Documentaries, Movies, and Shows On Business Worth Your Time

Dumb Money (2023)

David vs. Goliath tale about everyday people who flipped the script on Wall Street and got rich by turning GameStop (the video game store) into the world’s hottest company.

Director: Craig Gillespie

Cast: Paul Dano, Pete Davidson, Vincent D’Onofrio, America Ferrera, Myha’la Herrold, Nick Offerman, Anthony Ramos, Seth Rogen, Talia Ryder, Sebastian Stan, Shailene Woodley, Kate Burton, Clancy Brown, Rushi Kota, Larry Owens, Dane DeHaan, Olivia Thirlby, Andrea Cárdenas

HOA Comment: Great reflection of true events surrounding meme stocks which all started off with GameStop and Keith Gill (aka roaring kitty) unwavering support of the business and the value it held displayed on a Reddit forum called ‘wallstreet bets’, if you’ve heard the terms ‘diamond hands’, ‘to the moon’, ‘HODL’, or ‘apes’ this is where it all started. Retail investors vs Large money managers (Kenneth Cordele Griffin, CEO of Citadel, Vladimir Tenev, CEO of Robinhood, and Gabriel Plotkin of Melvin Capital). Great watch as it depicts a once-in-a-lifetime event of average investors taking it to the big guys … will it happen again, who knows, but this goes into the history books.

Pain Hustlers (2023)

The wild wild west of pharmaceutical companies years ago (and who knows if this type of activity still exists) but this movie was based on a true story surrounding ‘Insys Therapeutics’ an American specialty pharmaceutical company from Arizona. The “drug” involved … the liquid form of the drug fentanyl.

Director: David Yates

Cast: Emily Blunt, Chris Evans, Catherine O’Hara, Chloe Coleman, Andy Garcia, Brian d’Arcy James, Jay Duplass, Amit Shah, Valerie LeBlanc, Aubrey Dollar, Alex Klein, Britt Rentschler, Michael Kosta, Nick J. McNeil, Bella Winkowski, Chapel Oaks, Elle Lisic, Willie Raysor

HOA Comment: This was a thrilling movie to watch! Also exposes how greed can get out of hand and before you know it have you making decisions that have long-term consequences. I’m hopeful large pharma has changed over the years, nevertheless makes you question most drugs being developed and sold in the market, makes you question if you really need it, and makes you question what are the long-term impacts let alone the short-term ones. Either way, it shows with a sprinkle of creativity, marketing, grit, and perseverance one can help escalate any business, BUT try to keep greed out of the equation before it catches up with you.

The Social Dilemma (2020):

It’s scary when tech experts sound the alarm on their own inventions. This will dive deep into the challenges and dangers to humans with the impact of social networking.

Director: Jeff Orlowski

Cast: Tristan Harris, Jeff Seibert, Bailey Richardson, Joe Toscano, Sandy Parakilas, Guillaume Chaslot, Lynn Fox, Aza Raskin, Alex Roetter, Tim Kendall, Justin Rosenstein, Randy Fernando, Jaron Lanier, Roger McNamee, Shoshana Zuboff

HOA Comment: Understand how social giants such as Facebook, Google, Twitter, and others use psychology to keep us hooked and how they use that element to profit off all of us. As the saying goes “if you’re not paying for the product. You are the product.” let that sink in!

Inside Job (2010)

See how the 2008 financial meltdown began in the USA and the players who directly and indirectly played a hand in the downturn.

Director: Charles Ferguson

Cast: Matt Damon, Gylfi Zoega, Andri Snær Magnason, Sigridur Benediktsdottir, Paul Volcker, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, George Soros, Barney Frank, David McCormick, Scott Talbott, Andrew Sheng, Hsien Loong Lee, Christine Lagarde, Gillian Tett, Nouriel Roubini

HOA Comment: Mark Twain once said that “History never repeats itself, but it does often rhyme” and in this instance, you can see how some of the events and actions of 2008 can be applied to 2023, especially with some of the US bank failures of recent (Silicon Valley Bank – SVB, Signature Bank, and First Republic Bank) and actions to deregulate banking over time. Not to mention that the same ‘actors’ responsible for that crash are still very influential today. Will we have another meltdown who knows but this is worth watching.