10 Best Movies Where The Protagonist Learns Nothing

6. The Wolf Of Wall Street

Though Martin Scorsese's Oscar-nominated epic drama was largely praised by critics, it did receive some criticism for Scorsese's "failure" to outwardly demonise the actions of corrupt stockbroker Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his comrades, presenting a more flippant and darkly comical depiction of unfettered, wanton excess.

This is of course a common facet in Scorsese's work, as best evidenced by the fairly amoral depictions of crime in both Goodfellas and Casino, which depict charming characters committing heinous acts and leaves it to the audience to unpack their feelings about it all.

The main sticking point in The Wolf of Wall Street, unlike Scorsese's other films, is that Belfort "gets away with it" and his vile behaviour is given only a most mild of punishments.

This in turn has caused the film to become an unintentional source of inspiration to many enterprising young businessmen, just as Oliver Stone's Wall Street did 30 years ago (with 80s dudebros accepting its "greed is good" mantra without a sliver of irony).

A more typical Hollywood movie would've had Belfort learn the error of his ways and show some sort of regret for his deceptive, fraudulent actions, but true to the real Jordan Belfort, Scorsese refuses to deign to sentiment, keeping the man basically the same a**hole he was when the film began.