Film

Generation Wealth

Name: Generation Wealth
Genre: Documentary
Released: 2018
Cast: Lauren Greenfield, Florian Homm, Bret Easton Ellis, Kim Kardashian, Kylie Jenner

Lauren Greenfield spent twenty-five years photographing the world's chase after money — plastic surgery, private jets, a six-year-old beauty queen — and turns the whole archive into one sprawling, self-implicating essay film. Part memoir, part indictment, it jumps from Kardashian shoots to a ruined Wall Street financier to Greenfield's own family. Dense, occasionally exhausting, always sharp; for anyone wanting a reckoning with American excess rather than a takedown of easy targets.

TMDb rating

6.4

If you liked this

The Wolf of Wall Street2013

Scorsese turns a financial-crime memoir into three hours of pure, exhausting excess — the same appetite Greenfield diagnoses, except here it's played for adrenaline instead of autopsy.

But It seduces as much as it condemns; some viewers find the hedonism more indulged than interrogated.

The Queen of Versailles2012

Greenfield's earlier documentary, and the perfect companion — one family building America's largest house just as the 2008 crash pulls the floor out from under them.

But Slower and narrower than Generation Wealth; if you want the big global picture, this one stays close to a single driveway.

Fyre2019

Same disease, younger patients — influencers and investors selling a luxury fantasy that existed only in the photographs, told at the pace of a heist gone wrong.

But It's glossier and funnier than Greenfield's film, more true-crime entertainment than cultural reckoning.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

American Psycho2000

Bret Easton Ellis, interviewed in Generation Wealth, wrote the novel this adapts — same diagnosis of image over substance, delivered here as genre fiction instead of testimony.

Christian Bale as a Wall Street golden boy whose entire identity is business cards, tailoring, and status — the fictional, blood-soaked flip side of everything Greenfield's subjects say sincerely.

But It's a satire that plays as horror-comedy; the violence and camp will be too much if you wanted a straight drama.

Inside Job2010

The financial-crisis documentary that explains, calmly and furiously, exactly how the money Greenfield's subjects chase actually gets made and lost.

But It's dry where Generation Wealth is visceral — more spreadsheets and interviews, fewer plastic surgeons and yachts.

The Bling Ring2013

Sofia Coppola's woozy true-crime drama about teenagers robbing celebrities' houses because proximity to fame felt like entitlement to it.

But Deliberately blank and affectless; some find its refusal to moralize frustrating rather than pointed.

Abacus: Small Enough to Jail2017no page yet

A small immigrant-owned bank gets prosecuted while the giants who caused the crash walk free — a sharp, human counterpoint to the impunity Greenfield keeps circling.

But It's a courtroom procedural at heart, more legal drama than glossy cultural portrait.

Born Rich2003no page yet

Heir Jamie Johnson turns his camera on his own trust-fund friends, years before Greenfield did the same to a wider, hungrier crowd.

But Its subjects are younger and its scope narrower — inherited money only, no self-made strivers or fraudsters.

Broke2012no page yet

A blunt, fast portrait of professional athletes who make millions and lose it just as fast — wealth's arrival and collapse compressed into one boom-bust story.

But Sports-specific and made for TV pacing; it doesn't attempt Greenfield's wider social theory.

The Corporation2003

An older, angrier essay-documentary arguing that the profit motive itself is the disease — useful backbone if you want the economics under Greenfield's glamour.

But Talky and lecture-heavy by today's standards; it argues its case rather than showing you a life falling apart.

Keeping Up with the Kardashians2007no page yet

Kim and Kylie appear as themselves in both — one film treats them as evidence, the other as heroines of their own story.

The unfiltered, sincere version of the exact spectacle Greenfield analyzes from a critical distance — wealth, image, and fame performed with total, cheerful commitment.

But It offers no critique whatsoever; if you wanted Greenfield's skepticism, you're on your own here.

Sunset Boulevard1950

Same argument decades earlier — chasing image past its expiration date curdles into self-delusion, then tragedy, whether the medium is 1950s Hollywood or 2010s Instagram.

Billy Wilder's acid black-and-white classic about a faded star clinging to old glamour proves this rot in the American image is nothing new — just older, and in monochrome.

But It's seventy-plus years old and stagier than a documentary; some will find its melodrama a harder sell than Greenfield's real subjects.