During Christmas of 2013, if you were to walk into a movie theater you would be greeted with many mainstays of studio offerings. You had franchise tentpoles, in the form of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. You could see a studio comedy, with Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues. You could see awards-friendly work, by choosing to watch American Hustle. You could also take a chance on Martin Scorsese’s 23rd feature film, The Wolf of Wall Street. A film that is part epic biopic, part black comedy and entirely raunchy, bombastic, and adult in every sense of the word. 

This is obscene.

The Wolf of Wall Street is packed full of excess. The narrative of a man’s rise and fall explores all the wild stories of this world of moral decay and garish wealth. The players in this world seem to have little self-awareness or even a moral compass, and this allows us to go on a journey of debauchery. The sales floor of the firm is captured in such a unique lens, with iconic shots of men in blue button downs screaming, fist pumping, and cursing in an orgy of testosterone. Ever since The Wolf of Wall Street, it’s hard to watch movies with hectic crowd scenes (see 2022’s Babylon) and not be reminded of these salesfloor scenes.

The Wolf of Wall Street did incredibly well financially for an 3 hour R-rated film, making $406.9 million on a $100 million budget. This is an approximate profit of $200 million dollars– incredible returns for this kind of film. It’s no wonder that to this day, studios will market explicit, auteur-driven films as a new The Wolf of Wall Street– see Paramount’s approach with 2022’s Babylon. The Wolf of Wall Street’s combinations of almost-a-NC-17 rating and a comedic approach to the material could have been a barrier to Oscars recognition, but the talent and box office made this film impossible to ignore. The Wolf of Wall Street was nominated for five Oscars, including best adapted screenplay, supporting actor, lead actor, director, and best picture. The Wolf of Wall Street had strong competition in all categories, and one could make the argument Scorese should have gotten his second Academy Award for the 2013 film. Overall, there are arguments to be made for other winners. That is, other than Lead Actor. 

Leonardo DiCaprio puts on arguably his greatest performance to date in this film. It’s a kind of perverse, older version of his role in Catch Me if You Can from ten years before. As Jordan Belfort, he is brazen and unbridled in his showmanship and pursuit of wealth. While this film is a biopic, it rises above the genre trappings much in the same way that 2023’s Oppenheimer does. While this is a rise-and-fall narrative typical of biopics, DiCaprio’s Jordan Belfort does not start with any sort of innocence. Rather, he seems a little hesitant when he first comes to Wall Street but is more than willing to let this world sweep him away with its rituals intended to keep these men hungry. The dark hair and a deep tan separate Leonardo from his younger self’s iconic blond locks. The makeup artists allow small changes over the course of the film.  At the halfway mark you start to notice Jordan looks a little more haggard, as his addiction and excess catch up to him. The fact that Leonardo DiCaprio has an Oscar for The Revenant rather than this film is representative of what the awards space values in performance. DiCaprio goes to places that he has never gone to before in this film, with his perverse sales talks becoming almost religious in tone. And yet, an awards campaign that revolved around survival tactics resulted in an Oscar, like we’re on the Discovery Channel.  

One of the best contributions of The Wolf of Wall Street is the introduction of Margot Robbie to mainstream audiences. She is introduced to us as the most gorgeous woman, with men unable to take their eyes off her. As Naomi, she follows in the tradition of Lorriane Branco in Goodfellas, challenging Jordan with a glassful of water and memorable retorts. Robbie holds her own against DiCaprio, and it was clear after this film that she had become a new sex symbol. Unfortunately, in Hollywood, sex symbols do not have a long shelf life, no matter how talented these actors may be. Margot Robbie coming to Hollywood with this project, and then following a producer’s route was ingenious, and allowed her control over her career. 

The Wolf of Wall Street represents the last time Scorsese explored excessive, kinetic stories in this manner. Since The Wolf of Wall Street, Scorsese has made Silence (2016), The Irishman (2019), and Killers of the Flower Moon (2023). Scorsese’s later work feels like the work of an older man, in a way that makes The Wolf of Wall Street feel more in the vein of Scorsese’s earlier work. There is an idea of a loose trilogy of Scorsese’s films, namely, Goodfellas, The Wolf of Wall Street, and Killers of the Flower Moon. In all these films, a man is corrupted in pursuit of wealth and power. In Goodfellas a man kills and then betrays those who care for him. In The Wolf of Wall Street, a man defrauds and collects excessive wealth, unable to stop even when given an out. Killers of the Flower Moon is a sort of prologue to the explorations of American capitalism that populate Scorsese’s earlier work. American society is built on the genocide of native people. White men take advantage of a society that is uncaring of native lives in pursuit of money and power. In all these films, greed corrupts. 

Three years after The Wolf of Wall Street, Donald Trump was elected president. Big suits, excessive displays of wealth, male bravado, men trying to sell you something on TV– all of these things are the Trump brand and are depicted in this film. When Jordan breaks up with his first wife, they fight in front of Trump Tower in downtown New York City, the gold plating looming over the couple. Jordan leaves his first wife Teresa for a blond, more suited for the world he covets. And yet, when Teresa asks if Jordan loves Naomi, he never actually says he loves her. He sees his wife as a replaceable part of his life, like an apartment or watch. A country that gave The Wolf of Wall Street a box office of $406.9 million elected Donald Trump soon after. It’s a kind of collective cognitive dissonance, or maybe those voters just didn’t see the film. There is a certain irony to it.