thederekjohnson.com

I understand that sometime being an entrepreneur you need to take a break, maybe watch a movie. How about next time you go rent a movie, you pick one that is going to fire you up! I’ve picked some of my favorite business movies that I think every aspiring entrepreneur should see. Hopefully like me, you get chills watching these movies and you can hit the ground kicking some ass the next morning. Enjoy!

Entourage (I know this is a TV show, but you watch the complete session, it’s like a movie!)

In this sitcom, the suddenly risen film star Vince Chase, a ‘jeune premier’ of humble origins, learns the ropes of the business and the the high-profile world of the wealthy happy few in and around Hollywood, but not alone: he brings form his native New York his atypical ‘entourage (hence the title), not glitterati or professionals but a close circle of friends since childhood, and his professional agent finds they often make his job harder as the Queens boys not only sponge on the star but also have his ear, so Vince is much harder to counsel.

Wall Street

ccessful (but ruthless and greedy) broker Gordon Gekko. Fox finally meets with Gekko, who takes the youth under his wing and explains his philosophy that “Greed is Good”. Taking the advice and working closely with Gekko, Fox soon finds himself swept into a world of “yuppies”, shady business deals, the “good life”, fast money, and fast women; something which is at odds with his family including his estranged father and the blue-collared way Fox was brought up.

Boiler Room

A young man has dropped out of Queens College but desperately wants to please his father, a federal judge who’s harsh with his son. At his father’s insistence, Seth Davis closes a casino he operates in his own house, mostly for college students. Thinking he’ll please dad, he takes a job in a small brokerage house, an hour from Manhattan, where trainees make cold calls to lists of well-paid men, and then apply high-pressure tactics to sell initial public offerings exclusive to the firm. He’s terrific at sales. Once training is over, the pay is phenomenal, and Seth wonders why. Curiosity leads him to ethical dilemmas, encounters with the Feds, and new territory with his father.

Jerry Maguire

Jerry Maguire used to be a typical sports agent: willing to do just about anything he could to get the biggest possible contracts for his clients, plus a nice commission for himself. Then, one day, he suddenly has second thoughts about what he’s really doing. When he voices these doubts, he ends up losing his job and all of his clients, save Rod Tidwell, an egomaniacal football player. Can Jerry resurrect his career while still staying true to himself?

Glengarry Glen Ross

Times are tough in a New York real-estate office; the salesmen (Shelley Levene, Ricky Roma, Dave Moss, and George Aaronow) are given a strong incentive by Blake to succeed in a sales contest. The prizes? First prize is a Cadillac Eldorado, second prize is a set of steak knives, third prize is the sack! There is no room for losers in this dramatically masculine world; only “closers” will get the good sales leads. There is a lot of pressure to succeed, so a robbery is committed which has unforeseen consequences for all the characters.

August

Tom and Josh Sterling have a start-up dot-com. It’s gone public to initial success. Josh is the technical genius. Tom is the fast-talking and abrasive CEO, in charge of the business side. It’s August, 2001, less than a month before they can sell their shares and, perhaps, make lots of money. But the company is running out of cash, its main client is stalling, and share values are falling. For Tom to maintain the firm’s appearance, he must find cash: investors could rescue him, but at a high cost of his potential wealth and company control. Tom goes to his brother for a loan. At the same time, an old flame, Sarrah, comes back to the city. Can Tom hold things together, bravura and all?