In the scene in which Bud Fox brings a birthday gift to Gekko's office, Gordon's secretary says 'Five minutes' in order to keep the unplanned meeting between Gekko and Fox as brief as possible. There are exactly 5 minutes in the movie from this moment to the moment in which Bud leaves the office.
This is the only movie to win both an Oscar (Best Actor- Michael Douglas) and a Razzie (Worst Supporting Actress- Daryl Hannah), not just for acting, but in any category.
Oliver Stone gave Charlie Sheen the choice of having either Jack Lemmon or Martin Sheen play his father. Charlie chose his dad.
Michael Douglas worked with a speech instructor on breath control to help him with the film's rapid-fire dialogue. Douglas was smoking 40 cigarettes a day at the time.
From the beginning, Sean Young kept telling Oliver Stone that she should play Darien and Daryl Hannah should be fired. Young would show up on the set late and unprepared. It's part of the reason her role is so small.
Jeff Beck: "Mad Dog", a star investment banker at the time with Drexel Burnham Lambert, was one of the film's technical advisers and appears as the man speaking at the meeting discussing the breakup of Bluestar. Kenneth Lipper, investment banker and former deputy mayor of New York for Finance and Economic Development, was also hired as chief technical adviser. At first, he turned Oliver Stone down because he felt that the film would be a one-sided attack. Stone asked him to reconsider and Lipper read the script responding with a 13-page critique. For example, he argued that it was unrealistic to have all the characters be "morally bankrupt". Lipper advised Stone on the kind of computers used on the trading floor, the accurate proportion of women at a business meeting, and the kinds of extras that should be seated at the annual shareholders meeting where Gekko delivers his "Greed is good" speech. Stone agreed with Lipper's criticism and asked him to rewrite the script. Lipper brought a balance to the film and this helped Stone get permission to shoot on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange during trading hours. Lipper and Stone disagreed over the character of Lou Mannheim. Stone shot a scene showing the honest Mannheim giving in to insider trading, but Lipper argued that audiences might conclude that everyone on Wall Street is corrupt and insisted that the film needed an unimpeachable character. Stone cut the scene.