Wall Street has always been the subject of fascination for Hollywood. Billion-dollar scandals, rogue traders, and market crashes all make great movie subjects in the financial industry. The ten films not only entertain, but show us how greed, ambition and power determine the financial world. You are the expert investor or just a money-minded person; no matter which of them, every film in this list will teach you something that no book can. Grab the popcorn.
Enron Exposed
This documentary, released in 2005, lifts the veil over one of the worst cases of corporate fraud in history. It informs about the morally bad practices and severe corruption that led to the collapse of one of the biggest American energy enterprises, raising some serious questions about the business administration and accountability.
Rogue Trader
The real story of Nick Leeson is a masterpiece of what can go wrong when the lack of control is achieved. One of the traders single-handedly collapsed a long-established investment bank in the United Kingdom through unapproved speculative gambles – a warning sale on uncontrolled financial hubris and the hazards of institutional blind alleys.
Too Big
It is a drama, set in 2011, based on the award-winning book by Andrew Ross Sorkin, which re-creates the manic government and banking reaction to the 2008 financial crisis. It brings the historical figures to life as the actual people who were at crossroads in making the tough decisions when the world economy in its entirety was prepared to plunge into a complete downward spiral.
Wolf Runs
The black comedy by Martin Scorsese is based on the soaring up and down of Jordan Belfort in the Wall Street of the 1990s. The display of gluttony, over-indulgence, and corrupted morals portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio is one of the most accurate reflections in the film industry on the lure and destructive essence of a culture of maximum money-making.
Inside Job
The 2010 documentary by the director Charles Ferguson takes a methodical look into the regulatory failures and the corruption within institutions that caused the 2008 global meltdown. It turns a highly complex economic debacle into the clear and deeply startling story of unregulated deregulation with the help of interviews with financial insiders and academics.
American Psycho
The dark comedic film is set against the excess of Wall Street of the 1980s and follows the life of a rich investment banker, who leads a disturbing dual life. It presents a pithy commentary on the surface, spiritual barrenness and dehumanising influences of consumerism that characterised a period of unregulated monetary greediness and status anxiety.
Trading Places
This is a favourite 1983 romantic comedy that brilliantly satirises the social movements, classes and inequality through the use of financial markets. An affluent commodities broker and a street hustler, both of whom are homeless, exchange lives completely because of a wager in which a heartless millionaire challenges success in the financial system of America, showing the arbitraryness of success in the American financial system.
Margin Call
The film was established in a 24-hour time span that was characterised by pressure, but on the eve of the great financial crash in 2011, it is set within a Wall Street bank that finds out about catastrophic risk in the very near future. Its brilliant dialogue and acting cast make the moral issues surrounding people trapped within a machine, leading to an unavoidable catastrophe, come to life.
Wall Street
The 1987 classic by Oliver Stone gave birth to a character named Gordon Gekko and his notorious quote that held the idea that greed is good. Michael Douglas was awarded an Oscar as the ultimate villain of the financial world, and the movie left an indelible mark on the way popular culture perceives the moral corruption and ethical bankruptcy that the ambition of Wall Street lies at its core.
Big Short
The 2015 film, brilliantly directed by Adam McKay, is based on the people who are mere investors, visionary enough to anticipate the collapse of the housing market, and bet against it. Applying celebrity cameos and the invention of creative storytelling to elaborate on tricky financial products, it is the most entertaining and educational finance movie ever to be made for general audiences.
