8. Glengarry Glenn Ross (1992)
Written and based on David Mamets award winning play, Glengarry Glenn Ross is about real estate salesmen trying to survive in a cutthroat business whose mantra for the working man is always be closing. The movie starts out slow, intentionally, only to light a fire under you in form of Blake, (Alec Baldwin), the fixer for the sales teams upper management, Mitch & Murray. Blakes diatribe encompasses in five minutes the spirit of everything wrong with corporate American culture. Blake informs the salesmen that unless they can sell enough to be among the top two sellers within one week, theyre fired. Desperate times call for desperate measures, as Levene (Lemmon), a once great salesman in the middle of a dry-spell, is reduced to begging and bribing the office manager, Williamson (Spacey), to give him the Glengarry leads. All this is compounded by Levenes hospitalized daughter. Ricky Roma (Al Pacino) the salesman whos been on a hot streak, sits in a smoke filled bar, and waxes poetic about life to a potential buyer, in the service of closing a sale. Meanwhile Moss (Ed Harris) and Aaronow (Alan Arkin) discuss possibly breaking into their own office and stealing the leads. Why It's A Gem: The cast is decorated with a list of accomplished actors, Pacino, Harris, Lemmon, Spacey, and Baldwins unforgettable performance. Dialogue that doesnt just sit there and explain the plot, but grabs you by the face, sits you down and asks, Do I have your attention?