Moments where Fools and their New Money are Soon Parted in Animated and Live-Action Films.
Animated Films
- The plot of Shark Tale revolves around Oscar being found responsible for the death of Lenny's brother Frankie, which makes him a famous celebrity known as the Sharkslayer. In the end after he reveals it was just an anchor that killed Frankie out of nowhere and he didn't do anything, he relinquishes all his wealth and fades to obscurity.
Live-Action Films
- Rocky II: Having no experience handling large amounts of money, Rocky soon loses the money he won from the first movie's fight from buying a house and a new car amongst other things. His lack of other marketable skills results in him and his wife going into the red soon.
- This goes to a new level in Rocky V. Paulie, who was acting as Rocky's agent, signed power of attorney over to Rocky's accountant prior to his bout with Ivan Drago in the previous film. He proceeded to embezzle Rocky's money, and ended up blowing it all in shady real estate dealings. Rocky ended up bankrupt, forcing him to liquidate his estate, move back into urban Philadelphia, and take a job at Mickey's old gym to make ends meet (and Adrian returning to her pet store).
- The Jerk: Navin Johnson invents a device to hold people's glasses in place and makes millions. He spends like an idiot, then loses everything when the customers sue him because the device made them go cross-eyed. Averted at the end when he moves back home and finds that his family has become wealthy by investing the money he sent them.
- Dumb and Dumber: Lloyd has absolutely no financial savvy. Give him a briefcase full of money, and he has even less. Between him and Harry, they waste several million dollars' worth of ransom money in three days.
- Blank Check: A 12-year-old boy gets and blows a million dollars, in one week, in such crazy kiddie stuff like going on a shopping binge at Toys 'R' Us (and renting a limo to go there) and an extreme birthday party. Lampshaded by the Big Bad (who had been spending the whole film trying to get the money back) being utterly shocked that Preston could blow through it so quickly.
- Subverted in Brewster's Millions (1985). Everyone thinks this is happening to Brewster, but he's deliberately trying to waste a fortune as part of a condition of his inheritance. It's implied that the condition is there to teach him how quickly a fortune can be lost. Or how cheap money, and the "happiness" it buys, can be if you splurge stupidly and intentionally.
- Forrest Gump: Zigzagged. Forrest makes a nice amount of money endorsing a ping-pong paddle, which, in order to keep a promise to his dead friend Bubba, he spends on a shrimping boat that is barely seaworthy and can't possibly compete with the other commercial shrimping boats. It was only due to pure luck that his boat ended up being the only one to survive a hurricane, making him very rich. He generously donates his money to charitable causes and Bubba's family, but he stays rich, mainly because he lets Lt. Dan manage his money.
- In the movie It Could Happen to You, Charlie's wife Muriel divorces him after he wins four million dollars in the lottery and turns out to have promised half the winnings to a waitress, Yvonne, in lieu of a tip. The divorce lawyers claim the winnings to be the wife's since "he bought the ticket for her," even though the numbers weren't exactly the ones she picked. After getting ahold of both shares, Muriel - dreaming of even more money - marries another "millionaire" who turns out to be a con man who steals the money; she's forced to live with her mother in a small apartment and go back to work at her old job in a nail salon. Charlie and Yvonne end up much better off.
- Matahi and his lover Reri flee their home island of Bora Bora (it's a long story) in Tabu. They find their way to an island run by French colonialists, and Matahi gets a job as a pearl diver, which he's very good at. Unfortunately, he has no concept of how to handle money, so he spends all the money he made on the pearl and a hell of a lot more, leaving him buried in debt.
- The Pagan: Sort of—it isn't new money, as Henry inherited the plantation, even if he's never bothered to work it. But Henry is a Pacific Islander with little knowledge of Western commerce. His attempt to become a businessman and start making money on his plantation rapidly results in his plantation being foreclosed on, as he has no clue that the loans he's been taking out have to be repaid.
- The Sting: The story starts with con artist Hooker and his partner Luthor lifting a fortune off of a guy who was running money for a big crime boss's operation. Unfortunately, Hooker has absolutely no sense when it comes to money and he manages to blow his entire cut in less than a day on a rigged roulette game. Even more unfortunately, his Conspicuous Consumption clues in the crime boss as to who stole from him, resulting in Luthor (who had planned to use his share of the money to get out of grifting and buy into a relative's mostly legal shipping business) getting murdered in retaliation.
- In Things Change (1988), Don Ameche plays a shoeshine man who is hired to take a murder rap for a mob boss. With several days until he is to turn himself in, his handler (Joe Montegna) takes him to Tahoe for a last (and probably first) spree. Unfortunately, Ameche is taken for a real mob bigshot and the casino makes sure he wins at a rigged roulette table but it goes too far, giving him a fortune which the casino wants back. When a terrified Montegna convinces him to return the money (which Ameche thinks he won fairly) because it wouldn't be polite to keep their host's money, he bets it all the no-limit Big Wheel. If he wins, he bankrupts the casino (probably leading to their deaths). He misses by one number and, when the wheel girl says she's sorry, Ameche shrugs and says "Things change".
