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The pre-release buzz is true: This is not your father’s financial crisis movie. Nor, for that matter, is it “ The Wolf of Wall Street .” The money masters of the universe depicted in this film—and while their stories are interconnected, their lives are not, necessarily—barely drink a sufficient amount of red wine to get a good buzz on. Their buzz derives from an enhanced sense of smell. The closest to a “ Wolf ”-like character here is Ryan Gosling ’s Jared Vennett, the most standard-issue suit-and-tie banking bro of the bunch, and part of his schtick is to stand in a conference room sniffing ostentatiously because, yes, he smells money.

The money smelt, and earned, by the adventurers of this story of the real-life 2008 world economic meltdown is arguably tainted by bad karma. Based on a book by Michael Lewis , “The Big Short” is about how several traders and hedge fund managers made fortunes because they saw that the housing market’s decline would cause a collapse of bonds contrived from sub-prime mortgages. The terminology is both dry and dizzying, the machinations incredibly convoluted. The main thesis of the story, adapted for the screen by director Adam McKay and his co-screenwriter Charles Randolph , is that as banking became the top industry of the United States, bankers deliberately concocted Byzantine financial tools whose main function was to help the rich get richer and screw over the little guy. You can expect a lot of pushback against this film of the “where do these affluent Hollywood types get off criticizing income inequality” but that won’t mean the movie is wrong.

And it really is quite a movie: entertaining and engaging, but also mortifying; a good alternate title might be “American Horror Story.” The film intertwines three discrete storylines. The first focuses on Christian Bale ’s Michael Burry, a trained physician with very stunted social skills whose genius at analysis and numbers-crunching found him running a very successful West Coast hedge fund. After finding some terrifying data within the structures of a large number of mortgage bonds, he concocts a radical idea: to “short,” that is, bet against, the housing bond market, which the banks have puffed up as being unassailable. To do this he has to convince those banks to create a new financial tool, a kind of bond insurance policy. If Burry’s right and the market collapses, he and his hedge fund make stupid money. But for as long as the market stays stable, Burry and his fund are obliged to pay stupid money in premiums.

McKay is best known as the director of such comedic fare as “Anchorman,” and, for all the silly self-reflexive humor in those films, there’s a sly underlying intelligence animating them, and here that takes the form of celebrity cameos wherein attractive people such as Margot Robbie and Selena Gomez directly address the audience with cogent and colorful explanations of terms such as “sub-prime.” He also enlists “Anchorman” rep company member Steve Carell for one main role, as financial Prophet of Doom Mark Baum, whose own fund gets a whiff of what Gosling’s character is smelling and takes a piece of the action, in a partial fit of “screw the system” indignation. Carell’s self-torturing character is likely the closest thing this movie has to a directorial surrogate. Finn Wittrock and John Magaro play a couple of Jim Henson’s Hedge Fund Babies, mentored by Brad Pitt ’s Ben Rickert. Rickert’s character can be read as something of a slight sendup of Pitt’s own current do-gooder persona; he’s a former master trader who left the game out of disgust, and who preaches a hippie-ish quasi-survivalist gospel to his two young acolytes even as he helps them get pretty much super-rich.

I started off feeling skeptical about this movie: the hairstyles and clothes of the main characters were more ‘90s music-video than early 2000s, and the sometimes-color-desaturated flashbacks to some characters’ back stories were a little on the drearily commonplace side. But the narrative momentum, combined with the profane wit of much of the dialogue, and the committed acting going on beneath the hairpieces, all did their job. And they got across the angry, pessimistic conviction behind the movie, which is that the major banks all engaged in fraudulent, criminal activity, and that the U.S. government bailed them out at the expense of the little guy, and that there’s no indication that the banks aren’t going to do something like the exact same thing all over again. You are free to disagree. But this is a movie that uses both cinema art and irrefutable facts to make its case. It’s strong stuff.

Glenn Kenny

Glenn Kenny was the chief film critic of Premiere magazine for almost half of its existence. He has written for a host of other publications and resides in Brooklyn. Read his answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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The Big Short (2015)

Rated R for pervasive language and some sexuality/nudity.

130 minutes

Christian Bale as Michael Burry

Brad Pitt as Ben Rickert

Ryan Gosling as Jared Vennett

Steve Carell as Mark Baum

Melissa Leo as Georgia Hale

Karen Gillan as Evie

Marisa Tomei as Cynthia Baum

Tracy Letts as Lawrence Fields

Finn Wittrock as Jamie Shipley

John Magaro as Charlie Geller

Rafe Spall as Danny Moses

Hamish Linklater as Porter Collins

Byron Mann as Mr. Chau

Al Sapienza as Dan Detone

Jeremy Strong as Vinny Daniel

Michael Lewis
Charles Randolph

Director of Photography

Barry Ackroyd
Brent White
Nicholas Britell

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The Big Short Reviews

Headlined by a star-studded cast, this legitimate must-see film tip-toes audaciously between biting satire and topical cautionary tale. You won't know whether to be pissed or be entertained and that's a powerful quality to pull off.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Feb 16, 2024

'The Big Short' is the film that we needed at this time.

Full Review | Aug 27, 2023

Trying to keep up with all of the fast market talk and financial blather wore me down. And there’s so much emphasis on it that the movie comes off as overstuffed and missing the human element which would have given it a more powerful punch.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 19, 2022

McKay's defiant treatment just barely avoids becoming so irreverent that its sense of humor overshadows its significance.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 25, 2022

Both annoying and effective as McKay manages to simultaneously inform and talk down to his audience.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 15, 2021

The filmmakers do their best to bring this crisis and its human dimensions to life.

Full Review | Feb 26, 2021

Though presented as a jet black, indeed a cold-hearted, satire, it's concerned with reminding American audiences in particular just how close they came to economic Armageddon.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 14, 2021

Subtle it's not, but the director's use of pop culture images and music to set the scene goes a long way to establish a time, place and tone.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Feb 3, 2021

It manages to illuminate how the economic failure occurred with scathing wit and highly-stylized editing that keeps you on your toes.

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10 | Jan 30, 2021

The Big Short is both the defining film about the most recent financial crisis and the defining film of its director's young career so far.

Full Review | Jan 7, 2021

The Big Short is a remarkable piece of cinema and nothing seems to change.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Dec 23, 2020

Even a talented cast cannot make this labyrinthine topic fully understandable unless the viewer is already modestly familiar with the subject matter.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 16, 2020

There isn't a sense of winning or losing - merely weathering the periods of time when the villainy of banks and the government are at their most extreme.

Full Review | Original Score: 7/10 | Dec 4, 2020

The Big Short is as informative, insightful and innovative as it is drop dead entertaining.

Full Review | Oct 27, 2020

The Big Short keeps the narrative popping for a wealth of the run time.

Full Review | Apr 7, 2020

The standout, however, is Steve Carell's righteously angry Baum. Carell was primarily known as a comic actor, but he's been moving towards drama for a while now...

Full Review | Feb 13, 2020

McKay's masterful sendup of late-stage capitalism will leave you saying, "Never again!"

Full Review | Jan 13, 2020

Smart, funny, scary, ingeniously populated and a rollicking good time, The Big Short was such a left-field bolt from the blue and an enormously entertaining few hours in the cinema.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Sep 5, 2019

Steve Carell, Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling and Brad Pitt lead an ensemble cast firing on all cylinders.

