Sometimes we forget that even when the market is in the middle of a bull run, it can still kick you in the teeth.  So the next time you look at your P&L and discover you had a bad day, turn the computer off, pull the battery out of your phone, and relax while watching one of these classic movies.

Boiler Room

This underrated flick from 2000 follows the character of Seth, played by Giovanni Ribisi, as he learns the ins and outs of selling speculative (and possibly fraudulent) penny stocks to suckers.


 

Two of the highlights are the "RECO" scene which is done beautifully by a pre-stardom Vin Diesel and the "They say money can't buy happiness" jag by a pre-megastar Ben Affleck.

TRADER

This is the famed documentary -- at one point lost to the passage of time -- that profiles a young Paul Tudor Jones just as he is about to make one of the greatest calls in market history -- the Crash of 1987.

The most compelling scene is one in which we see PJT stay up all night trading Hong Kong bonds while drinking a Budweiser.  This is a fascinating look at a true legend of the markets.

Trading Places

Who doesn't love this movie?  Even though I have probably seen it a hundred times, whenever I happen to catch it on cable I can't help but stop and watch the final scene that takes place on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (even though in the movie it is supposed to be set in New York).

What is remarkable to me is that millions of people have watched that scene in which the Dukes are bankrupted, but how many of them know that Winthorpe and Billy Ray Valentine are actually shorting orange juice futures in order to break the Dukes?

Wall Street

And of course the granddaddy of them all is Oliver Stone's ode to late 80's excess on Wall Street. There may not be a better archetype of financial greed than Gordon Gekko, the character that Michael Douglas plays to Oscar winning perfection.

Charlie Sheen plays Bud Fox, the eager fan boy cum protégée, who slimes his way up the corporate ladder with Gekko until his conscious becomes trouble by the wreck he leaves behind.  The climactic scene in New York's Central Park provides a lesson that everyone in the markets can learn from.

The Professor and Marianne....

If you've already seen these four films enough times to puke here are a couple of others for your consideration.

Quicksilver, starring a post-Footloose Kevin Bacon is definitely the best bike messenger/trading movie of all-time.  Barbarians at The Gate is more about M&A but is still has that same vibe that stock market junkies will appreciate.  I've been told that Too Big To Fail, Rouge Trader, Margin Call, Inside Job, and Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room are all solid choices as well.

Got a favorite stock market movie?  Drop me a line and let me know and I'll add it to the list.

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Photo Credit:  Adrian Weincrecht/Getty Prestige Collection/Getty Images