Film

Limit Up

Name: Limit Up
Genre: Comedy, Fantasy
Released: 1989
Cast: Nancy Allen, Dean Stockwell, Brad Hall, Danitra Vance, Ray Charles

Fantasy

A Chicago commodities trader makes a Faustian bargain with a seductive demon to predict market movements and climb the corporate ladder. *Limit Up* is a bright, breezily weird comedy that treats the devil as just another ruthless competitor in the trading pit. It's for people who enjoy their supernatural comedy grounded, where the real corruption is already baked into the system.

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you enjoy slick, cheeky comedies about ambition where a devil's bargain gets treated like a day at the trading pits, and you don't mind a 1980s workplace farce with a fantasy wrinkle.

Skip it if the trading-floor jargon and a slight, broadly played premise may leave you wanting sharper jokes than it reliably delivers.

What it asks of you: Brisk at eighty-eight minutes with little slack, it wants light attention for the market chatter and a willingness to go along with its silliest beats.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Trading Places1983

The gold standard for financial-world comedies with a twist. Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd navigate schemes and reversals with charm and intelligence. Sharp, funny, and surprisingly thoughtful about class and manipulation.

But The tone can feel uneven—it swings from comedy to genuine stakes and back again. Some 80s references have calcified a bit.

Working Girl1988

Nancy Allen's spiritual successor: an ambitious woman navigating corporate machismo and office politics. Witty, stylish, and genuinely rooting for its protagonist. It understands the particular flavor of ambition in the 80s financial world.

But The romance subplot feels obligatory. It's a product of its era in ways that don't always hold up.

Ghostbusters II1989

Released the same year, it shares that tone of supernatural threat meeting mundane modern life with humor. The possession-and-corruption angle echoes *Limit Up*'s bargain, but played for laughs with genuine stakes underneath.

But Uneven and derivative compared to the original. Some comedy bits don't land, and it leans heavily on sequel complacency.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Limit Up

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Faust1994

Both use the soul-for-success bargain as their spine, but *Faust* asks what success costs, while *Limit Up* asks whether the cost is even real—a mirror showing the optimism versus the weight of the same premise.

Jan Svěrák's adaptation plays the bargain-with-the-devil story against Czechoslovak post-Cold War reality—austere, philosophical, and unexpectedly tender. It takes the Faustian premise seriously without a wink.

But It's in Czech, slow-burn, and offers no comedy whatsoever. The tone is existential despair, not lighter supernatural mischief.

Splash1984

Tom Hanks and Daryl Hannah navigate impossible romance against magical interference. It's lighter than *Limit Up* but shares that same tone: fantasy logic treated as a problem to solve, not an excuse to stop thinking.

But The fairy-tale ending sidesteps real complications. It's sweet in a way that some will find saccharine.

Beetlejuice1988

Michael Keaton's demon-for-hire offers a similarly irreverent take on the supernatural. Funny, visually inventive, and willing to let supernatural rules clash with human self-interest without turning preachy.

But The visual effects show their age. It's also louder and more chaotic than some viewers will tolerate.

The Witches of Eastwick1987

Jack Nicholson arrives as a devilish seducer promising women their fantasies. It's about desire, corruption, and what we're willing to surrender for power. Smarter than it initially appears.

But Tonal shifts from comedy to something darker and more misogynistic underneath. Nicholson's performance can overshadow the women's agency.

Gremlins1984

A mischievous supernatural force disrupts American small-town life with humor and creeping dread. It understands that chaos is funny until it isn't, and it rides that line well.

But The tonal whiplash is intentional but can feel scattered. The plot is honestly pretty thin.

Crocodile Dundee1986

Paul Hogan's fish-out-of-water comedy also deals with culture clash and self-invention. It's lighter and more earnest, but shares that 80s tone of making the impossible feel manageable.

But It hasn't aged well in terms of how it treats its setting. Also genuinely simple—there's not much depth here.

Coming to America1988

Eddie Murphy as a prince navigating New York with supernatural help feels thematically nearby: ambition, reinvention, and a world that won't accommodate you unless you hustle. Funny and surprisingly warm.

But Long, and some humor relies on characters doing broad accents. It can feel scattered between its plot threads.

The War of the Roses1989

Both films are darkly comic tales about people receiving exactly what they wished for—and discovering it's a nightmare. *Roses* trades the supernatural for the intimate, swapping Nike's grin for a marriage that corrodes.

Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner's toxic marriage unfolds as a cautionary tale narrated by a divorce lawyer. It's dark, funny, and genuinely uncomfortable in ways that make you squirm. A 1989 film that understood that ambition and romance are dangerous.

But The violence escalates into genuine nastiness. It's cynical about relationships in a way that some will find bleak rather than funny.

Nightbreed1990

Both films feature demons and otherworldly figures who are more sympathetic than the human systems around them. *Limit Up* plays it as comedy; *Nightbreed* plays it as tragedy. Same observation, opposite register.

Clive Barker directs a horror-comedy-fantasy where the supposed monsters are sympathetic and the human world is the real threat. Surreal, visually stunning, and operating on pure genre-bending energy. Criminally underseen.

But The plot is genuinely messy—studio cuts mangled it. The effects and logic feel deliberately antinaturable in ways some will find pretentious.