10 Movies That Are Popular For All The Wrong Reasons
3. Wall Street
Literally decades before Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street galvanised an entire generation of youngsters to see its abusive criminal protagonist as a twisted figure of adoration, Oliver Stone's Wall Street did it with ruthless broker Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas).
Though the film unambiguously portrays Gekko as a criminal, he's also a highly charismatic figure whose mantra of "greed... is good" took on a life of its own in wider culture.
Despite the movie's clear intent to show the destructive impact of unrestrained greed, Douglas' Oscar-winning portrayal nevertheless served as an unintentional recruiting ad for the stockbroker industry, with Gekko still inspiring predominantly male youngsters entering the workforce.
It seems that many felt that Wall Street granted them permission to indulge their most selfish instincts and listen purely to their id, in turn ignoring that Gekko's greed leads to his downfall at film's end.