Top Movies About Trading

What to do on weekends if the stock exchanges are closed, but you don’t want to break away from investment topics? You can watch films about financial markets and the life of traders – we have collected the best for you

We have chosen several films that, in terms of dynamics, will definitely not yield to the New Year’s fuss, and even overtake them in terms of intensity of passions.

The Big Short

The Big Short was directed by Adam McKay and based on the book by American writer and journalist Michael Lewis The Big Short. The secret springs of financial catastrophe. The film caused a great response and won an Oscar for Best Screenplay.

Based on a true story, Michael Lewis tells the story of several people who independently predicted the global economic crisis of 2007-2009.

The film begins in 2005, when eccentric hedge fund manager Michael Burry, played by Christian Bale, discovered that the then-current mortgage lending practices could lead to a crash in the real estate market. Michael figures out how to make money on it, and makes an unusual request to well-known investment banks.

The film is full of specific financial terms. True, its creators did everything to explain them to a simple viewer. As the plot develops, the characters explain complex concepts with illustrative everyday examples. And the tense action and stellar cast keep the viewer on the screen until the very end.

Margin Call

The global financial crisis of 2008 has already begun, but America does not yet know what disaster lies ahead. In his film, director J.C. Chandor told about the events in a single bank, which is on the verge of bankruptcy. The prototype of this bank was Lehman Brothers, whose collapse in 2008 shocked the whole world.

The action takes place within 24 hours. One of the bank employees – Eric Dale, played by Stanley Tucci – is developing a program that analyzes the current state of affairs in the bank. Not having time to finish it, he falls under the reduction and urgently leaves the place of work.

As in the best detective films, Dale manages to pass the flash drive with the program to his colleague Peter Sullivan, who completes the work and learns that the bank is in danger of ruin. It turns out that for the management of the bank, the existing problems are not new…

A well-twisted plot will not leave the viewer indifferent – the movie falls under the category of a financial thriller. The film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.

Too Big To Fail

Directed by Curtis Hanson, Too Big to Fail is based on Andrew Ross Sorkin’s nonfiction book Too Big to Fail. The picture received great success immediately after the first broadcast on HBO and was nominated for the Emmy and Golden Globe awards.

The film tells about the events that took place in the US financial sector in late May-early October 2008 and marked the beginning of the global financial crisis. Wall Street is in a panic. At the center of the action is US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson (played by William Hurt), who is trying to stem the tide of bankruptcies.

The US government has already bailed out investment bank Bear Stearns. Now Lehman Brothers urgently needs help, but the authorities do not support it and the bank declares bankruptcy. Insurance giant AIG is also on the bottom. Paulson realizes that the failure of AIG could lead to the collapse of the financial system and the collapse of the mortgage sector.

The picture does not show traders and the work of exchanges, but there are more than enough exchange topics there. It would be possible to get confused in terms and laws if the characters themselves did not explain what was happening during the course of the action. In general, the film indicates to modern stockbrokers what the activities of large companies can lead to if they approach transactions incorrectly.

Rogue Trader

The film tells about the infamous trader Nick Leeson, who ruined the English bank Barings. The film is based on Leeson’s own memoir, How I Bankrupted the Barings. Confessions of a Fraud Trader.

The hero of the film, a talented trader played by Ewan McGregor, gets a job at one of the oldest and revered banks in the UK, Barings. At first, the management cannot get enough of a young specialist. But then Leeson makes a mistake. In order to return to clients the money lost on the stock exchange, he is forced to come up with a multi-stage scam.

The Wolf of Wall Street

Many film critics consider this film the best of Martin Scorsese’s career. Biopic in the genre of black comedy directed by the director tells about the life of a successful trader Jordan Belfort.

In the late 1980s, the film’s hero, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, becomes a broker at an investment bank. Soon the bank declares bankruptcy due to the sudden collapse of the Dow Jones index. On the advice of his wife, Jordan gets a job in a small brokerage house that trades “penny” shares of small-cap companies.

The hero quickly adapts to the new environment and soon opens his own brokerage company. For ten years, Jordan has been scamming, earning millions and burning his life. Until the FBI begins to take an interest in his activities.