Ruthless: Monopoly's Secret History

Ruthless: Monopoly's Secret History

Ruthless: Monopoly's Secret History

Watch Trailer Watch Movie

Share

Ruthless: Monopoly's Secret History

"The game you know. The story you don't."

2023

0h 52m

6.9(10 votes)

Documentary

Overview

America’s favorite board game, Monopoly, is a love letter to unbridled capitalism and the impulses that make our free-market society tick. Contrary to the folksy legend spread by Parker Brothers, Monopoly’s origin involves a radical feminist and a community of Quakers in Atlantic City. If not for the determination of an economics professor and impassioned anti-monopolist, the real story behind the creation of the game might never have come to light.

Links & Resources

Website IMDbView

Social & External

Production Companies

Insignia Films

Videos & Trailers

1 video

Similar Movies

Space Lions: The Story of Twilight Imperium

Space Lions: The Story of Twilight Imperium

Popular review site Shut Up & Sit Down follows the creative heads of Fantasy Flight Games as they develop a new edition of their flagship game Twilight Imperium.

Word Wars

Word Wars

The classic board game, Scrabble, has been popular for decades. In addition, there are fanatics who devote heart and soul to this game to the expense of everything else. This film profiles a group of these enthusiasts as they converge for a Scrabble convention where the word game is almost a bloodsport.

Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine

Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine

Garry Kasparov is possibly the greatest chess player who has ever lived. In 1997, he played a match against the greatest chess computer: IBM's Deep Blue. He lost. This film depicts the drama that happened away from the chess board from Kasparov's perspective. It explores the psychological aspects of the game and the paranoia surrounding IBM's ultimate chess machine.

The Great Chess Movie

The Great Chess Movie

In this Gilles Carle feature documentary on the game of chess, the international chess match is cast as a classic Western shoot-out. Three chess greats dominate the film: Russia's Anatoly Karpov; Viktor Korchnoi, a Russian defector; and American Bobby Fischer. Chess aficionados Camille Coudari and Fernando Arrabal analyze the personalities and strategies of the players and comment on the interplay of politics and chess.

Under the Boardwalk: The Monopoly Story

Under the Boardwalk: The Monopoly Story

Under the Boardwalk: The Monopoly Story shows how the classic board game has become a worldwide cultural phenomenon and follows the colorful players who come together to compete for the coveted title of Monopoly World Champion.

Über Goober

Über Goober

Über Goober focuses on the often-misunderstood, sometimes-controversial, and always-kind-of-geeky world of Gamers. Director Steve Metze examines several different groups including historical miniature gamers, role-players, and those known simply as "LARPers." The film also explores opposition from religious groups, negative media portrayals, and some of the meanest 'man-on-the-street' interviews ever committed to video. Meet the Gamers, learn their exotic language, see their bizarre rituals, gasp at their semi-authentic costumes, and thrill to the painting techniques on their miniatures!

Who Did It? The Story Behind the Clue VCR Mystery Game

Who Did It? The Story Behind the Clue VCR Mystery Game

A documentary about the makings of two Parker Brothers VHS games - 'Clue VCR Mystery Game' and 'Clue II: Murder in Disguise'.

Friendly Local Game Store

Friendly Local Game Store

The unlikely story of the world’s largest game store – The Sentry Box – located in Calgary. Communities are not just bound by borders – they are often comprised of people with shared passions. A friendly local game store (FLGS) is a unique place where people can connect with each other, create memories, and build community. Celebrating over 40 years of operation, the Sentry Box in Calgary, Alberta has grown to become the world’s largest game store. It has achieved this incredible milestone by being an inviting and welcoming space for people of all backgrounds to enjoy table top games, such as Dungeons and Dragons. The documentary from CUFF alumnus and Calgarian Garry Snow shares the unique history of the Sentry Box by interviewing the owner, long-time customers, current and former employees, and local industry influencers who have all been connected by the friendly local game store.

Made for Play: Board Games and Modern Industry

Made for Play: Board Games and Modern Industry

Jettingen Germany is home to Ludo Fact, one of the world's largest manufacturers of board and card games. This documentary shows how a board game makes the leap from an idea to your table. You'll see every aspect of the manufacturing process: the technology and machines, the many detailed steps, and the hundreds of people that are involved in the production of a single game. Mostly, we hope the film gives you a greater appreciation of the time, effort and investment that goes into every quality board game that makes it to the marketplace and your home. The business of fun requires a lot of hard work!

