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* DracoInLeatherPants: Many consider Gordon Gekko's "[[http://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechwallstreet.html Greed Is Good]]" speech to be brilliant.
** Incidentally, this has [[MisaimedFandom seriously disturbed]] [[ArtistDisillusionment one of the scriptwriters]], Stanley Weiser.
* MagnificentBastard: Gordon Gekko, who else?
* MisaimedFandom: Michael Douglas said that every time a broker said he went to Wall Street after seeing him as Gordon Gekko, he gets a little sad.
** And in the DVD, Douglas and Oliver Stone say the 2008 financial crisis was caused by those Gordon Gekko wannabes, while saying people should have gone for Bud Fox instead.
** The movie is oft-cited as an inspiration to people who went on to earn [=MBAs=], despite the film's explicitly anti-greed message. The villain of the film is sometimes not even recognized as such by his fans--as in, they don't realize he's ''supposed'' to be the bad guy. Possibly caused by StrawmanHasAPoint.
* MoralEventHorizon: It's pretty obvious early on that Gekko is a shady character, but when he [[spoiler:[[EvilMentor lies right to Bud Fox's face]] about what the deal with Bluestar involves, it makes clear just how much of a scumbag Gekko is.]]
* OneSceneWonder: Terrence Stamp as the British financial mogul. Although he technically appears in two scenes.
** The sequel has Charlee Sheen's cameo as Bud Fox. Also, Eli Wallach as "Julie", the [[strike:nonagenarian]] centennial banker.
* RetroactiveRecognition: [[{{Scrubs}} Dr. Cox]] works with Bud Fox.
** And fans of ''{{Warehouse 13}}'' might be surprised to see Artie as a corporate lawyer.
* StopHavingFunGuys: Transport the venue from video games to high finance and you have a ''perfect'' analysis of Gordon Gekko.
** Elaborated on in the sequel, in a way. In a speech, Gekko clarifies the point made in his famous earlier speech. It amounts to a gentle denunciation of [[StupidEvil stupid greed.]] The villain of the film could've been any one of Gekko's many young acolytes who didn't understand that crucial distinction. [[FridgeBrilliance This may be why]], in his famous first speech, he says "Greed, ''for lack of a better word,'' is good."
* StrawmanHasAPoint: Debatably. Gordon's "Greed is Good" speech arguably counts as having a point, but he doesn't really fit the strawman aspect, as the film's creators denied that they intended an AuthorTract against capitalism. Kind of complicating things, is that as noted above, Gordon's actions weren't actually criminal at the time the film was set (although they were by the time it was made), although they could still be considered unethical. All in all, Gekko was definitely not intended to be a positive character, but it does not make his business ideas and practices reprehensible per se.
** Perhaps the biggest point people agree with Gordon on was his casually mentioning how all of the C.E.Os who were fighting his takeover had very little to lose, as they had minimal investment in the company itself - as in, if the company sank, they'd have an escape-route, while the average worker (or shareholder) wouldn't. On top of this, he points out that the company in question (Teldar Paper) has ''thirty-three'' Vice-Presidents, each one drawing a $200,000/yr salary in a time when the company had posted a $110,000,000 loss the year before, and even though he's been researching the company for a year, he still doesn't know what all of them do.


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