Curator Watchlist
The Secret of My Success
A glossy, very 1980s corporate-comedy fantasy with Michael J. Fox’s easy charm and a fast-moving underdog premise.… Read more
Curator Watchlist
A glossy, very 1980s corporate-comedy fantasy with Michael J. Fox’s easy charm and a fast-moving underdog premise.… Read more
Where to watch: Buy
Fri · 1h 51m
Director: Herbert Ross
Starring: Michael J. Fox, Helen Slater, Richard Jordan
Brantley Foster, a well-educated kid from Kansas, has always dreamed of making it big in New York, but once in New York, he learns that jobs - and girls - are hard to get. When Brantley visits his uncle, Howard Prescott, who runs a multi-million-dollar company, he is given a job in the company's mail room.
Herbert Ross
Michael J. Fox, Helen Slater, Richard Jordan
A glossy, very 1980s corporate-comedy fantasy with Michael J. Fox’s easy charm and a fast-moving underdog premise. It’s fun if you want neon, montages, and broad wish-fulfillment, but the plotting is flimsy and the sexual politics are dated enough to be distracting.
The Secret of My Success is pure late-80s corporate fantasy: a small-town kid lands in Manhattan, games the system, and gets a neon-lit makeover on the way to the top. Herbert Ross keeps it moving, and Michael J. Fox gives the movie the kind of buoyant, can-do energy that makes even the silliest turns feel watchable.
What lingers most is the style. This is a slick, synthetic, montage-heavy time capsule, full of shoulder pads, saxophone swells, and a very specific idea of ambition as performance. It’s easy to see why some viewers call it a vaporwave artifact: the movie looks and feels like a commercial for 1987.
The downside is that the script leans hard on broad farce and some deeply awkward sexual humor that hasn’t aged well. If you’re here for Fox’s charisma and the era’s glossy excess, there’s enough charm to justify the ride. If you want smarter satire or cleaner comedy, it’s more of a curiosity than a classic.
Patrick Willems (2.5★) · 524 likes
So it turns out the secret of his success is…he fucked his aunt?
saffron (4★) · 362 likes
this is, without a doubt, the most eighties movie I have ever seen in my life. there are about twenty montages and there’s a saxophone playing for nearly half the runtime. it is glorious.
Matt Singer (2.5★) · 235 likes
Not without its charms, but if someone tried to make this movie today they would be arrested and sent to The Hague.
Justin LaLiberty (3★) · 212 likes
Just two years after Michael J. Fox managed to avoid fucking his mom in Back to the Future, he ends up in bed with Aunt Vera in The Secret of My Success. Get it together, Mike!
JBird (2.5★) · 114 likes
Michael J. Fox just wants some Success, But he just keeps making a mess. The ladder he’ll climb, Working full-time, And maybe avoid some light incest.
A sharper, more satisfying New York ambition comedy with similar corporate climb energy and a stronger sense of character and payoff.
Shares the era’s career-and-identity comedy, with a lighter, more humane take on professional reinvention.
Another glossy 80s comedy about class, identity, and corporate absurdity, but with a broader, more playful ensemble approach.
A smarter, nastier 80s success story that skewers class and status while still delivering mainstream comedy momentum.
For the same decade’s obsession with money and ambition, but filtered through a more serious, iconic corporate worldview.
A cleaner, more modern workplace transformation story with strong fashion, hierarchy, and ambition dynamics.
A foundational workplace comedy that turns office politics into a sharper, more enduring crowd-pleaser.
If the appeal is corporate aspiration and romantic entanglement, this remains the gold standard for bittersweet office comedy.
A satirical musical cousin to the same self-invention fantasy, with a more playful and stylized approach to climbing the ladder.
Delivers the era’s broad, high-concept comedy energy with a more disciplined script and nastier edge.
For viewers who like the same era’s star-driven, high-concept studio comedy tone and breezy crowd-pleasing rhythm.
Another Michael J. Fox vehicle built around charm, fish-out-of-water comedy, and a likable lead in over his head.
ambition, corporate ladder, identity reinvention, small-town-to-city migration, 80s excess, wish fulfillment, workplace comedy, romantic farce
1980s, workplace comedy, corporate satire, underdog, fish-out-of-water, synth-pop energy, montage-heavy, romantic farce, fashion-forward, neon gloss