The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

There are scenes in cinema you never forget. For me, the chest-beating speech in The Wolf of Wall Street is one of them. Martin Scorsese constructs it with total precision and it lands exactly as intended. Pure craft.

I didn't expect The Wolf of Wall Street to affect me so deeply. The way Martin Scorsese handles complicity of the viewer is unlike anything I'd seen before. I came out of it looking at the world differently.

I first watched The Wolf of Wall Street as a teenager and thought it was fine. Rewatched at 30 and it hit completely differently. The the seduction of excess undercurrent makes total sense now in a way it didn't before.

The Wolf of Wall Street deals with greed without limits in a way that's genuinely uncomfortable at times. But that discomfort is the point. Martin Scorsese never lets you look away, and the film is better for it.

The Wolf of Wall Street commits to a conclusion that not everyone will appreciate. I found it perfectly right — it refuses easy comfort. If you want tidy resolution you may be frustrated. If you want truth, it delivers.

I didn't expect The Wolf of Wall Street to affect me so deeply. The way Martin Scorsese handles the seduction of excess is unlike anything I'd seen before. I came out of it looking at the world differently.

Some elements of The Wolf of Wall Street show their age, but the core of it — greed without limits, Scorsese's non-judgmental lens — hasn't diminished at all. Films this good age better than almost anything else.

Everyone focuses on the lead in The Wolf of Wall Street but the supporting cast is extraordinary. Every scene partner brings something real. It makes the world feel fully inhabited rather than staged.

We watched The Wolf of Wall Street together and spent an hour talking about complicity of the viewer afterward. That kind of conversation doesn't happen often. The film gives you something real to think about together.

The music in The Wolf of Wall Street is so deeply married to the images that you almost can't separate them. It stays in your head days later and when you hear it again the emotions return immediately.