Full Review | Aug 8, 2019

Teems with self-awareness about the complexity of Wall Street while using that opportunity to inject dark humor into what's otherwise a frighteningly bleak reality.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.75/5 | Jul 20, 2019

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The Big Short — film review: ‘Barbed, often brilliant’

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Nigel Andrews

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As an FT film critic I’d be writing at greater length about The Big Short if the film hadn’t already been taken to its heart by the pink paper. I repeat in the UK what a colleague pronounced from the US opening . This is a barbed, often brilliant comedy drama, directed and co-scripted (with Charles Randolph) by Adam Anchorman McKay from Michael Lewis’s same-name book about the build-up to the banking crisis.

Lewis’s “heroes just for one day” — to give them a Bowie benediction — were the rebel brokers who bet against the banks in the prelude to 2008. They detected the death bug in Wall Street’s culture of derivatives, CDOs and institutionalised fraudulence. A film on this subject could still have gone wrong, even with actors such as Christian Bale (superb), Ryan Gosling, Steve Carell and Brad Pitt. It does go wrong, a little, with Pitt. When you’re an actor/producer/demigod you just have to give yourself the first pious speech out of the film’s trap.

Later the pious speeches start multiplying. But audiences should disregard deathbed contritions. Before it gets saintly The Big Short is a big, clever chortle, full of sardonic insights into a time of woe. And with these characters they’re insider insights.

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[Note: This is a re-post of our review from the AFI Film Festival; The Big Short opens today in select cities]

The Big Short —which concerns four groups of traders who discovered that the housing loans that held up most of the economy were actually built on a series of repackaged, unchecked, awful loans that created the potential for the collapse of the world economy—is the first dramatic film for Adam McKay ( Anchorman, Step Brothers ). It might seem like an odd choice for him to direct but, after initially stumbling out of the gate, it works magnificently. McKay treats The Big Short as vital cinema and it becomes vital cinema. It's inventive, it's funny, and it enrages. But most importantly, it informs.

Ultimately, this shouldn't be a surprise. McKay added animated graphics to the closing credits of his Will Ferrell - Mark Wahlberg buddy cop comedy, The Other Guys , that highlighted the vice that the wealthy use to put the screw to the average American. Despite being educational, it felt out of place because it didn't fully fit the project. McKay's impulse to include that at the end of The Other Guys is but one piece of evidence that the director actually wants to inform the American people about how badly they're getting screwed by financial systems. The Big Short is the exact story that McKay needs to tell. He is passionate about the subject and The Big Short is exciting, passionate filmmaking.

McKay wants to entertain you, sure, but he also wants you to understand every building block that allowed the market to crash. Big banks have mega forms for their loans that allowed this to happen and McKay breaks down the labyrinth of mumbo-jumbo via fourth-wall explanations. He's aware that this could very well happen again—because only one person ever went to jail for the fraud that created the economic collapse of the entire world—unless citizens are better informed about how it happened. The banks assume you can't understand it and—after being bailed out—they're already creating new terms for the same schemes that caused the mess to begin with.

How does McKay take descriptions of sub-prime loans, CODs, etc. and turn it into bankable entertainment? The same way comic books are becoming the most bankable cornerstone of the film market: world-building. To build that world he has one of the traders, the unreliable one, Jared Vennett ( Ryan Gosling ) repeatedly break the fourth wall to explain just how unchecked banks had become. Vennett (whose name was changed from Michael Lewis' book to be more of a composite character) is over-tanned, over-caffeinated and represents the douchey trader of the 21st century. He flashes back to the 1970s to a time when banking was not lucrative or exciting and just involved forms, until one loan broker came up with a scheme to lump housing loans together—preying on the American Dream of owning your own home—and sell them to bidding firms. Once outside entities start making money with the banks through this scheme neither side, of course, can be fully quenched when they make money hand over fist. Inevitably, the bundling scheme starts to create sub-bundles and sub-bundles of loans that get worse and worse, but goes it unchecked by boards who are supposed to monitor the activity because they themselves are worried of losing the bank's business.

Actually, I don't need to explain any of this, because the movie carefully does. It's a big set-up and McKay does the immense opening as a collage. It's a motif that's repeated throughout The Big Short —mixing clips of abundant wealth contrasted with destitution and "For Sale" signs—that McKay does much differently than most filmmakers would. McKay inserts pop culture blips—such as a Britney Spears interview, Polyphonic Spree 's softened cover of an angry Nirvana song, iPhone packaging, viral YouTube videos, etc.—as a reminder of all the noise that we obsess over that diverts our attention away from the corrupt systems of the world, and helps it go unchecked for far too long. McKay also uses pop culture figures to directly define economic terms to the audience that they need to know in order to become as angry as they should. Gosling's Vennett introduces three different types of pop culture stars, I won't say who because it spoils the surprise (but I will say, no, McKay doesn't use frequent collaborator and co-producer Will Ferrell). It's cute, it's entertaining, it's funny, but it's also a brilliant choice of McKay's to understand that his audience will be more likely to listen to a pop culture phenomenon than they will a balding economic professor. This approach also has a cutting parallel to McKay's collage motif: what if pop culture actually gave us information we could use?

Information we can use is the passionate angle that McKay takes, but this isn't a documentary. McKay has a big cast of stars. And although this is an ensemble piece, they rarely act against each other. The Big Short follows four groups of "weirdos" who discovered the data that banks were hiding and decided to buy up all these awful loans to wager on their failure and the collapse of the government. With the exception of one story, these weirdos didn't work together, and although it'd be great to see these actors riff off each other, McKay thankfully doesn't force the story to overlap more than it did in real life.

The wager against sub-prime loans began with hedge fund manager Michael Burry ( Christian Bale ), an awkward genius who has a glass eye, no social skills, calms down by blasting death metal, sleeps on the floor of his office and makes millions and millions of dollars for his clients by finding trends so early there isn't even a trend yet. Burry also has a clause in his contract that can keep any of his clients from bailing ship because he needs all of their investments to move the market in the way that he predicts. He is the first person to wager millions of people's money against the banks by gobbling up their worst loan packages (which are given handsome percentages by the banking regulators because they're all in bed together).

Vennett hears of Burry's purchases while other traders are out celebrating their supposed easy money from Burry (the lunatic!) and he sets out to find other hedge fund managers who will wager against his very own bank (Vennett also informs us that he never would hang out with these Wall Street douchebags, his real friends are in fashion). This leads him to Mark Baum ( Steve Carell ), who believes the entire system is corrupt, is pissed off at the world, and after hearing Vennett's pitch (visualized via Jenga!), wants to believe that Wall Street and the banks are actually this stupid. He's in.

The fourth party, McKay hilariously introduces using a faked aha moment, when two garage startup financiers who've struck it big ( Finn Wittrock , John Magaro ) stumble upon Vennett's plan in a bank lobby and then directly tell the audience that's not how they discovered the info, but it's more cinematic for them to feel closer to the other members of the movie. It's meta as hell, but now that we're in the prestige true story calendar portion of movies, it's a gleeful nudge from McKay—in his first drama—to point out moments that are either staged or actually happened and seem too real to believe. The two young traders use a retired trader who despises the Wall Street system, but can't get it out of his own system because he's so damned good at it ( Brad Pitt ).

The Big Short covers a lot of ground. It takes a little while, but once you get used to the jittery camerawork, the collage mosaic, and are properly set up within this world, it's very entertaining. But it also punches you in the gut over and over again. After hearing two hotshot traders talk about the low income people they prey on so that they can continue to keep pumping out loans—Baum steps aside and asks his coworker why they're confessing. The response? "They're not confessing, they're bragging."

There's so much smugness and disgusting bragging from the bankers in The Big Short that you do indeed root for these four groups, even though they're hypocritically attempting to make money off of the collapse of an economic system. It's Pitt's old hand who reminds the younger traders the actual implications of what they're doing, how many people will become unemployed around the world if their predictions actually come true. He asks them not to dance, not to high five when they cash in on the banks failure, it makes them no better than the banks; smarter, sure, but if they're aware of the implications perhaps they'll be better off.

