As part of the PRESIDENTS & POTENTATES series

Steve Jobs

2015, 122 minutes

As the co-founder of Apple Inc. Steve Jobs was many things: a fearless innovator, a visionary investor and an absolute tyrant. He likened himself to an orchestra conductor who directed the efforts of the designers, engineers and coders—generating fierce loyalties and resentments along the way.

For this film, director Danny Boyle and writer Aaron Sorkin drew heavily from the Walter Isaacson biography, and with a definitive performance by Michael Fassbender, they show Jobs on three occasions, 1984, 1988, and 1998—each time just before a press event. Surrounded by frazzled staff while adoring fans await his latest pronouncement, Jobs seethes with frenetic intensity as he deals with personal and professional chaos­­—all of it his own making. Over the fourteen years depicted, Jobs struggles to come to terms with his daughter, Lisa, initially disputing his paternity. Friendships with Jobs’ partner Steve Wozniak (Seth Rogan) and Apple CEO John Sculley (Jeff Daniels) are pushed to the breaking point, while his jaded marketing manager Joanna Hoffman (Kate Winslet) tries to keep his perfectionist instincts (and conscience) tethered to reality. If ever there was a film that made entrepreneurial innovation feel like a roller-coaster ride, this is the one.

Please Note—This film is RATED R, with drinking, profanity, extreme workplace stress, software crashes, and some dialogue that sounds very reminiscent of The West Wing (thanks to Aaron Sorkin).