Monopoly - Spiel ohne Erbarmen

Monopoly - Spiel ohne Erbarmen

Monopoly is the most famous board game in the world. It brought capitalism to the game board and made haggling over roads and train stations socially acceptable worldwide. The documentary tells the true story of how the legendary Monopoly game came about, of clever marketing, the utopia of a fair world - and of ourselves.

The Game Designers

The Game Designers

Board games are exploding in popularity. With scores of players, huge conventions, countless media outlets, and thousands of games coming out each year, the board game industry is truly a global phenomenon. But who makes all of the games that fuel this industry? And how are all of these games designed, developed, and eventually released to the public? The answer is found in The Game Designers!

Scrabble: A Night on the Tiles

Scrabble: A Night on the Tiles

Scrabble is experiencing a renaissance. The younger generation have rediscovered the game online - through the copyright busting Scrabulous - and they're having night after night on the tiles. Alan Yentob sets out to discover why the word game leaves us spellbound, tracing its surprising history, meeting the American tournament Word Freaks, and paying a visit to the SAS-style training camp that the Nigerian government trains their players at.

The Next Great American Game

Randall Hoyt is an aspiring game designer on the road to publishing his first board game. His wry observations about life, gaming and his own struggles with being bipolar drive this story about what it takes to get a board game published.

The Divine Move

The Divine Move

A professional GO player gathers a team to help him carry out his revenge against the man who killed his brother.

Zathura: A Space Adventure

Zathura: A Space Adventure

After their father is called into work, two young boys, Walter and Danny, are left in the care of their teenage sister, Lisa, and told they must stay inside. Walter and Danny, who anticipate a boring day, are shocked when they begin playing Zathura, a space-themed board game, which they realize has mystical powers when their house is shot into space. With the help of an astronaut, the boys attempt to return home.

Jumanji

Jumanji

When siblings Judy and Peter discover an enchanted board game that opens the door to a magical world, they unwittingly invite Alan -- an adult who's been trapped inside the game for 26 years -- into their living room. Alan's only hope for freedom is to finish the game, which proves risky as all three find themselves running from giant rhinoceroses, evil monkeys and other terrifying creatures.

Icebreaker

Icebreaker

Four strangers struggle to figure out why they matched on Icebreaker, a friend-finding app.

Clue

Clue

Clue finds six colorful dinner guests gathered at the mansion of their host, Mr. Boddy -- who turns up dead after his secret is exposed: He was blackmailing all of them. With the killer among them, the guests and Boddy's chatty butler must suss out the culprit before the body count rises.

Friends Games: The Movie

Friends Games: The Movie

This is a continuation of Friends Games. Now the group of friends realises they have fallen into this game and they are in the second set of game, Kageguchi Sugoroku. Will Katagiri Yuichi find out who led them into this deceptive game between money and friends?

Adulruna Rediviva

Dr. Vikström, a scholar of Kabbalah, mysticism, symbology, and dead languages, discovers the lost tome of the "Edda" written by the Icelandic poet and historian Snorri Sturluson. This book not only contains a prophecy about Ragnarok and the awakening of Fenrir, Loki's son, destined to kill Odin, but also how to stop the end of the world. The only way is to discover a man whose future is completely unknown. The chosen one must compose a mystical music and play it on the Organ of Eternity, hidden somewhere in Turin. The magical city par excellence witnesses a race against time, in which eight characters cross paths.

Recommended Movies

Cliffhanger

Cliffhanger

A year after losing his friend in a tragic 4,000-foot fall, former ranger Gabe Walker and his partner, Hal, are called to return to the same peak to rescue a group of stranded climbers, only to learn the climbers are actually thieving hijackers who are looking for boxes full of money.

Formula 1: The Official Review Of The 2021 FIA Formula One World Championship

Formula 1: The Official Review Of The 2021 FIA Formula One World Championship

Watch two of the greatest F1 drivers go head-to-head in the most intense battle for the Drivers’ World Championship in recent memory. The fight between seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton and the young challenger Max Verstappen features dramatic collisions, high emotion, and race after race of incredible driving. From Esteban Ocon’s surprise victory in Hungary to Daniel Ricciardo’s charge for the flag in Monza to Lando Norris’s rain-soaked gamble in Russia – the 2021 season provided memorable moments at every corner.