The actors all excel. Bale is committed to mannerisms, Gosling is very funny, Pitt is the proper balance of excited and depressed by numbers and money, but it is Carell who steals the movie and is given the biggest character outside of the schemes. He has a backstory of losing a brother to suicide, and he has a heartbreaking line of only offering his brother money as a way to make his life better. There are so many gems in The Big Short that I haven't been able to touch on (and a few falters, such as Bale's early flashbacks, some over-emphasis of fluid camerawork can make the dialogue harder to process, etc.), but the biggest takeaway is that McKay does something magnificent with The Big Short because he too is horrified by the system. And he wants us to understand it as best we can. There are laughs, there is tragedy, but The Big Short is that rare movie that uses popular culture to direct our attention to something far more important.

the-big-short-poster-steve-carrell-christian-bale

Christian Bale

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The big short.

Common Sense Says
Parents Say 7 Reviews
Kids Say 17 Reviews

Common Sense Media Review

Finance dramedy turns complex ideas into gripping cinema.

Parents Need to Know

Why Age 16+?

Frequent swearing throughout, mainly "f--k," "a--hole," and

A few scenes that take place in strip clubs feature topless/half-dressed women.

Many well-established financial companies are mentioned, including Goldman Sachs

Several scenes are set in bars, restaurants, and nightclubs where people are dri

Heated exchanges between people who are losing lots of money. References to pers

Any Positive Content?

Mixed messages; the characters profit hugely as the economy crumbles, but their

Although they bet against the housing market and reap huge gains as the economy

Frequent swearing throughout, mainly "f--k," "a--hole," and "s--t."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Many well-established financial companies are mentioned, including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Countrywide, Bank of America, JPMorgan, and more, with a special focus on Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers. Mac and Dell computers, BlackBerry and Nokia mobile devices, Bloomberg terminals. Discussion of the high-end restaurant Nobu. Caesar's Palace.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Several scenes are set in bars, restaurants, and nightclubs where people are drinking. Some sequences show people celebrating big financial deals with liquor.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Violence & Scariness

Heated exchanges between people who are losing lots of money. References to personal loss, including via suicide.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Positive Messages

Mixed messages; the characters profit hugely as the economy crumbles, but their story also shows how It's tough to be the first person to realize something important, because everyone else will be convinced you're mistaken or crazy. It's also hard to stand by your position in the face of consistent opposition; it's all too easy to start to doubt yourself.

Positive Role Models

Although they bet against the housing market and reap huge gains as the economy crumbles, the main characters are portrayed as smart enough to realize that something is dangerously amiss in the global financial system, confident enough to place huge bets on their idea, and tough enough to defend a position that was initially losing money, with everyone telling them they're fools.

Parents need to know that The Big Short is based on the bestselling book by Michael Lewis. It follows the story of several investors (played by Christian Bale , Steve Carell , Ryan Gosling , and Brad Pitt ) who were among the first to spot warning signs in the real estate market that triggered the global financial meltdown of 2008. By betting against the housing market, they managed to reap huge gains as the economy crumbled, leaving millions out of work and homeless -- which might make some viewers feel pretty conflicted about rooting for them. There's some raucous drinking, plenty of strong language (mainly "f--k" and "s--t"), and glimpses of topless strippers/exotic dancers in this finance-themed dramedy, which is best suited for adults and older teens. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

Parent and Kid Reviews

Parents say (7)
Kids say (17)

Based on 7 parent reviews

Very important film for all adults

I don’t get bothered by consumerism but if you do and it really ticks you off, i would recommend not seeing this movie if you get bothered by it don’t get bothered by consumerism, i just put too much consumerism so if you do then to know that sort of thing before you watch it, there’s a lot of educational value in this as it follows 3 men who profited from the real estate market collapse and they were the first to predict it and how the big banks at this time tried to cover it up and acted fraudulent and it takes a closer in-depth look into this and great messages about that there’s always opportunities for those willing to look for them, although kids probably won’t be interested in it i was but i am not like most kids, as for sex there’s a 2 scenes that take place in strip clubs that feature topless half naked women but no graphic on screen sex it did have a lot of swearing more than expected when i watched it mostly f**k, s**t, a*****e with 74 uses of f**k, 50 uses of s**t, 7 uses of a*s, what's the story.

The years leading up to the global financial meltdown of 2008 were filled with financial exuberance, as Wall Street firms made billions trading bonds made up of residential mortgages. A handful of investors smelled something amiss, eventually realizing it was all a house of cards that would inevitably crumble. Their bets against these bonds, THE BIG SHORT, eventually paid off hugely -- but only when the entire U.S. economy fell apart, leaving millions homeless and unemployed. Christian Bale , Steve Carell , Ryan Gosling , and Brad Pitt star as the skeptical investors, all based on real people who were featured in Michael Lewis' best-selling book of the same name.

Is It Any Good?

The Big Short is a flashy, quick-witted, and, yes, entertaining film about the housing and banking collapse. But it might just be a little too entertaining, a little too funny for a film that's so sobering. You laugh at all the asides -- and they are funny, though perhaps not all of them were necessary -- and then feel terrible for laughing. (Though we really did enjoy the celebrity-cameo-filled footnotes that explained the dizzying banking and investment maneuvers and products that basically undid the economy.)

Then again, nervous laughter may just be an appropriate response to a movie about how a small group of outsiders identified a weakness in a system high on arrogance and avarice -- a system that, unfortunately, had such weight that, when it toppled, it took so many innocent and not-so-innocent souls with it. Ultimately, The Big Short is whip smart, supported by a script that manages to educate while it amuses. And then there's the powerhouse cast, led by a brilliant Bale as a doctor-turned-hedge-fund-manager who has an ease with numbers and an unease with people.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about greed. Why were so many banks and bankers so eager to keep selling the mortgage bonds that they must have suspected were flawed? Did the huge profits make everything seem acceptable?

How does the film explain very complex financial concepts? Did you learn anything new about Wall Street? Do you think this was an effective way to give viewers a sense of what was happening?

How does this based-on-a-true-story film compare to other movies set in the financial world, including the ones that are all fiction ( Wall Street ) and others that are also based on real events ( The Wolf of Wall Street )? How accurate do you think The Big Short is to what actually happened? Why might filmmakers change some facts?

How is drinking portrayed? Is it glamorized? Do characters face any consequences?

Movie Details

In theaters : December 11, 2015
On DVD or streaming : March 15, 2016
Cast : Brad Pitt , Christian Bale , Ryan Gosling , Steve Carell
Director : Adam McKay
Studio : Paramount Pictures
Genre : Drama
Topics : History
Run time : 130 minutes
MPAA rating : R
MPAA explanation : pervasive language and some sexuality/nudity
Award : Academy Award
Last updated : July 15, 2024

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The Big Short

By Peter Travers

Peter Travers

It sounds like a horror show: a doomsday epic about the 2008 financial crisis and the Wall Street wolves who got rich off it. Gone were the homes, jobs and savings of average Joes. But wait. As directed and written by Adam McKay – the dude behind Anchorman and other giddy hits with Will Ferrell, his partner on the website Funny or Die – The Big Short is hunting bigger game. I’d call it a Restoration comedy for right the fuck now, a farce fueled by rage against the machine that relentlessly kills ethics, and a hell of a hilarious time at the movies if you’re up for laughs that stick in your throat.

Based on the nonfiction bestseller by Michael Lewis, The Big Short is brilliantly constructed by McKay to hit where it hurts. A terrific Christian Bale pulls you right in as Michael Burry, an eccentric neurologist-turned-money-manager who pads around barefoot in his San Jose office, fiddling with his glass eye and banging drums. It’s Burry who figures out that those subprime home loans the banks hand out to bad credit risks are a disaster in the making.

