Everyone wants a piece of the pie, but no one wants to bake it from scratch. Call it a tired analogy, but it perfectly captures the bidding-war mentality that dominates corporate culture. And in these modern times, many companies are just as interested in buying success as they are in earning it — and sometimes just the former. The entertainment industry deals in the kind of corporate bidding that often upends and relocates our favorite movies and shows in the blink of an eye. Funny enough, there’s a ’90s film currently streaming on HBO Max — one of the top streaming services worth your hard-earned cash — that feels all-too-relevant in 2025.
Released in 1993, “Barbarians at the Gate” is an adaptation of the book of the same name (published in 1989) that stars James Garner as F. Ross Johnson, the former president and CEO of RJR Nabisco. When Johnson decides to take the company private in 1988, the executive finds himself caught in a whirlwind of aggressive corporate maneuvering — a debacle fueled by vengeance on the part of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co (KKR).
While Johnson initially discusses a leveraged buyout with Henry Kravis (Jonathan Pryce), he decides to transact with another firm, Shearson Lehman Hutton, instead. This infuriates KKR, which retaliates by launching a high-stakes counter-bid for the acquisition of RJR Nabisco.
A satiric nosedive that mirrors the modern world
Directed by Glenn Jordan from a script by Larry Gelbart, “Barbarians at the Gate” was praised for functioning as a social commentary. The film would go on to win the Emmy for Outstanding Made for Television Movie, with Garner, Jonathan Pryce, and Peter Riegert (who played Peter Cohen) all nominated for their performances.
“Barbarians at the Gate” balances sharp business insights with darkly comedic moments, showing just how absurd and ruthless these deals can become. With Netflix planning on investing billions to acquire Warner Bros. in 2026 after a bidding war against Paramount, “Barbarians” becomes an evermore prescient metaphor for the state of the media landscape as we know it.
For 2025 audiences, the classic made-for-HBO film may come across less as a nostalgic look back at 1980s Wall Street and more as a mirroring of today’s corporate bidding, one-upmanship, and asset obsessions, whether in snack foods, streaming platforms, or the next major media merger. When and if the Netflix-HBO merger goes through, a film like “Barbarians” may very well migrate from the latter’s streaming library to the former’s. We might also see a future where the Netflix and HBO Max apps are combined, a corporate consolidation that highlights some of the very dynamics the film pokes fun at.
