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Everyone hates their job sometimes, even people with jobs they usually love. Getting stuck in the minutia of the corporate world can be soul-sucking, and there are a lot of movies that remind people just how stressful and annoying corporate jobs can be. This list is dedicated to all movies that we hate to love and can be as stressful as our jobs. A full report with bullet points won’t be required at the end, we promise.
Office Space
The king of “jobs we hate” movies has to be Office Space. The company in the movie, Inotech, has to be one of the worst fictional companies in Hollywood history. Imagine three bosses tell you about every screw up!
Erin Brockovich
Julia Roberts‘ titular character in Erin Brockovich gives everyone someone to work for if you think what your company does is immoral and unethical. We’re rooting against the corporation in the movie, and for good reason. Even though Erin has a rough go at the law office, it’s not as bad as the people she is fighting.
Up In The Air
George Clooney‘s character in Up In The Air is charming because Clooney has a level of charm few actors can match. So you have to remind yourself every once in a while that his job is to fire people. A lot of people. Anyone who has gone through layoffs knows just how awful it can be.
The Devil Wears Prada
In the pantheon of terrible bosses in movie history, Miranda (Meryl Streep) in The Devil Wears Prada is close to the worst. Everyone has had an unreasonable boss, so even though Miranda is the extreme, there is something we can relate to, at least a little bit.
9 To 5
The world has changed a lot in the 40+ years since 9 to 5 was a runaway hit about three secretaries getting revenge on their jerk of a boss. After all of his terrible treatment of them, at least he’s a boss who gets what is coming to him.
The Informant!
Director Steven Soderbergh‘s 2009 dark comedy The Informant! is loosely based on a true story about price fixing by the Archer Daniels Midland company. While not many people actually work for companies that are doing shady stuff, it’s something we can all relate to when our company does something we don’t like and that is out of our control.
Swimming With Sharks
The entertainment industry is notorious for its harsh treatment of newcomers, and while a lot has changed in more recent years after the #MeToo movement, it’s still an industry that isn’t for the faint of heart. The ’90s movie Swimming With Sharks, with Kevin Spacey playing the worst kind of abusive boss, plays up just how cutthroat Hollywood is behind the scenes, and while the movie is satire and way overblown, it’s still a scary thought.
American Psycho
Okay, yeah, American Psycho isn’t really about the corporate world, directly, but come on, the movie, and the book it was based on, take full aim at the investment banking business. Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) is, as the name implies, a psycho, but it’s not like the rest of the bankers in the movie are shown in a positive light.
The Big Short
The 2008 financial meltdown was a moment that rocked the world, and many of the reasons behind it were incredibly complicated. The Big Short, based on a book by Michael Lewis, did an amazing job simplifying it for those of us who aren’t math and finance wizards. It also made sure many of us would never want to enter the industry in the first place.
Wall Street
Greed, make no mistake, is not good, despite what Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) claims. While Oliver Stone‘s takedown of the world of finance in Wall Street has been misinterpreted by young stockbrokers everywhere, it’s important to remember that it’s a biting commentary of just how ugly the corporate world can be.
The Wolf Of Wall Street
Scams and fraud have been part of the corporate world since the first companies were formed in the Age of Exploration. The Wolf of Wall Street is just one of the latest examples of Hollywood masterfully telling a story of fraud and abuse. Yeah, the telling of this “true” story is over-the-top and as debacberous as a movie has ever been, but its message is effective.
The Assistant
Sometimes, it only takes one day to figure out how bad your corporate job can be. 2019’s The Assistant is the perfect example of how it can happen. It takes place over the course of one day and viewers see just how awful a desk job can be.
Working Girl
The 1980s were all about that corporate hustle. The age of the yuppie and, as Working Girl highlights, a rough time for pioneering women in the corporate world. Sure, things have gotten much better, and women have at least cracked the glass ceiling, though it’s hardly shattered even decades later. Things work out in the end for our hero in Working Girl, but it’s a rough ride to get there.
The Insider
For decades the tobacco industry hid the truth about the health effects of cigarettes and it took a whistleblower to finally get them to admit it. The Insider tells the story of that whistleblower and you can only imagine how awful it would be to work for a company that you know is lying to people and causing cancer. Yikes.
Horrible Bosses
Well, for this comedy, the title says it all. Horrible Bosses is about… horrible bosses and there really isn’t much more to expound on that, except to say that if you are working for anyone like the people in charge in this movie, quit now.
The Founder
Far too often, CEOs of major companies can feel like sociopaths. Ray Kroc is responsible for the incredible growth of McDonald’s, but it came at a tremendous cost for the two brothers who founded the first fast food joint. Sometimes, it feels like people are playing by different rules than the rest of us.
