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.

Every actor brings something to The Wolf of Wall Street, but the lead performance is genuinely extraordinary. The subtlety involved, the way the character changes without announcing it — it's a masterclass.

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 complicity of the viewer undercurrent makes total sense now in a way it didn't before.

I liked The Wolf of Wall Street when I first saw it, but the second viewing is where it clicked. Once you notice how Martin Scorsese plants every detail early on, the whole film transforms. Layers everywhere.

The Wolf of Wall Street ended and I sat with it for weeks. The the seduction of excess theme kept circling back. I'd be doing something mundane and the Lemmon-Quaalude car scene would pop into my head. That kind of resonance is rare.