16 Best Trading and Stock Market Movies of All Time
Watching stock market movies can help you understand basic financial concepts and make sense of the financial world of trading and investing, which is why we recommend these 16 Best Trading and Stock Market Movies of All Time for you. Want to know about these movies?
Trading and stock market movies are movies or documentaries based on events that happen in the stock markets. These movies dramatize some of the activities of the trading process, showcasing the emotions that come with taking trades, managing risks, making losses, and hitting big profits, as well as some of the popular scams in the market. In a way, they help educate the public about the world of the financial markets.
In this post, we will take a look at the 16 Best Trading and Stock Market Movies of All Time. Do you want to see all the actions of the trading process and relive or feel the emotions that come with taking trades and managing risks? Watch these stock market movies!
Related article: –The 12 Best Books on Trading Strategies
16. The Bank (2001)
Released in 2001, The Bank is an Australian movie directed by Robert Connolly. The movie tells the story of Jim Doyle (David Wenham), a maverick mathematician who has devised a formula to predict the fluctuations of the stock market based on the fractal geometry of Benoit Mandelbrot.
Under pressure from the board of directors to improve the bank’s profits, Centabank CEO, Simon O’Reilly (Anthony LaPaglia), hires Jim and supplies him with the best computer hardware. Things later go south and the bank goes bankrupt after losing $50 billion. The movie shows how corruption can easily set in the trading world.
15. Arbitrage (2012)
Directed by Steven Soderbergh and released in January 2012, Arbitrage is a movie that shows the life of a seemingly successful hedge fund manager by the name of Robert Miller — played by Richard Gere. Mr Miller was trying to sell his trading business to a large bank before his fraudulent practices were found out.
His problems start when his lover, Julie (played by Laetitia Casta), is involved in a car accident, and he is forced to hide the truth so as to preserve both his image and the interest of his firm. As he is trying to keep things normal and cope with the repercussions of his actions, a detective who is desperate to learn the truth — played by Tim Roth — keeps track of him and his movements. The movie focuses on the effects of avarice and corruption. It tries to show the repercussions of making immoral decisions in one’s life.
14. Equity (2016)
Released in 2016, Equity tries to bring a female perspective to the male-dominated stock market movies. The movie is about the story of a female financial banker on Wall Street. Directed by Meera Menon, this thriller shows the life of Naomi Bishop (played by Anna Gunn) as she fights to make it big on Wall Street without knowing that she is being monitored by a prosecutor who thinks that she is corrupt.
Meanwhile, she sets out on a journey to uncover corrupt practices in the system. Despite the frustration of being betrayed by a close and trusted colleague, Naomi gives her everything to stop an impending misfortune and forge her path to success. The movie focuses on a female-oriented narrative, exploring the professional setbacks a woman faces while navigating the world of the stock market. It teaches resilience, determination, and persistence.
13. Too Big to Fail (2011)
Released in 2011, this is an American biographical drama film that was directed by Curtis Hanson. It was written by Peter Gould based on Andrew Ross Sorkin’s 2009 non-fiction book of the same name. The movie brings an insider’s perspective on the 2008 Financial Crisis. It portrays how financial corporations and banks are closely connected and how their downfall can lead to a serious economic crisis both nationally and globally.
Paul Giamatti played the role of Ben Bernanke, the then chairman of the Federal Reserve Banky, while William Hurt portrays Henry Paulson — the then U.S. Treasury Secretary. The movie showed the job of the Fed to regulate the financial system and how it failed in that regard, as well as how that failure led to the 2008 financial crisis. The takeaway from the movie includes the importance of regulatory oversight in key sectors of the economy, taking responsibility, and prompt response.
12. Chasing Madoff (2010)
This is a 2010 documentary film revealing the details of Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi schemes based on the account of Harry Markopolos, the financial analyst who exposed him. Produced by Jeff Prosserman, Chasing Madoff is a great introduction to the world of Ponzi schemes and how to recognize one.
For over a decade, Harry Markopolos has been monitoring the activities of Madoff’s investment fund. He suspected that the outrageous, consistent returns the firm offered its clients couldn’t have been possible in a real market setting. The documentary shows Markopolos and his small team as they track Madoff and gather evidence about his activities while repeatedly trying to alert the SEC and other authorities about the ongoing fraud.
