Jesse Armstrong’s Mountainhead (2025) marks a sharp, acerbic entry into the growing canon of tech-world satires. Known best for his masterwork Succession, Armstrong crafts a darkly comedic chamber piece that follows four tech billionaires on a retreat gone sideways. With performances from Steve Carell as the chillingly detached mentor Garrett, Corey Michael Smith as the volatile tech mogul Ven, Jason Schwartzman as the insecure host Souper, and Ramy Youssef as the socially tone-deaf AI genius Jeff, Mountainhead is a clever, intimate dissection of power, ego, and the absurdities of modern capitalism. The film, shot with the cold precision reminiscent of early David Mamet, blends dry humor, existential dread, and social satire, placing it in conversation with a host of contemporary films critiquing the elite.
If you found Mountainhead riveting, sardonic, and scarily familiar, here are 10 movies like Mountainhead that echo its thematic cynicism, character-driven tension, and corporate absurdity.
1. The Menu (2022)
Ralph Fiennes leads this razor-sharp culinary satire as a world-renowned chef who invites wealthy elites to an exclusive island dining experience—only to subject them to a series of twisted psychological games. Anya Taylor-Joy and Nicholas Hoult add tension as a mismatched couple, caught in a war of ideologies between authenticity and performance.
Much like Mountainhead, The Menu takes a single-location setup and uses it as a pressure cooker for class conflict, exposing the grotesque behaviors of the privileged. Both films smartly blend social critique with escalating absurdity, making The Menu a must-watch for fans of Armstrong’s take on corporate dysfunction.
Also, Read – The Metacinematic Cuisine of The Menu
2. BlackBerry (2023)
This underdog-to-tragedy tech biopic chronicles the meteoric rise and chaotic fall of the BlackBerry smartphone, focusing on the dynamic (and increasingly toxic) relationship between its awkward inventor Mike Lazaridis (Jay Baruchel) and his aggressive partner Jim Balsillie (Glenn Howerton).
BlackBerry is one of those movies like Mountainhead that satirize the collision between innovation and greed. It unpacks how egos, ambition, and poor ethics ruin groundbreaking ideas—mirroring the personal implosions and unchecked hubris portrayed in Armstrong’s fictional tech retreat.
Related Read – 6 Movies to Watch if you like BlackBerry
3. The Big Short (2015)
Adam McKay’s Oscar-winning film is both hilarious and horrifying, as it explains the 2008 financial collapse through the eyes of eccentric investors who saw the crash coming. Featuring standout performances by Steve Carell (again), Christian Bale, and Ryan Gosling, the film turns real-life corruption into a fast-paced morality tale.
What makes The Big Short one of the most obvious movies like Mountainhead is its razor-sharp dialogue and critique of systemic failure. Both films unravel how a handful of men in rooms too small wield devastating global power—with Armstrong and McKay sharing a similar disdain for institutions wrapped in arrogance and jargon.
4. The Social Network (2010)
Directed by David Fincher and written by Aaron Sorkin, this modern classic tells the origin story of Facebook and its creator Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg). While it’s part courtroom drama and part psychological character study, its greatest strength is how it lays bare the cost of ambition and emotional detachment in the tech industry.
If you’re looking for movies like Mountainhead that explore the psychology of billionaire creators, The Social Network offers a penetrating look at male competitiveness, insecurity, and the desire to control narratives—an obsession echoed in Ven’s character arc.
5. Billionaire Boys Club (2018)
Based on the true story of a Ponzi scheme run by wealthy young investors in 1980s Los Angeles, this film showcases how greed, ego, and recklessness can combust within tightly knit circles of power. Ansel Elgort and Taron Egerton lead the cast, portraying young men who believe they’re untouchable.
Like Mountainhead, this is a story about entitled men in elite spaces making decisions that spiral into ruin. The film’s blend of luxury and looming disaster makes it one of the more overlooked movies like Mountainhead in tone and theme.
6. Don’t Look Up (2021)
This apocalyptic satire directed by Adam McKay takes a high-concept disaster (an incoming comet) and filters it through the lens of political indifference, media absurdity, and tech overlords more concerned with profit than human life. Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence star as scientists desperate to sound the alarm.
What makes Don’t Look Up one of the closest movies like Mountainhead is its willingness to mock the tech elite’s blind optimism and self-importance. Both films play with real-world anxieties and heighten them into tragic farce, leaving audiences laughing—and squirming.
7. The Square (2017)
Ruben Östlund’s Palme d’Or-winning film is a deeply uncomfortable, pitch-black comedy about a museum curator whose life unravels after a PR stunt goes wrong. It’s a slow, surreal exploration of hypocrisy, privilege, and moral cowardice in the art world.
In its critique of performative liberalism and its satire of elite spaces, The Square feels spiritually aligned with Mountainhead. Both films use awkward silences, dark humor, and offbeat characters to reveal societal decay beneath the sheen of sophistication.
8. The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)
Martin Scorsese’s kinetic chronicle of Jordan Belfort’s rise and fall as a stockbroker is an unflinching portrait of capitalism run wild. Leonardo DiCaprio’s legendary performance captures the seductive power of money and excess.
While Mountainhead is more subdued, both films dissect male narcissism and financial irresponsibility. The Wolf of Wall Street is one of those movies like Mountainhead that shows how the system rewards the worst instincts of already dangerous men.
9. Dumb Money (2023)
This ensemble dramedy, directed by Craig Gillespie, tells the true story of the GameStop stock explosion and how retail investors took on hedge fund giants. Paul Dano stars as Keith Gill, the YouTuber who inspired the financial revolt.
Dumb Money focuses on how a small group of people disrupted the status quo—reminiscent of Mountainhead’s intimate character study of individuals with outsized influence. Both films balance absurdity with sincerity, mocking the system while showing its real-world implications.
10. In the Loop (2009)
Also created by Jesse Armstrong (with Armando Iannucci), this British political satire is a profanity-laced masterclass in bureaucratic chaos. A prequel of sorts to The Thick of It, the film skewers warmongering politicians and hapless advisors with wicked intelligence.
As an earlier entry in Armstrong’s world of cynical, jargon-spewing men making catastrophic decisions, In the Loop shares the DNA of Mountainhead. It’s one of the original movies like Mountainhead in tone and style—dialogue-heavy, darkly funny, and devastatingly sharp.