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Wall Street fat cats dismiss Burry as a crank. But not Jared Vennett ( Ryan Gosling ), a Deutsche Bank dealmaker who relishes Burry’s idea to bet against the banks by shorting home loans that are bound to default. Gosling, a virtuoso of verbal sleaze, talks directly to the camera, and he’s volcanically fierce and funny. It’s Vennett who intensifies the big short by partnering with Mark Baum ( Steve Carell ), a hedge-fund manager who runs FrontPoint, a subsidiary of Morgan Stanley. Baum is a hardass. But he knows a good deal when it gets a thumbs-up from his trio of number crunchers (Rafe Spall, Hamish Linklater and Jeremy Strong). Baum is also the only character in the film with a working conscience. Carell is just tremendous, following his Oscar-nominated turn in Foxcatcher with a performance of comic cunning and shocking gravity. Likewise, Brad Pitt finds the disgust in Ben Rickert, a banker who’s paying for his sins by helping the environment – that is, until he uses two young money managers (Finn Wittrock and John Magaro) to bite the hand that fed him.

Camera maestro Barry Ackroyd helps McKay keep the plot in a perpetual spin. When it sails over your head – and it will – McKay drops in celeb explainers, including Selena Gomez, Anthony Bourdain and Margot Robbie. Are you more likely to understand CDOs if a naked Robbie explains them in a bubble bath? Probably not. But who’s complaining? McKay dares greatly by couching his anger in a slapstick tragedy that makes us wish we could see every character in it behind bars. Does the risk pay off? Bet on it.

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The Big Short turns the financial collapse into an angry, funny, sad underdog story

It’s not perfect, but it’s still essential viewing.

by Emily St. James

Steve Carell and Ryan Gosling face off in The Big Short.

By far the most interesting thing about The Big Short is how it gets you to root for catastrophe.

Based on the Michael Lewis book of the same name , the film — which is set between 2005 and 2008 and tells the story of men who saw the financial collapse coming and bet big on it — is by no means perfect. It sometimes feels like an audiovisual assault, pummeling you with information until you cry uncle. But in some ways, that’s the point: Here’s all the stuff that prevented you from noticing the world was about to fall apart. (We’ll have more to say about The Big Short when it opens wide on December 23. It opens in New York and Los Angeles on December 11.)

Director Adam McKay comes from the world of comedy; he’s probably most famous for the Anchorman films . So as you’d expect, the movie is filled with great, hilarious moments and scenes where characters joke around or even dig into the absurdity of their situation. But he also understands how closely twinned humor can be with anger, and as the film goes on — and the apocalypse lurches closer — it gradually drains of anything that might be called leavening.

That’s a clue as to what makes The Big Short so good: It’s filled with contradictions that make it a stronger film. McKay and co-writer Charles Randolph embrace the idea that this movie is going to horrify a lot of people. But in the midst of that reaction, they might also get you to think about how and why Americans value what they value — and what can happen when we don’t check those impulses.

Here are the five contradictions at the heart of The Big Short .

1) This is a feel-good, underdog story about the end of the world

The men The Big Short celebrates didn’t cause the financial crisis. Instead, they had the foresight to know it was coming and bet big on it happening — which meant they ultimately made substantial amounts of money.

These men are played by such Hollywood luminaries as Christian Bale , Steve Carell , Ryan Gosling , and Brad Pitt , the sorts of actors we’re used to rooting for in other films. And indeed, McKay and Randolph structure their screenplay like a traditional underdog story, where the guys nobody believes in come from behind to win the big game. Except in this case, “winning the big game” means that our “heroes” were right, and the world really is about to experience a gigantic financial collapse.

This aspect of the film has earned plenty of criticism. Is The Big Short asking you to cheer for monsters? When I watched it, I experienced a disquieting feeling right around the middle of the movie: I was excited for something to happen that would ruin the lives of millions (including past me), simply because McKay and Randolph had so skillfully aped something like Rocky .

But I think this is key to what makes The Big Short work. For one thing, it doesn’t focus on the architects of the crisis. Instead, it uses those who saw it coming to argue that many of the people who caused the crisis didn’t even realize what they were doing. That’s an inherent imbalance in the system, and it makes sense to want to see it undone.

What’s more, the “underdog” setup is central to the film’s most core idea. The narratives we most often sell to ourselves as Americans — including ideas like capitalism is always a great thing and should be allowed to run pretty much unchecked, or gutsy underdogs are the best kinds of heroes — are narratives we need to examine more closely. Sometimes the underdog is betting on something that will destroy lives.

2) The Big Short is about finance, but it’s shot like a Bourne film

At its best, The Big Short feels a little like a lost script by the great screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky (who penned Network , among many others), filmed in the style of The Bourne Identity . It’s about something we think of as “boring,” but it aims to code that boring story with the most exciting filmmaking techniques imaginable.

The Big Short feels a little like a lost script by the great Paddy Chayefsky, filmed in the style of The Bourne Identity

McKay utilizes lots of quick, gritty close-ups, and his camera often feels unsteady, especially in the film’s second half, as the men at the center of the story come to believe the system has been rigged against them — and the people of the world.

Hank Corwin ’s editing sometimes feels more like free association than strict point-A-to-point-B storytelling. He’ll drop in a montage of weird pop culture moments from 2006 to remind you of what was keeping us distracted at the time, or he and McKay will toss in a quick sidebar meant to help us better understand a complicated financial concept. Characters speak directly to the camera. Famous people pause the action to explain the poisonous concepts that created the crisis. The Big Short never wants you to be bored — because its message is so urgent.

3) This is a riotous comedy, shot through with anger, that eventually gets really sad

Comedy and anger taste great together. Lewis Black could tell you that, and they’re paired up at the center of many of the greatest satires. But the angry comedy has a bit of a bad reputation, because it’s so, so easy for things to go wrong, and for a film to become a righteous screed that doesn’t know how to stop hectoring the audience.

It's a single, still moment of serene dread amid the chaos

To be sure, it sometimes feels as if McKay and Randolph are poised to tip over into the film equivalent of that guy who rants on Facebook about the horrors of life itself. In the early going, the film is frequently, incredibly funny, especially when focused on Carell’s character, Mark — the closest thing it has to a conscience — and his team of financial outcasts and oddballs, who boast the energy of one of McKay’s other bro comedy ensembles. But as it reaches its midpoint, the characters have grown so strident about what they know must be coming that it can feel a little exhausting.

Fortunately, The Big Short rights itself. Eventually, its humor and anger fade, replaced by frustration, confusion, and sadness. The most memorable shot that McKay and cinematographer Barry Ackroyd cook up comes very late in the film, when Mark realizes how much money he’s made from something that has trampled so many lives. The camera pulls back to a wide view of behemoth Manhattan skyscrapers looming over him; it’s a single, still moment of serene dread amid the chaos that’s meant to make you a little nauseated.

4) There’s lots of tension, even as you know what’s coming

The Big Short acknowledges early and often that the financial system is about to fall to ruin. It knows you know this. It doesn’t try to hide the inevitable or wring false tension from it.

What’s impressive, then, is how much tension the film does find in this scenario, mostly from the characters it’s centered on. Bale, for instance, plays a man named Michael Burry, a hedge fund manager who was one of the earliest to realize what was about to happen to the housing market — and, subsequently, the entire financial system. As Michael bets more and more of his investors’ money on his seemingly quixotic quest, you actually find yourself queasily wondering if everything will fall apart in time to redeem him in the eyes of those who’ve given him money.

