Business Movies on Netflix For Lessons in Profit, Principles, and Positioning

Corporate drama, unwavering ambition, and an eclectic mix of business (and life) lessons; those are the elements to look forward to in a well-made business movie on Netflix.

From tales about entrepreneurs starting with nothing to their name and a college dropout who built one of the biggest social media platforms to a festival that had more things going wrong than right, and, of course, the rise and fall of Wall Street investors — the breadth of intrigue in the corporate world is worth exploring.

Share these five business movies you will find on Netflix with any “start-up” friend of yours.

Guru (2007)

Rumoured to be inspired by Dhirubhai Ambani’s struggles to go from rags to riches as a businessman with nothing (but everything) to lose, this business movie on Netflix by Mani Ratnam is still relevant 17 years later.

Guru explores the journey of Gurukant Desai (Abhishek Bachchan), a poor migrant from a village in Gujarat who comes to Bombay in the Fifties with a dream to make it big with his wife Sujata (Aishwarya Rai) by his side. His mentor in the city is Nanaji (Mithun Chakraborty), who is also the owner of a newspaper. When Guru starts using some shady tactics to maintain his growth as a business tycoon, multiple conversations about ethics tune us into the greys of the character and the seediness of business.

Guru’s transition from a nobody to a businessman to a public figure who can shape market trends is awe-inspiring. It can be a motivating portrayal for anyone who needs that little nudge not to give up when their luck is down and things are not going their way.

The Social Network (2010)

If you want to watch a business movie on Netflix that also dabbles in legal principles, this is the one to watch. It explores the infamous origin story of Facebook, the brainchild of computer wiz Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg).

Based on Ben Mezrich's book The Accidental Billionaires (2009), the plot unfolds with heartbroken 19-year-old Harvard student Mark building a campus website that allows visitors to rate the photos of female students. This sets him on the path to eventually building Facebook, which came with its own set of legal complications and personal setbacks.

The film has a strong supporting cast, with Justin Timberlake, Dakota Johnson, and Rashida Jones playing characters who act as obstacles (or inspirations) to Mark’s growth.

The host of intellectual property rights at play in The Social Network provides a great beginner’s look into website ownership and contracts related to it. From a business perspective, it is a powerful lesson about banking on yourself (Zuckerberg dropped out of college to focus on his business), not relying on traditional methods of growth if you know it won’t work for your business (Zuckerberg didn’t run ads on the platform in the beginning), and focusing on building something the community can benefit from. 

The Big Short (2015)

Another business movie on Netflix you have to watch is The Big Short. It's an adaptation of the eponymous 2010 book by Michael Lewis about the events leading up to and the aftermath of the housing bubble in the US in 2007-08.

Directed by Adam McKay, The Big Short is an Oscar-winning film that gives critical insight into the lives and psychology of Wall Street professionals and the finance world in general by focusing on the lives of Jared (Ryan Gosling), a banker, and Mark Baum (Steve Carell), who helms a small trading firm. They look into why the hedge fund owner Michael Burry (Christian Bale) is betting against the housing market and how they (and other investors) can take advantage of an impending recession. These characters are based on real people in the Wall Street landscape.

This film skillfully breaks down a complicated financial incident while also entertaining and delivering key business lessons. It intercuts the narrative with cameos of real-life individuals from the investing world who explain complex financial concepts, such as subprime mortgage loans and other long, intimidating terms.

The Circle (2017)

Adapted from Dave Eggers's 2013 eponymous book, this business movie on Netflix is about Mae (Emma Watson), an intern at The Circle, a tech company. When Mae realises how deeply The Circle’s wide usage of cameras and other surveillance tech can penetrate people’s lives and rescue them from dangerous situations, she advocates for its acceptance by the general public.

At the same time, her family and friends find her thoughts on this invasive tech alarming. The company's CEO, Bailey (Tom Hanks), believes hidden cameras are essential to transparency in society.

For a businessperson in 2024, the philosophy around privacy is important to consider, and the other extreme of a tech company taking over citizen autonomy is highly applicable in the current climate of businesses taking over digital citizens’ attention spans.

Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened (2019)

Though a documentary about a musical festival gone wrong, it strikes a balance between communicating authoritative information and lessons learned with the drama with the entertainment one would expect from a film with such a chaotic premise.

As a business movie on Netflix that breaks down exactly how not to plan a promotional event and an inner look into what goes into building hype around influencer-led festivals that promise a scintillating “island vibe”, this movie is a treat for anyone interested in the ‘why’ of things when they don’t work out, and the power of scams, which is an engaging topic in other films too.

With visuals from significant moments of the festival's timeline, from planning to execution, especially scenes that drive home precisely how unfavourable the ground reality was, the movie seamlessly interlaces interviews from ticket-buyers, investors, and influencers with footage from the festival to create an intriguing narrative.