart of Greg's ex-girlfriend, everything seems too good to be true.
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