Risky Business · reception & legacy
1983 · Paul Brickman
How Risky Business has been received, argued over, and remembered.
The arc
A sleeper hit in 1983 that got filed under 'teen sex comedy' for years — it's since been reappraised as one of the decade's sharpest films, a moody, Reagan-era satire of capitalism that just happens to star a teenager in his underwear.
What's debated
The perennial fight is over the studio-imposed upbeat ending versus Paul Brickman's darker original — plus whether people who call it a dumb 80s comedy have actually watched it.
Its footprint
Tom Cruise sliding into frame in socks and a pink shirt, lip-syncing 'Old Time Rock and Roll,' is one of the most parodied scenes in movie history — and the film famously sent Ray-Ban Wayfarer sales through the roof.
Where it stands
A fixture of the 80s canon and the definitive Tom Cruise origin story, increasingly claimed by cinephiles as a genuinely great American film rather than a nostalgia object.