The Company Men
The corporate world is nothing if not often heartless. This is shown starkly in The Company Men as we in the audience see just how life changing a layoff can be, at almost any age. It’s especially brutal on those late in their career when they might struggle to recover at all.
Boiler Room
Like Wall Street and The Wolf of Wall Street, Boiler Room shows the worst of the stock trading business. It’s hard to believe companies (or scams) like this exist, and yet, over and over, we see cheats get ahead. At least in this one, the people at the center of the scam get their just desserts.
Too Big to Fail
Plenty of movies have been made about the 2008 financial crisis, and Too Big to Fail shows just how the backroom deals between the corporate world and the political world worked at the time. It’s enough to make you furious at everything.
Trading Places
Not only is Trading Places one of the funniest movies of the 1980s, but it’s also a pretty decent satire of the corporate finance world. The Duke Brothers are rich, terrible people who use their employees like they are just toys, and Billy Ray and Lewis are the victims. Of course, they use the same financial games to ruin the Dukes, so in the end, it may scare you away from that world, but at least the good guys win. It also made the fake company “Duke & Duke” a household name.
Bonfire Of The Vanities
In the 1980s, author Tom Wolfe wrote an amazing takedown of the “go-go ’80s” called Bonfire Of The Vanities. Later, it was turned into a highly anticipated, big-budget movie starring Tom Hanks and Bruce Willis that pretty much completely failed at the box office and was hated by the critics. The message is still clear, though: corporations and banks are heartless and hurt the little guy. Whether you believe that or not, the movie definitely takes sides. It’s also a movie the stars probably wish they could forget.
Michael Clayton
Corporations, like people, can get themselves into some serious trouble with bad decisions and questionable morality. There are lawyers out there who don’t care what transgressions a company commits and are willing to sell themselves out for a buck to fix any problems. Such is the case of the titular Michael Clayton, played by George Clooney. Rarely do those lawyers find a conscience like Clayton does in the movie.
The Secret of My Success
In the 1980s, yuppie culture was all-consuming, and that was certainly true in the movies. Even innocent romcoms like The Secret of My Success found ways to take jobs at the greed and hustle of the day. Michael J. Fox basically plays a more friendly, less swarmy version of his character on Family Ties to great success.
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps
Almost a quarter of a century after Oliver Stone took no prisoners in Wall Street and his critique of capitalism, the director returned to point out that basically nothing had changed. People change, but the game stays the same. Michael Douglas reprises his role as Gordon Gekko and proves he is just as immoral as he’s ever been, even after serving prison time for his misdeeds in the first movie.
Barbarians at the Gate
HBO has been making great original movies for decades, and one of their early hits, from 1993, was Barbarians at the Gate. The movie is a satirized version of the life of RJR Nabisco CEO F. Ross Johnson as he tries to guide the company through the 1980s and the change in smoking habits around the world. He definitely does come across as a guy you’d want to work for, but he does have his charms.
Glengarry Glen Ross
Anyone who has ever been in a sales job knows all too well how powerful Glengarry Glen Ross can hit them. It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there, and no one is looking out for number one. Or, at least, that’s what some want you to believe. The truth is we all need a tribe of our own, and treating life like we’re all alone, even in the business world, is dangerous.
The Spanish Prisoner
The Spanish Prisoner is a movie about a con artist wrapped in a corporate genre, so it’s not surprising that it would make people mad in many ways. That’s pretty much the goal of the movie: full frustration.
Baby Boom
In the 1980s, the world was changing, and so were corporations. Women were beginning to really make their mark on the business world, but it also meant women (and their families) had to learn how to navigate both a career and motherhood. That’s why Baby Boom worked so well, as it was an honest (and funny) look at the dilemma.
The Firm
The Social Network
With the dawn of the information age, millions of Gen Xers believed the corporate world was going to work differently than it did for their parents. Everyone was going to get rich and play foosball in the office while wearing jeans and t-shirts. That last part is kind of true, but the rest? That remains a pipe dream for most. The Social Network highlights just how little has actually changed.
Margin Call
2011’s Margin Call is an underrated movie about the 2008 recession that really hits hard on those responsible for the collapse. It’s a frustrating, but rewarding, look into just how scummy people can be and it features an all-star cast. If you’ve never seen it, check it out, it’s worth it.
Other People’s Money
Danny DeVito as a corporate raider in the 1980s. Need we say more? Corporate raiders were the ultimate villains in that era and this dark comedy is as good as any other movie of the era, including Wall Street at showing just how terrible they could be.
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