Must Watch Movies for B-Schools Students

By SiliconIndia   |   Tuesday, 23 August, 2011
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Bangalore: What better way to learn and understand the principles involved, buff up management skills, dreams, desires, sacrifices and ethics than to watch movies. Various B-Schools over the world now use movies as case studies to make sure students understand and learn concepts. Movies picture the best and worst of human nature giving us an insight on how a human mind works and also about self-indulgence, entrepreneurship, and human emotions.

Here are a few movies an MBA should not miss for the lessons they provide.

Wall Street: This thriller starring Michael Douglas and Charlie Sheen shows the lengths people would go to make a penny or two, and by a penny, I mean a ‘Million’. The movie is all about "Money is everything" and "Greed is good". Young stock broker, Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) becomes enamored with millionaire mogul Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) and would do anything to make it big.

It is an MBA must as it is about how most MBAs dream of being a "Bigwig". The film provides a look of what power and greed can do to a human soul. Wall treet is a must see before you get your MBA. The second Wall Street is pretty good too.

The Godfather: An American epic crime film by Francis Ford Coppola featuring Marlon Brando, Al Pacino, James Caan, Robert Duvall, Sterling Hayden, John Marley, Richard Conte and Diane Keaton is a fictional story spanning the years between 1945 and 1955, and records the experiences of the Italian-American Corleone crime family. The movie also has two sequels, The Godfather Part II in 1974 and The Godfather Part III in 1990.

This movie will teach a valuable lesson: never mix business with feelings. It teaches you that no business is personal. A few other imperative lessons provided by the film are that doing everything and anything without losing sight of what is important to protect your family is good. Lying, even for the right reasons is wrong. Divulging yourself is the biggest sin, if loyalty only is skin deep, it isn’t loyalty at all. Family is the most important thing (The Corleone Family did get this point right). Communication is required. A man with a vision can do anything.

Office Space: A farce about a guy fed of putting up with everyday drone of the 9-to-5 routine starring Ron Livingston and Jennifer Aniston is hysterically funny and will relate to anyone who has ever held an office job. The finest business is ‘funny business’ and there is no funnier business than Office Space.

It is a MBA must if you have ever gone to work and wanted to scream at the top of your lungs about how messy and edgy the place really is but didn’t. The side-splitting (or scariest) part of the movie is just how real it in fact is. It offers an inside look at office politics and bad management.

Tucker: The Man and His Dream: A true story of Preston Tucker, founder, designer and creator of the Tucker Automobile, who created a car and used his passion to briefly live the American Dream and stars Jeff Bridges as Tucker.

An MBA necessity as it is about American Dreams, the Land of Opportunity and the Spirit of Entrepreneurship that many MBAs have. It is a movie that makes you feel good and that will inspire you to follow your dreams and sacrifice in need to make them a reality. The most important lesson the movie provides is that Entrepreneurship cab be the most rewarding concentration of the many of the MBA specialties.

Smartest Guys in the Room: The only documentary on the list is an in-detail look at the mega fraud and downfall of ENRON, the largest collapse in the history of business. The movie shows how it happened and the warped things ENRON and its management were doing to obscure it. The documentary shows that big business can be evil.

It gives real life lessons in business ethics making you think and be cautious of things that seem too good to be true. The movie will remain with you and make you think about the difference in doing things right and doing the right things.
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