Typically movies are made on the victorious entrepreneurs, who inspired many people to launch their own startup. Though the credit is always taken away by the hard work done by entrepreneurs, the hero of this movie is always ‘the idea’ behind the startup. We have enlisted a list of 8 such movies featuring the triumphant Entrepreneurs, which teaches you lessons on strategy, planning, tactics, leadership, money management, decision making, and much more.

COCKTAIL (1988):

This is an American romantic comedy featuring Tom cruise and Bryan Brown in the lead. The story revolves around Brian Flanagan (Tom Cruise), a business student in New York City working part time as a bartender. There he finds a supporting and conversant mentor in his boss Doug Coughlin, who trains him in all the tactics required for a successful business. The equation between mentor and his student, who later become partners and their firm stand on sticking together through all the ups and downs in their lives, is the main take away from the movie.

Things to Learn:

• How best of friendship can be a good partnership.

 PIRATES OF SILICON VALLEY (1999):

This MartynBruke directed movie, starring Noah Wyle as Steve Jobs and Anthony Michael Hall as Bill Gates, is based on the book, ‘Fire in the Valley: The Making of the Personal Computer’. This movie shows us the early scenes of the country’s leading tech hub and startup ecosystem and the climb of both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs towards their success. Noah Wyle’s performance was highly appreciated in this movie by the critics.

Things to Learn:

• The aspiring Entrepreneurs can draw hell lot of inspiration from these two ‘Great Pirates’.
• To look out for your competitors.

STARTUP.COM (2001):

This is a brilliantly made documentary on lessons to be learnt on the internet bubble. It traces the rise and fall of a startup called govWork.com along with 1000s other dotcoms. It tells you the story of high school friends in their twenties, Tom and Kaleil’s idea of setting up a website for people to conduct business with municipal governments. This documentary covers almost everything; stress in their friendship, desperation for improvement and money, dramatic personal life of the founders.

Things to Learn:

• An example for the entrepreneurs to remain in the game regardless of bad financial status.

 THE SOCIAL NETWORK (2010):

Mark Zuckerberg was already a legend when this American auto-biographical film on his life story released in 2010. Everyone wanted to know his journey from being a Harvard student to being a Founder of the most popular social networking site in the world. The movie has rightfully depicted the dark side of his expedition, giving you insights on how things can get better even if your beginning was not that clean.

Things to Learn:

• The film inspires the viewers to be flexible, open to criticism and resilient by accepting your own flaws.

THE NIGHTCRAWLER (2014):

This intelligently made crime thriller stars Jake Gyllenhaal as a former thief who starts his own company, which sells live footages of crimes and accidents to the leading new channels. Jake’s character, Lou Bloom goes way out of limits, breaking laws, sabotaging crime scenes in order to become the best Stringer in town. Brutal, ruthless and lawless ways of Lou takes him to great scales, but this should definitely not be drawn from the movie.

Things to Learn:

• How art of persuasion and negotiation can take you places without having much of a background in relevant field.

JOBS (2013):

Steve Jobs has been lucky enough to have two biopic made in the last decade. Jobs, is one of those movies. It was directed by Joshua Stern and Ashton Kutcher played as Steve Jobs. This movie is basically a collateral timeline of Steve’s life and Apple Inc. You get a very good insight on how Jobs invented his great inventions as well as his personal life.

Things to Learn:

• The innovator is not always a good leader and he should be ready to step aside sometimes for the betterment of company.

 THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS (2006):

This is a very emotional movie based on a true story of man named Christopher Garderner, played by Will Smith. The story shows how a struggling salesman changes his profession for betterment of his child’s life. But doing that is not easy for him, as he practically becomes homeless and penniless after his wife leaves him.

Things to Learn:

• Never giving up on facing failures and continue chasing your dreams. It shows you the magic of Will Power.

 GURU (2007):

This list would be incomplete without an entry from Bollywood. This movie was closely made on times and life of DhirubhaiAmbani. AbhiskekBacchan plays a young man, Guru from small village of Gujarat with great dreams. Possessed with an extraordinary business sense, Guru manipulates stock markets to earn huge profits for his company and its stock holders.

Things to Learn:

• Though Guru does not teach us the work ethics, his attribute of never letting go of his dreams motivates many.