"City Lights": Charlie Chaplin’s Little Tramp falls in love with a blind flower girl who mistakes the tramp for a wealthy gentleman. A charade ensues that displays not only the heart–warming courtship by a man with a heart of gold, but also his experiences on “the other side of the tracks,” mingling with the absurdly wealthy of the town. Chaplin makes the audience acutely aware of the frivolous waste of the wealthy in this depression era film, which is more focused on truth than the escapist films of its generation.
“The Best Years of Our Lives”: A post–war film concerned with the stories of three recently returned home veterans and their respective loved ones. While not specifically about the economy, the film sheds light on post–war economic possibilities, using one main character’s occupation as a bank loan officer to express that while the US economy was on the upswing, the returning vets had a less than lucrative return to the job market.
“On the Waterfront”: “I coulda’ had class. I coulda’ been a contender. I coulda’ been somebody instead of a bum, which is what I am.” While many films in the ‘50s were focused on what appeared to be impending doom with the approaching Cold War and McCarthy–era persecutions, “On the Waterfront” stands as a glaringly realistic account of union and labor conditions in a world of work riddled with corruption and shady economic politics.
"Midnight Cowboy": The economic expanse of the sixties precluded any discussion of economic depressions in society, but when the end of the decade rolled along (and the Hollywood Code was aban- doned), filmmakers took on the society of film as their peers took on the world: with counterculture. Detailing the trials and tribulations of a would–be male prostitute and his dying friend, this film takes a turn from the earlier films of the decade and shows what was a sad reality for a growing class of unemployed citizens.
"Wall Street": You know what it’s about: up– and–coming young stockbroker Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) is taken under the wing of ruthless Wall Street player Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas), but soon all goes to hell, morals are compromised and we’re left wondering: is greed really good?! It also left audiences with a conscience when Black Monday hit the market in real life in October of that same year.
“Boiler Room”: This is actually the original Jordan Belfort movie, based on interviews with Belfort and his colleagues about their failed firm Stratton Oakmont. Starring Giovanni Ribisi, Ben Affleck and the inimitable Vin Diesel, the film follows protagonist Ribisi through shady deal- ings with a seemingly legitimate brokerage firm until, suprise! It all comes crashing down and somebody gets indicted by the FBI. Another attempt at creating conscience during a time of excess and the dot com bubble.
“The One Percent”: A documentary about exactly what it sounds like: the one percent. It features interviews all the way from Milton Friedman to Ralph Nader. Except this documentary coined the very term and brought everyone’s attention to the fact that one percent of the United States controlled 42.2% of the total financial wealth.
"Inside Job": The supposedly all–encompassing documentary about the 2007 financial crisis that looks to explain how shifts in policy and banking in the US created the “recession” that everybody now references as to why they don’t have their shit together. Plus, the first of the five parts of the doc, “How We Got Here,” essentially explains the economic history that the other 10 movies on this list tells.