Late Spring

Late Spring

Noriko is perfectly happy living at home with her widowed father, Shukichi, and has no plans to marry -- that is, until her aunt Masa convinces Shukichi that unless he marries off his 27-year-old daughter soon, she will likely remain alone for the rest of her life. When Noriko resists Masa's matchmaking, Shukichi is forced to deceive his daughter and sacrifice his own happiness to do what he believes is right.

Juror #2

Juror #2

While serving as a juror in a high profile murder trial, family man Justin Kemp finds himself struggling with a serious moral dilemma…one he could use to sway the jury verdict and potentially convict—or free—the accused killer.

12 Angry Men

12 Angry Men

The defense and the prosecution have rested and the jury is filing into the jury room to decide if a young Spanish-American is guilty or innocent of murdering his father. What begins as an open and shut case soon becomes a mini-drama of each of the jurors' prejudices and preconceptions about the trial, the accused, and each other.

Oppenheimer

Oppenheimer

The story of J. Robert Oppenheimer's role in the development of the atomic bomb during World War II.

Pulp Fiction

Pulp Fiction

A burger-loving hit man, his philosophical partner, a drug-addled gangster's moll and a washed-up boxer converge in this sprawling, comedic crime caper. Their adventures unfurl in three stories that ingeniously trip back and forth in time.

The Long Goodbye

The Long Goodbye

In 1970s Hollywood, Detective Philip Marlowe tries to help a friend who is accused of murdering his wife.

Night of the Living Dead

Night of the Living Dead

A ragtag group barricade themselves in an old Pennsylvania farmhouse to remain safe from a horde of flesh-eating ghouls ravaging the Northeast.

Creep

Creep

Looking for work, Aaron comes across a cryptic online ad: “$1,000 for the day. Filming service. Discretion is appreciated.” Low on cash and full of naiveté, he decides to go for it. He drives to a cabin in a remote mountain town where he meets Josef, his cinematic subject for the day. Josef is sincere and the project seems heartfelt, so Aaron begins to film. But as the day goes on, it becomes clear that Josef is not who he says, and his intentions are not at all pure.

Alien: Romulus

Alien: Romulus

While scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station, a group of young space colonizers come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe.

Last Action Hero

Last Action Hero

After his father's death, a young boy finds solace in action movies featuring an indestructible cop. Given a magic ticket by a theater manager, he is transported into the film and teams up with the cop to stop a villain who escapes into the real world.

The Handmaiden

The Handmaiden

1930s Korea, in the period of Japanese occupation, a new girl, Sookee, is hired as a handmaiden to a Japanese heiress, Hideko, who lives a secluded life on a large countryside estate with her domineering Uncle Kouzuki. But the maid has a secret. She is a pickpocket recruited by a swindler posing as a Japanese Count to help him seduce the Lady to steal her fortune.

The Good Teacher

The Good Teacher

Julien, a young teacher, is wrongfully accused of sexual misconduct by a teenage girl from his class. As he faces mounting pressures from the girl’s older brother and her classmates, the situation spirals out of control. Allegations spread, the entire school is thrown into turmoil, and the teacher has to fight to clear his name.

2001: A Space Odyssey

2001: A Space Odyssey

Humanity finds a mysterious object buried beneath the lunar surface and sets off to find its origins with the help of HAL 9000, the world's most advanced super computer.

Longlegs

Longlegs

FBI Agent Lee Harker is a gifted new recruit assigned to the unsolved case of an elusive serial killer. As the case takes complex turns, unearthing evidence of the occult, Harker discovers a personal connection to the merciless killer and must race against time to stop him before he claims the lives of another innocent family.

Shoplifters

Shoplifters

In the outskirts of Tokyo, a poor but close-knit group living on the fringes of society survives through shoplifting and odd jobs. When Osamu and his son take in a neglected young girl, their already fragile existence begins to unravel. As the family grows attached to her, buried secrets surface, forcing them to confront the true meaning of love, belonging, and what makes a family.

Weapons

Weapons

When all but one child from the same class mysteriously vanish on the same night at exactly the same time, a community is left questioning who or what is behind their disappearance.

The Lighthouse

The Lighthouse

Two lighthouse keepers try to maintain their sanity while living on a remote and mysterious New England island in the 1890s.

Contempt

Contempt

A philistine in the art film business, Jeremy Prokosch is a producer unhappy with the work of his director. Prokosch has hired Fritz Lang to direct an adaptation of "The Odyssey," but when it seems that the legendary filmmaker is making a picture destined to bomb at the box office, he brings in a screenwriter to energize the script. The professional intersects with the personal when a rift develops between the writer and his wife.