10. Wall Street Reflects The "Black Monday" Crash From Two Months Earlier
The Movie: Oliver Stone's 1987 incendiary drama chronicles a young stockbroker, Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen), as he's taken under the ring of a legendary Wall Street shark, Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas), a corporate raider who illegally manipulates the market for his own gain. The Release: Wall Street was released on December 11, 1987, just 7 weeks after the infamous Black Monday worldwide stock market crash, and it frankly couldn't have been much better-timed. As the world was still reeling from the crash, a movie about Wall Street corruption was just what people wanted, even if there's not much evidence that the crash itself was caused by illegal trading. Ironically, if the movie attempted to draw attention to the dangers of the stock market, it inadvertently made Gecko into an iconic, beloved figure in the stockbroker industry, and the fact that Douglas won the Best Actor Oscar for his work probably didn't hurt.