Pitt’s character, a disillusioned former Wall Street guy named Ben Rickert, wrings similar tension out of the situation, because he’s not only fairly positive that the system’s going to collapse — he’s pretty sure it’s unsustainable in the long term. Of course, we now know he was right about the former; so far, he hasn’t been right about the latter. But that doesn’t mean he couldn’t be.

5) This is a left-leaning movie about right-leaning heroes

The Wall Street finance genius is the closest thing American fiction has to a truly conservative hero. These types tend to succeed via their own ingenuity and wits, and if anybody’s trying to stop them, it’s usually the government or some regulatory agency contained therein. They earn extra points if everybody thinks they’re wrong for a while before realizing just how right they are.

The film's ultimate villain is the combination of incompetence and stupidity

Yet The Big Short — which celebrates figures exactly like those described above — leans way, way left. It doesn’t argue for the complete and total abandonment of capitalism, but you get the sense that if it had run for another half-hour, it just might have. It wants to recognize the guys who got it right, while also understanding they’re part of a system that, as a whole, got it very, very wrong — and it’s frustrated and angry about how little has been done to fix that system and all of the lives destroyed by it.

Still, the film should be easily enjoyed by those of all political stripes. Its ultimate villain isn’t “the government” or “the evil bankers.” No, its ultimate villain is the combination of incompetence and stupidity; it’s anybody who thinks things can’t change or get worse because it’s convenient to believe as much. And as the movie makes clear, people like that can thrive in any system imaginable, public or private.

The Big Short is, ultimately, an argument that sometimes it’s worth listening to the pessimists and prophets of doom, particularly if they can tell you a joke as they’re predicting the apocalypse.

The Big Short is playing in New York and Los Angeles. It will be everywhere December 23.

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The Big Short Review

14 Jan 2016

The Big Short

How do you make the financial crisis compelling? The challenge has largely defeated filmmakers. They’ve tried the personal tragedy ( 99 Homes ), the documentary ( Inside Job ) and the ultra-serious recreation ( Margin Call ) — and while all had their strengths, they barely touched audiences not already interested in the disaster. But Adam McKay may have a better approach, by emphasising not just the criminality of the system but also its absurdity.

From the off, McKay bends over backwards to make this digestible. Ryan Gosling’s breezy, arch narration casually ignores the fourth wall, and the cast is packed with charismatic superstars. Christian Bale is Michael Burry MD, the antisocial hedge fund manager who first sees the rot at the heart of the mortgage derivatives market. Soon Steve Carell’s furious Mark Baum and his team take interest, partnering up with Gosling’s wheeler-dealing Jared Vennett. They’re followed by novice investors Jamie Shipley (Finn Wittrock) and Charlie Geller (John Magaro) — who are in turn guided by Brad Pitt’s eccentric Ben Rickert. The film swings fluidly between these three main groups, never pausing enough to drag.

This is the best film yet to tackle the biggest financial disaster since 1929.

To dissect the more technical aspects of the crash, McKay cuts to silly little skits with yet more big names. Margot Robbie, in a bubble bath, explains derivatives, while Anthony Bourdain cooks up a storm that parallels the bankers cooking the books. It still can’t make everything simple — these financial models were designed to be impenetrable — but the tongue-in-cheek approach offers a strong beginner’s guide. McKay also never loses sight of the fact that financiers are socially maladroit nerds who only think they’re masters of the universe, “like someone burst a piñata full of white guys who are bad at golf”, as one character puts it.

There’s an obvious limitation in the fact that the film’s protagonists are part of the system; even as they see the crash coming, their aim is to cash in rather than prevent it. But compared to the reckless, grasping men who wrecked all our finances, they seem paragons of honour and probity — especially when their brilliant schemes become weights around their necks as the system stumbles on.

Though occasionally scrappy and arguably over-long, this is the best film yet to tackle the biggest financial disaster since 1929. It informs and outrages us without resorting to Michael Moore-style haranguing, and if it can just find a mass audience, could finally inspire some change.

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Wall Street is not going to like the 'Big Short' movie

"The Big Short" debuted at the Ziegfeld Theater in Midtown Manhattan on Monday evening, and Wall Street is not going to like it.

It's not because the movie makes Goldman Sachs bankers look super obnoxious, or that the whole narrative of the film is, "Blame the banks!"

Wall Street won't like it because ultimately the movie is a poorly executed explainer of the 2007-2008 financial crisis.

I had high expectations going in that the film would be one of my favorite Wall Street-themed movies to date, given that it's based on Michael Lewis' best-selling book by the same title, one of the best books about the crisis.

The trailer is awesome. The cast is made up of some of the best actors in Hollywood, including Academy Award winner Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, and Brad Pitt . And the acting is stellar.

"The Big Short" is a remarkable, mostly true story that chronicles a group of Wall Street outsiders who saw what no one else saw coming — the housing crash. This group made millions betting against subprime housing by buying up credit-default swaps on mortgage bonds.

But what ruined the experience for me was when the movie would cut to bizarre, comedic monologues in which a random celebrity would attempt to explain a piece of financial jargon.

One featured "Wolf of Wall Street" star Margot Robbie in a bubble bath explaining what it means to "short" something.

Another featured celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain cutting up three-day-old fish for a seafood stew while explaining how banks repackaged crappy mortgages into bonds. Even pop singer and actress Selena Gomez made an appearance — alongside economist Richard Thaler — going over how a collateralized debt obligation works while playing blackjack in Las Vegas.

Of course, reading about credit-default swaps and collateralized debt obligations is difficult enough, and even Lewis seemed surprised that someone wanted to make a movie about the book.

"One problem I distinctly did NOT worry about when I wrote The Big Short was how to write it so that it would become a movie. Who'd make a movie about credit-default swaps? Who for that matter would make a movie of any book of mine?" Lewis recently wrote in Vanity Fair .

But these scenes took away from the story, and while you need to find a fun way to explain something that seems incredibly complicated to the masses, this tactic missed the mark for me.

It was still a great night, and except for Bale, all the stars were there.

We've included some photo highlights of the evening below.

From left, actor Finn Wittrock, author Michael Lewis, actors Jeremy Strong and Steve Carell, director Adam McKay, actor Ryan Gosling, chairman and CEO of Paramount Pictures Brad Grey, and actors Brad Pitt and John Magaro.

Carell played FrontPoint Partners hedge fund manager Mark Baum, a character based on the real-life Steve Eisman.

Gosling played Deutsche Bank trader Jared Vennett, based on the real-life Greg Lippmann.

Pitt played ex-banker Ben Rickert, based on real-life Ben Hockett.

Wittrock played Jamie Shipley of Brownfield Capital, a "garage band hedge fund." His character is based on the real-life Jamie Mai of Cornwall Capital.

Magaro played Brownfield Capital's Charlie Geller, based on the real-life Charlie Ledley of Cornwall Capital.

Byron Mann played CDO fund manager Mr. Chau, based on the real-life Wing Chau.

McKay with Lewis and Pitt.

There were bona fide Wall Streeters at the premiere too. Here is Vincent "Vinny" Daniel, one of Eisman's traders at FrontPoint Partners.

And here is Dr. Michael Burry, the founder of Scion Capital.

Here's the new trailer:

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The Big Short Turns the Financial Meltdown Into a Heist Comedy

How do you make an exuberant comedy about the financial apocalypse of 2008 that also manages to elucidate — with documentary-like rigor — the labyrinthine fraud at the heart of the U.S. economy? It’s a challenge that the director Adam McKay leaps to in The Big Short ( see our story here ), which he adapted (with Charles Randolph) from Michael Lewis ’s book on the collapse of the subprime-mortgage market. It’s a rollicking bad time!

