Right after a series of bets went south, the fact that the financial institution was to be trusted with any more money, let alone taxpayer money, let alone one trillion dollars, seemed patently absurd.
One of the hardest pills to swallow in the midst of the 2008 collapse was the fact that Wall Street needed even more money. Like Margin Call, The Pit shows the two sides of “raw capitalism”: the soaring highs of success, but also how everything can disappear as instantly as you can watch this movie on Netflix. But it’s a dying art, one explored thoroughly in the 2010 documentary The Pit. To be sure, this type of trading still exists, and has a place on the New York Stock Exchange and the Chicago Commodities Exchange. But just a couple decades ago, trading was a completely different kind of animal: fast-paced, loud, and just an absolute frenzy. The type of deals most traders make these days would be nearly unrecognized by the traders of yore: people hunched over computers, sitting in silence, occasionally tapping buttons. While the exact situation is certainly directly inspired by the mortgage-backed securities fiasco, the basic dilemma – how unethical people will act when facing ruin – are as old as capitalism itself. The movie, which takes place in a single 24-hour period, centers on a fictional investment bank that has learned that the highly leveraged toxic assets they hold could self-destruct at any moment, becoming worthless and taking down the entire company – and possibly the entire financial system. So if your idea of a good time is watching movies about the financial sector – which it should be! – check out one of these five flicks:Ī latter-day classic, Margin Call might have been modeled after the 2008 financial crisis, but the story’s twists and turns would be right at home at any point in late capitalism.
So we went through and picked out our favorite financial movies that are currently available to Watch Instantly on Netflix. Profiting From Energy Efficient Cryptocurrency MiningĪt the only thing we love more than impatience is watching movies about Wall Street.