The takeaway from this documentary film is that, as an investor who wishes to invest in a fund, you must do your due diligence parting with your money. Do your research and carefully look into the firm’s financials. Ask questions when things aren’t clear so that you don’t fall for a Ponzi scheme!
11. The Ascent of Money (2009)
This is a documentary film based on a book of the same name written by then-Harvard professor Niall Ferguson. The documentary explores the financial history of the world, showing the emergence of financial markets, stock markets, credit, and trading in modern society and how it has affected our world in unimaginable ways.
The show started as a six-part film that aired in the UK, Hong Kong, and Australia. It was later converted into a 4-hour film that aired in the US in July 2009. There is now an extended version that includes the globalization of the Western economy and how it has created an uncertain balance between economic superpowers, such as China and the US. It is a show that teaches you the history of money and financial markets dealings.
10. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005)
Directed by Alex Gibney, this is a documentary film that shows behind-the-scene details of the activities of the Enron Corporation. The show is based on the best-selling 2003 book of the same name by Fortune reporters, Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind.
The film chronicles the rise and fall of Enron, portraying its wildly unethical executives, such as Jeffrey Skilling and Kenneth Lay, as they use all sorts of corporate corruption — market manipulations, and fraudulent accounting practices — to inflate the company’s value. It shows how Enron manipulated energy markets and created artificial shortages and how banks and financial institutions were complicit, while the regulators looked the other way.
The show went further to tell the story of the dramatic collapse of Enron in 2001 and how it wiped out retirement savings and led to massive job losses. It ended with the criminal trials of the people involved. Things to learn from the film include the importance of due diligence before buying any stock.
9. Barbarians at the Gate (1993)
This is a biographical comedy-drama film produced by Glenn Jordan. It is based on the 1989 book of the same name by Bryan Burrough and John Helyar and tells an inside story of the $31.1 billion leveraged buyout of food and tobacco corporation RJR Nabisco that took place in 1988.
The story follows F. Ross Johnson (played by James Garner), the CEO of RJR Nabisco, as he tries to take the company public via a leveraged buyout. The plan gets muddled when other companies, led by Henry Kravis (acted by Jonathan Pryce), start a bidding war for RJR Nabisco.
The film portrays corporate maneuvers and excesses that characterized Wall Street in the 1980s, showing how a little insider manipulation can lead to a major financial burden. One important lesson from the show is that expensive buyouts can leave the company with a huge debt load.
8. Trading Places (1983)
Directed by John Landis and written by Timothy Harris and Herschel Weingrod, Trading Places is a 1983 classic comedy that tells the story of a street con artist who is manipulated into becoming a manager of a commodities trading firm by replacing an executive. It starts with two millionaire commodity trading brokers making a bet that a street con artist has all it takes to become a successful trader, and they get to test that out.
The movie brings out all the activities of the trading process, depicting a frenzied trading session that shows the emotions that come with taking trades, managing risks, making losses, and hitting big profits. More interestingly, it portrays the socio-economic class structure of America, with various stereotypes attached to it. With this movie, you can get to learn a thing or two about commodity trading and the behind-the-scene activities of commodity brokers.
7. Rogue Trader (1999)
Released in 1999, Rogue Trader is a British biographical drama film about Nick Leeson and the 1995 collapse of Barings Bank — one of Britain’s oldest financial institutions. Directed by James Dearden, the movie tells the inside story of how Nick Leeson (acted by Ewan McGregor), an ambitious young trader at Barings Bank brought down the bank through illicit trades.
After a successful spell working for the bank’s office in Indonesia, Leeson is sent to Singapore as General Manager of the futures trading floor. Initially successful and seen as one of the bank’s key traders, Nick soon starts making huge losses but keeps hiding them. He continues gambling away the bank’s money until it spirals out of control. One of the lessons in the movie is the absolute need for transparency and accountability among bank traders and the banking operations as a whole.
6. The Big Short (2015)
Directed by Adam McKay, The Big Short is a 2015 film based on Michael Lewis’s best-selling book of the same name. The movie tells the story of the growing problems in the mortgage and housing markets in the United States before the 2008 financial crisis and how a few financial professionals not only saw the bear market coming but also managed to profit from it by making big bets on the short side.