McKay invents his own glorious goofball syntax: part business thriller, part stand-up comedy, with a liberal dash of NPR didacticism — as in the Peabody-winning “This American Life” episode “The Giant Pool of Money.” He has a master of ceremonies in Ryan Gosling ’s Deutsche Bank slickster Jared Vennett (based on Lewis’s portrait of Greg Lippmann), who buttonholes the camera, explains how bankers went from “losers” to hotshots, and introduces characters like the misfit San Jose money manager Michael Burry ( Christian Bale ) and voluble New York hedge-fund manager Mark Baum ( Steve Carell ), both of whom bet against a booming housing market built on bad loans. Vennett stops the show for “explainer” sidebars that are the movie’s glory: celebrities who spell out what’s meant by such concepts as “mortgage-backed securities,” “collateralized-debt obligations” (CDOs), and “extrapolation bias.” It’s important to follow along: The more you can cram into your mind, the more your mind will be blown by the titanic scope of the greed and illogic.

The film’s various heroes ignore conventional wisdom and risk everything for what they believe, and we root for them: We love to identify with mavericks, even (maybe especially) if in real life we follow the herd. But in this case there’s a brilliant, nasty paradox at work. When we root for each man to be proved right and make a killing on cascading defaults, we’re actually rooting for global economic collapse and the loss of our own money. We go, Yes! They did it!!! They’re rich!!! And then: Oh. Shit. It’s both a great narrative strategy — Why would we want to identify with us, the patsies? — and a window like no other into How Things Work in the infernal machine that is 21st-century capitalism.

To be fair, these men didn’t create said infernal machine; they only recognized and profited from it. Bale’s Burry (the only real name among the film’s protagonists) is a socially awkward (on the Aspergian end of the spectrum) ex-neurologist who bops around his office-playroom waving a pair of drumsticks. He’s the one who gets it first, who flies to New York to buy “shorts” from bankers who shoot stunned glances at one another while thinking, Sure, we’ll take your hundred million, heh-heh. Easy money! Bale plays him sweet and earnest, in his own world of impersonal projections, incapable of lying but seemingly untroubled by the morality of his investment: He’s only fazed when the market doesn’t collapse at the precise instant he knows it should, when it continues to be propped up by delusional thinking and he has to hold out against bosses who think he’s destroying their firm. Will things go to hell in time to save his investment? Fingers crossed!

It’s Carell’s Baum (based on Steve Eisman) who’s divided against himself, in it to win it but aghast at the chicanery and shortsightedness and the prospect of economic Armageddon. He still — as Vennett notes, with sadness and derision — has faith in the system. Baum’s brother (also in finance) jumped off a skyscraper, and he can’t shrug off the real-world consequences of what he does. Before making a deal with Vennett, Baum leads his team to Florida, where for sale signs and idle bulldozers dot suburban neighborhoods with their empty McMansions. What shocks him even more is the joshing, nihilistic materialism of the young men who collect fat commissions on loans that they know will never be paid back. “They’re not confessing,” says one of Baum’s assistants. “They’re bragging.” Even more appalling is the sequence in which Baum and Vennett travel to Vegas to get a close-up look at the industry packaging the loans. A scene in which Baum quizzes a smug CDO manager (clearly based on Wing Chau, whose libel suit against Lewis was dismissed) ends with one of the few applause lines. Baum hisses: “Short everything this guy has touched!”

Carell’s Baum is capable of sitting still and focusing for short amounts of time but not of keeping his thoughts to himself. He always looks as if he is itchy in his skin and smelling bad things. It’s a wonderful performance—peerlessly antsy. But the whole cast is terrific. Gosling sends up his own ingenuous good looks, and he has a funny, mocking rapport with Jeremy Strong, who radiates hostility as one of Baum’s partners. Finn Wittrock and John Magaro are the film’s other protagonists, a pair of fledgling Colorado investors who get wind of the potential windfall and turn for advice to their old mentor, Ben Rickert — Brad Pitt with a beard in his intellectual, Robert Redford–esque persona. Pitt (who also brought Lewis’s Moneyball to the screen) co-produced The Big Short with Dede Gardner, and, as in 12 Years a Slave, he gets to be the voice of decency, reminding his protégés that their fortunes will be made from the loss of investments, pensions, and houses. He scolds them for dancing.

Although McKay is best known for the slapstick Will Ferrell comedies Anchorman and Stepbrothers, he has also shown a fair amount of political sass. He directed Ferrell in the barbed Broadway hit You’re Welcome, America: A Final Night With George W. Bush, and he closed the 2010 Ferrell–Mark Wahlberg buddy-cop comedy The Other Guys with a chart of bonuses paid to executives at financial companies taking government bailouts. Reviewing that film, I wrote, “Maybe instead of another buddy-cop movie they ought to have made a comedy about an SEC dummy.” This is close! Dr. Who vet Karen Gillan flexes her mile-long gams as the blithely unconscientious Securities and Exchange Commission agent with a yen for finance types — not a subtle character. More fascinatingly weird is Melissa Leo as the blinkered little Standard & Poor’s analyst who’s taken aback when Baum calls her out for giving triple-A ratings to triple-Z loans. “If we don’t give [the banks] what they want,” she explains, “they will go to Moody’s.”

The Big Short ends with some pointed editorializing about the lack of consequences for the fraudsters who cost the country trillions, and I was going to complain about the movie turning preachy … until I remembered having dinner in 2009 or thereabouts with some far-right-wing friends of my parents. The problem, they explained, was that the government had forced banks to give loans to minorities and immigrants. The problem was too much regulation. These are not the sort of people who’d see the director Charles Ferguson’s Inside Job or any pinko documentary. But maybe they’ll see this nutty, whooshy comedy (the best film of the year? Possibly …) and choke on their popcorn. McKay’s way of spinning this story gets us where we live.

*This article appears in the November 30, 2015 issue of New York Magazine .

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the big short
michael lewis
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The Big Short

As Ryan Gosling ’s character lays out bluntly in the early scenes of director Adam McKay ’s The Big Short , normal people aren’t really meant to fully understand the financial world. The industry is filled with all kinds of strategies and programs with names that sound like they were pulled out of a hat, and the idea is to confuse you so that you’ll just leave all of your business in the hands of an advisor – who may or may not just use your money to get themselves rich and be happy to leave you in the poor house. One could argue that it’s this particular aspect of the system that The Big Short aims to entirely upend and destroy, and the film does just that – presenting an engaging true story that’s brought to life with fantastic performances and is as entertaining as it is educational about the economic crisis that hit the country like a bus seven years ago.

Based on the book of the same name by Michael Lewis – whose source material brought us the awesome Moneyball a few years ago – the film is built around an ensemble of characters who never actually interact, but are all connected through the fact that they saw the collapse of the housing market coming before anyone else did. This is a group of weirdos and bizarre individuals, including the socially inept Dr. Michael Burry ( Christian Bale ), the rage-fueled Mark Baum ( Steve Carell ), the egotistical Jared Vennett (Ryan Gosling) and the young, inexperienced duo of Jamie Shipley and Charlie Geller (Finn Wittrock, John Magaro). Each of them discovers the terrible truth behind the housing market from a different angle – learning that the entire system is being propped up on bad loans that are all but guaranteed to fail – and over the course of several years, all essentially invest in the explosion of a ticking time bomb.

There is obviously an overly-dramatic version of this movie that could have been made, but the greatest asset of The Big Short is the blended tone approach provided by Adam McKay, who also co-wrote the script with Charles Randolph. The filmmaker takes what could be dry-as-toast material about Collateralized Debt Obligations and smartly applies his impressive comedic acumen to get it all across in an entertaining way. Long before it even has a chance of losing the audience, Short grabs them with some impressive fourth-wall breaking that gives the characters opportunities to explain themselves. Perhaps the best moments, however, come when the film breaks away from the narrative altogether, cutting away to Margot Robbie in a bathtub explaining sub-prime mortgages, or Anthony Bourdain comparing CDOs to some nasty seafood stew. It should be noted that learning all of this awful information about the financial system will very likely boil your blood and leave you incensed that nobody saw the collapse coming, but you’ll at least be laughing and smiling before the darker realizations hit.

