And the winner is…

Think of a driver’s job description. Left, right, straight ahead. Indeed, that is exactly what Nikolai (played by Viggo Mortenson) says when he’s pressed for information by Anna (played by Naomi Watts) in the 2007 film Eastern Promises. I first heard the Eastern Promises dialogue as part of a radio interview. Set in London’s Russian mafia scene, Eastern Promises reminded me that there’s a lot of business English in films, even if they aren’t set on Wall Street.

The quintessential business film Wall Street, with 1988 Academy Award winner Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko, has been re-released as a 20th anniversary special edition. The greed of the 80s that debatably played itself out in the financial crisis of today makes for a great film. Compared to Gekko’s huge mobile phone, today's slim laptops, YouTube and the IMDb website make it much easier to show and discuss film clips with our students.

The Academy Awards was last week. One film that was nominiated, Revolutionary Road, takes you about as far from the mafia world as you can get, into the world of the 1950s businessman. We see Frank Wheeler (Leonardo di Caprio) on his daily commute in a sea of fedora-topped men, disappearing into gray office buildings with Dictaphones, typewriters and water coolers. It seems, for a while, that he basically does nothing all day. At home in Connecticut, Frank’s wife April (played by Kate Winslet, who won Best Actress this year for her role in The Reader) is slowly suffocating in the stifling air of the suburbs. She carefully plans their escape to Paris because: “People are alive there, not like here.” Of course, the story doesn’t end there. Frank experiences a breakthrough at work and a breakdown at home.

If you and your students are movie buffs, or just looking for a good diversion to conventional business English coursework, Revolutionary Road (novel by Richard Yates) might be right up your alley. What are your favorite movies for business English? Post a comment and let us know.

If you're looking for fun exercises on the topic of movies, here are two suggestions:

• Movies and quotes
• Actors and movies