Movies Where a Kid Runs a Business

Child labor, but they're management.

Entries
10
Category
Film
Updated
  1. A pizza delivery bag stuffed with cash on the snowy hood of a pickup truck at a forest border crossing.

    10. Kid Cannabis

    John Stockwell · 2014

    The true story of Nate Norman, a teenage dropout from Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, who went from delivering pizza to running a multimillion-dollar weed ring across the Canadian border. The theatrical run made $5,565 in one theater. Not a growth business.

  2. A tiny briefcase, a baby bottle and a smartphone on a polished executive desk in a pastel office.

    09. The Boss Baby

    Tom McGrath · 2017

    An infant in a suit, voiced by Alec Baldwin, is a middle manager at BabyCorp fighting a hostile takeover by Puppy Co. It made $528 million and got an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Feature. Somewhere a shareholder is still asking about the puppies.

  3. A lakeside summer camp with a hand-painted blank sign, piles of junk food and a cash box on the dock.

    08. Camp Nowhere

    Jonathan Prince · 1994

    Kids invent their own summer camp, pocket the parents' fees and blackmail Christopher Lloyd into fronting it. Jessica Alba's film debut. It is a story about fraud, staffing and customer misdirection, and the kids pay off his debts in the end. Good governance.

  4. A boardroom chair too big for anyone, with a small baseball cap on the seat, at the head of a gleaming mahogany table.

    07. Richie Rich

    Donald Petrie · 1994

    When his parents vanish, the richest kid in the world takes charge of Rich Industries and foils an embezzling CFO. It cost $40 million and made $38 million domestically, the sort of quarter that gets a CEO fired. Nobody fires Macaulay Culkin.

  5. A school locker crammed with stacks of folded cheat sheets, cash and a pager, under fluorescent hallway lights.

    06. Better Luck Tomorrow

    Justin Lin · 2002

    Orange County honor students run a cheat-sheet racket that grows into something much worse. Lin paid for it with credit cards after investors wanted Macaulay Culkin; at Sundance, Ebert scolded a heckler. Han later moved to Tokyo and drifted.

  6. A manager's lineup clipboard and a juice box on a major league dugout bench, the field glowing under lights.

    05. Little Big League

    Andrew Scheinman · 1994

    A 12-year-old inherits the Minnesota Twins from his grandfather and names himself manager. Ken Griffey Jr. and Randy Johnson cameo; the Twins' real radio voice calls the games. Ebert gave it three and a half stars. It still handled the bullpen better than several real managers.

  7. A miniature pedal car parked outside a speakeasy door, a tommy gun loaded with whipped cream leaning against the wall.

    04. Bugsy Malone

    Alan Parker · 1976

    A Prohibition gangster musical where every mobster, showgirl and speakeasy owner is a child, and the tommy guns fire whipped cream. Jodie Foster plays Tallulah; Paul Williams wrote the songs, sung by adults. Fat Sam's club is the best-run business on this list.

  8. A sleek Porsche nose-down in a lake beside a wooden pier, a pair of white socks and sunglasses abandoned on the dock.

    03. Risky Business

    Paul Brickman · 1983

    A high school senior sinks his dad's Porsche in Lake Michigan and pays for it by turning his parents' Chicago home into a brothel for one night. Made for $6.2 million, grossed $63.5 million, launched Tom Cruise. He also got into Princeton. The system works.

  9. A stack of gold-embossed leather Bibles on the seat of a dusty 1930s convertible, a paper crescent moon hanging from a carnival booth behind it.

    02. Paper Moon

    Peter Bogdanovich · 1973

    A nine-year-old and a Depression-era grifter sell overpriced Bibles to fresh widows, and she is clearly the brains of the operation. Tatum O'Neal won an Oscar at 10, the youngest competitive winner ever, opposite her actual father. He got out-hustled on screen too.

  10. A broomstick leaning against a seaside bakery counter beside a stack of wrapped parcels and a red bow, a black cat silhouette in the window.

    01. Kiki's Delivery Service

    Hayao Miyazaki · 1989

    A 13-year-old witch moves to a port city and starts a flying courier service out of a bakery. Ghibli's first hit on initial release, from Eiko Kadono's 1985 novel. A movie about burnout aimed at children, who will have plenty of it later.

Honorable mentions

  • A giant floor piano in a toy store, a pair of oversized loafers resting on the keys.

    Big

    Penny Marshall · 1988

    Technically a grown man, but he is 12 inside, and within weeks he is a vice president at a toy company because he's the only executive who actually plays with the product. The most accurate movie about corporate promotion ever made.

Dishonorable mentions

  • A single blank check on a bank counter beside a pen and a toy race car, a mansion's water slide reflected in the glass.

    Blank Check

    Rupert Wainwright · 1994

    An 11-year-old cashes a $1 million check, invents a businessman called Macintosh, buys a mansion, and gets a dinner date and a kiss from an adult FBI agent. Disney put that on screen. 9 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. Generous.

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