Equally deserving of praise is also just how non-biased The Big Short manages to be – not pointing fingers at specific people or parties, but instead making you think about the entire governmental system that allowed banks to operate with minimal regulation and let the housing bubble build over the course of multiple decades. There’s a particular level of trust in moviegoers that McKay demonstrates with the film, as he really just does his job to present the facts as true events and follow the stories of the men who saw it all coming. It’s really left to you as a viewer to decide how you feel about all of it – though obviously the bet on the movie’s behalf is that it’s all going to seriously piss you off, and possibly convince you to pay more attention to what’s going on in that arena.

The nature of the narrative isn’t without its pitfalls – specifically that everyone in the audience already knows what happed in 2008, and by extension what happens to all of the main players. But what really keeps you engaged are the fantastic performances from everyone in the ensemble. Though he’s almost entirely isolated in his corner of the story, Christian Bale is fantastic as the oddball Burry and provides The Big Short with some of its best moments as he does extreme levels of research and fights against those in his company who think he’s insane for betting against the housing market. Brad Pitt is also wonderful in what is a more-limited role, playing a former insider turned outsider who gets reluctantly pulled back into the financial world after the soon-to-burst bubble is brought to his attention.

Really, though, it’s Steve Carell’s turn that anchors it all. Mark Baum is not only a good character representation of all the anger that the film generates about the fucked up banking world, but also is the one who makes you realize that the protagonists of the story are not heroes. They’re people who saw a broken system, and ultimately profited from its complete failure (and by proxy the financial ruin of thousands of people). It’s tricky water to navigate, but Carell really pulls it off with an emotional and complex performance.

It’s hard not to be impressed by The Big Short . It tackles complex subject matters with a proportionately complex narrative structure, but with creativity and smart sensibilities that come together as an equally thought-provoking and amusing film. It’s an impressive piece of serious work from the director of Anchorman , and if this is what he can add to the world of prestige films, then I want to see more.

Eric Eisenberg is the Assistant Managing Editor at CinemaBlend. After graduating Boston University and earning a bachelor’s degree in journalism, he took a part-time job as a staff writer for CinemaBlend, and after six months was offered the opportunity to move to Los Angeles and take on a newly created West Coast Editor position. Over a decade later, he's continuing to advance his interests and expertise. In addition to conducting filmmaker interviews and contributing to the news and feature content of the site, Eric also oversees the Movie Reviews section, writes the the weekend box office report (published Sundays), and is the site's resident Stephen King expert. He has two King-related columns.

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DVD & Streaming

The Big Short

Content caution.

In Theaters

December 11, 2015
Christian Bale as Michael Burry; Steve Carell as Mark Baum; Ryan Gosling as Jared Vennett; John Magaro as Charlie Geller; Finn Wittrock as Jamie Shipley; Brad Pitt as Ben Rickert; Hamish Linklater as Porter Collins; Jeremy Strong as Vinnie Daniel; Rafe Spall as Danny Moses; Marisa Tomei as Cynthia Baum

Home Release Date

March 15, 2016

Distributor

Movie review.

The Bible tells us to never build a house on sand: It’s a good way to lose your house.

The Bible doesn’t say anything explicitly about building your house on a bubble, but the same principle would seem to apply. Bubbles just aren’t ideal foundations for stable housing—much less an entire economy built on the back of that housing. But according to The Big Short, a big bubble was in fact the foundation of the United States’ economy for years.

Until the whole thing went pop!

It didn’t start out that way, of course. The element that set the whole bubble rolling—bonds constructed of massive collections of stable, 30-year mortgages—was initially a rock-solid idea. People tend to pay their mortgages, right? So creating an investment that (for lack of a better word) bets people will pay them is like, well, money in the bank.

And the system worked great for a while … until home prices began rising faster than the incomes of the people who bought them. Until banks started letting folks who couldn’t afford a home get a loan for one anyway. Until ratings agencies started automatically stamping all those housing bonds with AAA ratings, even if the bond’s mortgages were more like, um, ZZZ. Until subprime mortgages became all the rage, giving homeowners the ability to pay a little at first … in exchange for a lot later.

By the mid-2000s, everything looked just fine. Home prices continued to rise, and more people owned one than ever before. Nobody was actually looking inside these bonds to see whether they were as solid as supposed. I mean, why spend all your due-diligence time doing that? People pay their mortgages, right?

But then one day, financial wunderkind Michael Burry decided to get under the skin of those little bonds. And what he saw there was … nothing. Nothing solid, anyway—nothing on which the world’s biggest economy should be built on. The promises the bonds made were empty. Just like the thin air that’s in the middle of a bubble.

Michael saw the disaster coming. He knew that the U.S. housing market—nay, the whole global economy—was a couple of years away from spectacularly imploding. Institutions would collapse. People would lose jobs by the millions. It could shake the world in ways not seen since 1929.

And in that moment, Michael knows exactly what he must do: Bet against the world economy. Because sometimes the best time to make a buck is when no one else has a buck to spend.

Positive Elements

Michael and the other subprime characters in The Big Short buy and create, essentially, insurance policies against the mortgage bonds—betting that the bonds will fall “short.” Most invest because that’s what investors do. They’re just looking for ways to make money in the midst of a bad situation. But at least one—Mark Baum—wants to somehow teach the banks, investment houses and the government itself a lesson.

You won’t find a rooting interest beyond that in The Big Short. (And even that one is dubious, partly because it’s exceedingly mysterious as to how it’ll all work, and also given the fact that Mark acts like a big ol’ jerk most of the time.) The financial institutions on the verge of collapse are portrayed as either incredibly inept or downright fraudulent. The “heroes” we’re given are betting, essentially, on a doomsday scenario—a bit like investing in bombs in the hopes that a good-sized war’ll break out somewhere. No one is particularly likable here, much less laudable—and that just might be part of the point.

Spiritual Elements

Growing up, Mark excelled in his Talmudic training—but only because, a rabbi tells Mark’s mother, he’s using it to look for “inconsistencies in the Word of God.” (“Has he found any?” his mother asks.)

Sexual Content

As Mark investigates whether or not to bet against mortgage bonds, he goes on a fact-finding mission to a … strip club. (Turns out one real estate agent targets strippers for his special brand of home loans because they have difficulty getting traditional ones.) In a VIP room, while the mostly unclothed exotic dancer writhes in front of him (her breasts are basically bare), Mark asks about her real estate investments.

Bankers cavort in another strip club, and moviegoers see dancers prance around in thongs and pasties. Bikini-clad women frolic in a Las Vegas pool. One woman flirts with an investment banker, at least in part because she hopes to get a job with his firm. (It’s implied she sleeps with him.)

In one of the movie’s educational segments—which are celebrity-saturated asides explaining the bewildering lingo and complicated concepts integral to the plot—actress Margot Robbie explains mortgage bonds while taking a bubble bath.

Violent Content

Mark’s brother commits suicide by jumping off a ledge. (We see him right before he jumps.) “His face was so smashed,” Mark says. An alligator, swimming in a Florida pool, lunges at a couple of visitors.

Crude or Profane Language

Approaching 100 f-words. About 50 s-words. Also, quantities of “a–,” b–ch,” “h—,” “p—” and “pr–k.” God’s name is misused 10 or so times, thrice with “d–n.” Jesus’ name is abused a half-dozen times.