The movie follows a group of traders — Michael Burry (played by Christian Bale), Jared Vennett (Ryan Gosling ), Mark Baum (Steve Carell), Charlie Geller (John Magaro), and Jamie Shipley (Finn Wittrock) — who predict the 2008 housing market crash and makes some short bets via credit default swaps to take advantage of it. With time, they come to realize the widespread corruption and fraudulent practices in the financial system.
The movie teaches the value of thinking outside the box while maintaining a healthy fear of the market’s irrationality — “the market can remain irrational longer than you can stay solvent.”
5. Banking on Bitcoin (2016)
Co-written by Christopher Cannucciari and Prichard Smith and directed by the former, Banking on Bitcoin is a 2016 documentary film that tells the story of how Bitcoin and the blockchain industry threaten to disrupt the banking industry and what the banks do to fight back.
The movie starts from Bitcoin’s early years of underground development to when it gets the attention of the public, including the regulators around the world whose first reaction is to fight against it. Following major arrests of cyber criminals using the technology, Bitcoin faces an ideological battle with the banks and the mainstream financial system.
Here, you will see the players who are defining how the blockchain industry will shape our lives
4. Boiler Room (2000)
Written and directed by Ben Younger, this is a 2000 American crime drama film that tells the story of a nineteen-year-old college dropout turned broker at the turn of the millennium in New York. The movie shows Seth Davis (acted by Giovanni Ribisi), a 19-year-old Queens College dropout, running an illegal casino in his apartment.
To impress his disapproving father, Seth joins J.T. Marlin, a suburban brokerage firm that uses cold-calling techniques to push questionable stocks to unsuspecting investors. Although Seth quickly becomes successful, he grows uncomfortable with the firm’s unethical practices.
Boiler Room can teach a lot to an aspiring investor. Despite Seth’s newfound wealth, he battles with moral judgment and strained family relationships, as he gets deeper into the world of brokerage malpractices and stock manipulations.
3. The Wolf of the Wall Street (2013)
This 2013 epic American comedy crime film features Leonardo Dicaprio as Jordan Belfort, a greedy and adrenaline-fueled con artist who runs a boiler-room brokerage firm. The movie shows Belfort running his brokerage firm selling worthless penny stocks to unsuspecting investors through cold calling and other unethical practices. Belfort gets very rich in no time and lives a lavish lifestyle, with drugs and women, until one day, the FBI comes knocking, and his world turns upside down.
The movie shows how success without ethics is ultimately empty and short-lived — in spite of his wealth, Belfort’s life turned for the worse due to drug addiction and legal troubles. On the positive side, the movie shows how sheer determination can shift the odds of success in one’s favor.
2. Margin Call (2011)
Written and directed by J. C. Chandor, Margin Call is an American drama film that chronicles a 24-hour period at a major Wall Street investment bank during the start of the 2008 financial meltdown. The movie features Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany, Jeremy Irons, Zachary Quinto, Penn Badgley, Simon Baker, Mary McDonnell, and Demi Moore.
Margin Call portrays behind-the-scene operations of Wall Street at a time of intense pressure. It starts with a risk analyst figuring out the impending financial crisis and alerting the firm of their imminent danger of collapse due to overleveraged assets. A series of meetings ensues where both stakes and emotions run high, in a bid to save their firm. Some of the key lessons in the movie are the danger of overleveraging and the importance of risk management.
1. Wall Street (1987)
A 1987 American crime drama film, Wall Street is an iconic stock market movie that showcases the activities of a stockbroker. Directed by Oliver Stone and written by Oliver Stone and Stanley Weiser, the movie tells the story of Bud Fox, an ambitious young stockbroker who becomes involved with Gordon Gekko, a rich and unscrupulous corporate raider.
Seduced by Gekko’s world of power and wealth, Bud embraces insider trading and other unethical practices. But as Bud sees more and more success, he is burdened by moral issues that force him to consider his values and loyalties. The movie shows how greed can motivate people but eventually lead to their downfall.
It has been over three decades since the movie was made, but its story is evergreen and still entertaining. Although it warns about the dangers of insider trading and hedonism in financial trading, those are the very things that attract traders and brokers to Wall Street.