Children’s Literature

Subscribe via Email

Best Office Movies

Some of the top movies to enjoy “cult classic” status are the office movies. You know the type — disgruntled worker, loathsome bosses, annoying coworkers, too many days where nothing seems to go right. Eventually, something’s got to give, right? Even those of us who profess to like our jobs will eventually encounter a day that leaves us reeling and wishing we could unleash our fury upon the world. The sympathetic characters in these entertainment movies are wimps gone wild. Their final stand-off at the workplace often represents everything we wish we could be. In short, these unlikely heroes make us laugh and inspire us, which is why office flicks are our favorite.

Office Space is considered the king of office movies. This 1999 hit film satirizes life at a software company in the nineties. The story’s protagonist, Peter Gibbons, decides to stop going to work just as the company is downsizing, which makes him even more intriguing and desirable to his bosses. When his friends get fired, they decide to create a computer virus that will siphon off money into their bank accounts. Other characters include Milton — the quiet eccentric who is perpetually disgruntled and whose desk is always getting moved; Lumbergh — the ever-irritating boss whose expressions and mannerisms drive workers up the wall; and a string of characters who talk about having “a case of the Mondays” and lust after their coworkers. Despite its sluggish box office sales, Office Space went on to become one of the most-purchased movies online, with more than 2.6 million DVDs sold for home theater viewing.

Clerks, which is a 1994 comedy, is another one of the classic office movies. While it’s technically set in a convenience/video store, everyone who works in some sort of routine occupation can relate to the annoying customers and lack of fulfillment. The story follows the plight of Dante Hicks, who is called into work on his day off to deal with a swamp of irritating customers. With characters like comedic slacker Randall and stoners Jay and Silent Bob, the Clerks motion picture went on to become an animated TV series, comic book and has several sequels. Director Kevin Smith originally shot this low-budget film for just over $27,000 and ended up making $3 million once the film caught on with fans.

Office movies often have epic moments of open defiance, which appeals to us most. It’s hard not to love when Lester Burnham (American Beauty) negotiates a severance package with his boss, saying, “Then I guess I’ll have to throw in a sexual harassment charge….” As Burnham says, “I’m just an ordinary guy who has nothing left to lose.” Audiences also love Edward Norton’s character in Fight Club when he decides he doesn’t care about his job anymore and goes to work faxing off personal memos for Project Mayhem. When his boss discovers these files, the narrator warns him, “Well, I gotta tell you: I’d be very, very careful who you talk to about that, because the person who wrote that… is dangerous. And this button-down, Oxford-cloth psycho might just snap, and then stalk from office to office with an Armalite AR-10 carbine gas-powered semi-automatic weapon, pumping round after round into colleagues and co-workers. This might be someone you’ve known for years. Someone very, very close to you.” So this year when you’re looking to buy movies that center around office rebellion, consider these classics.

Sarah Lomas is a foremost expert in the yeast infection cures field. Her work has been extensively published in various online publications in the areas of natural cure for yeast infection. For more information on the treatment for yeast infections, visit remedyforyeastinfection.com.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!