Drug and Alcohol Content

People smoke cigars or cigarettes. They drink wine, champagne, whiskey and mixed drinks. One investor, when he tries to warn his mother about the impending economic disaster, is told to up his dose of Zoloft and start taking Xanax.

Other Negative Elements

Mortgage investment brokers and other financial gurus gather in Las Vegas for a massive convention, and much of the dialogue takes place in casinos. Selena Gomez uses a blackjack hand to illustrate the concept of a Synthetic CDO. After learning just how dishonest the housing market is, Mark says he wants to find some “moral redemption at the roulette table.”

Someone discusses, in some detail, a deformity he has on his scrotum.

When two young investors, Jamie and Charlie, dance a little jig to celebrate their impending “shorts” windfall, their mentor, Ben, makes them stop. “You just bet against the American economy,” he tells them. If they get rich on this scheme (and they do), it means millions of innocent people will suffer (and they do).

It’s this dissonance that makes The Big Short difficult to watch and, perhaps, impossible to enjoy. When another investor brandishes a $47 million bonus check he received—a direct result of the bursting housing bubble—he turns to the camera and admits, “I never said I was the hero of the story.” He’s not. In this movie, you won’t find any heroes: only different levels of opportunism.

Based on the 2010 Michael Lewis book, The Big Short is an angry movie—and as preachy a film as you’ll see this side of God’s Not Dead. Everything we see—the tremendous acting, the celebrity asides, the heavy-handed symbolism (one employee at Standard & Poor’s who’s been rubber-stamping bonds as AAA-grade investments without much research, comes back from the optomitrist wearing disposable sunglasses and complaining that the dilation makes her nearly blind) is all in the service of a 130-minute sermon lambasting the banking and housing industries.

Which is not to say such organizations don’t deserve it. Certainly a great many things went wrong to spawn the Great Recession, and it seems some lessons should emerge in its wake.

Full disclosure: My working knowledge of high finance begins and ends with the occasional ATM withdrawal, so I’m hardly equipped to say what the movie gets right or wrong in terms of its financial recriminations. But my expertise as a movie reviewer and writer for Plugged In does prepare me to call it a pretty foul piece of work. If these financial wiz-kids dropped cash in a communal swear jar and invested the proceeds in their own get-rich-in-economic-catastrophe schemes, I’m pretty sure they’d double their money. And then there’s the stripper nudity and unrelenting societal pessimism to deal with, too.

For me, the movie’s name really says it all. Sure, it’s a big movie. An important movie, perhaps. But it left me feeling seriously shorted.

Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.

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10 Best Movies Like The Big Short You Need To See

Who actually made money from the crash in the big short (& how much), 11 things that have aged poorly about the star wars prequel trilogy.

The Big Short provides a humorous and accessible way of understanding complex financial concepts related to the 2008 financial crisis.
The film's ending contrasts the success of its main characters with the impact of the crash on real people, serving as a warning for the future.
The epilogue of The Big Short warns that little has been learned from the 2008 crisis, as banks continue to sell high-risk investments similar to the infamous CDOs.

The Big Short does a great job of making complex financial topics accessible to viewers, but the movie’s ending still leaves a few aspects of its true story unexplained. Based on Michael Lewis’s 2010 book about the 2008 financial crisis, Adam McKay's film highlights how some key figures in the world of finance were able to profit from the housing market crash. Following an ensemble cast comprised of Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling, Steve Carell, and Brad Pitt, The Big Short shows how the main characters predicted the crash, and how the fallout of their predictions came to fruition.

Going into The Big Short ’s ending, the U.S. economy is doomed as the 2008 financial crisis becomes inevitable. Though the film's real-life (and some loosely fictionalized) main characters are all able to profit from the crash due to their bets against the market, the victory is bittersweet as they realize the misery that befalls the real people who are affected. The Big Short ’s conclusion contrasts the success of its main characters, the underbelly of the broken economic system, and how the crash impacted U.S. citizens, all while providing a warning for the future.

There are plenty of great movies about finance and business that are just as entertaining and sharply satirical as Adam McKay's The Big Short.

"Bespoke Tranche Opportunity": The Big Short's Epilogue & Warning Explained

Will history repeat itself.

Ryan Gosling as Jared Vennett looking off to the side in The Big Short.

After depicting the collapse that led to the 2008 financial crisis, The Big Short includes an epilogue that covers the fates of the main characters while teasing another potential exploitation of the system like what investors did in 2007.

According to the epilogue, banks began selling billions in a new investment vehicle called “ bespoke tranche opportunities ” in 2015, which The Big Short claims are basically the same as the infamous CDOs . This detail is included as a warning that few, if any, lessons were learned from what happened in 2008, and that history could repeat itself again, this time with the bespoke tranche opportunities.

The Big Short’s Financial Concepts Explained

The complexity of the big short's terms require exploration.

Jamie (Finn Wittrock) and Charlie (John Magaro) dressed in suits walking outdoors in the city in The Big Short

The Big Short follows several key figures who were able to predict and profit off of a crash in the housing market. As such, there are several complex financial terms that are thrown around in the movie by its main characters, which are humorously explained by Margot Robbie and other celebrities the movie. Though incredibly complicated, these financial concepts are crucial to understanding the events that led up to the 2008 financial crisis, which finally sets in during The Big Short 's ending after over two hours of anticipation.

Mortgage Bonds

A mortgage bond is a kind of bond that represents a pool of mortgages bundled into one security , which is then sold to investors. These underlying bonds receive a rating from a credit rating agency based on how “creditworthy” they are, or how likely it is that they will pay back the money.

In the past, these mortgage bonds had been incredibly lucrative, but when banks began to run out of mortgages to put into the mortgage bonds, they began filling the bonds with riskier, “subprime” mortgages, despite still rating them highly. The fact that these mortgage bonds were filled with subprime mortgages is what Christian Bale’s Michael Burry discovered.

Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs)

Another crucial financial element in The Big Short is collateralized debt obligations (CDO). In the finance world, CDOs are complex securities that are created by bundling together various forms of debt — in the case of The Big Short , mortgages — into one product. The film's main characters, namely Michael Burry, Jared Vennett, and Mark Baum, realize that the CDOs are filled with subprime mortgages that are likely to default, which would cause their value to collapse. Betting against these CDOs is how the characters end up profiting at the end of The Big Short .

"Shorting" The Market

One main way that The Big Short ’s characters are able to profit off of the anticipated collapse of mortgage bonds and CDOs is through “shorting” the market. This is when an investor borrows a security from a broker and immediately sells it with the hope of the security’s price decreasing , which would allow them to buy it back at a lower price, give it back to the broker, and keep the difference as their profit.

This is how the main characters profited by betting against the CDOs, and the idea of “shorting” the market is ultimately where the title of the movie comes from.

Credit Default Swap

In The Big Short , credit default swaps are insurance contracts that protect against the default of specific financial products , like mortgage bonds or CDOs. After discovering the instability of the mortgage bonds and CDOs leading up to the 2008 financial crisis, The Big Short ’s main characters all bet against them by purchasing credit default swaps.

These credit default swaps are bought under the assumption that those underlying subprime mortgages will default. When they ultimately do at the end of the movie, the main characters receive the payout from the credit default swaps, which is how they end up accruing such a massive profit.

Why Mark Baum Refused To Sell For So Long

Guilt overcame steve carell's character.

Mark Baum (Steve Carell) looks annoyed in The Big Short

While The Big Short changes aspects of the true story , Steve Carell's character, Mark Baum, is based on a real figure involved in the events. Throughout the end of The Big Short , it’s emphasized that Baum continually refuses to sell his position even though others around his team already are. Even when the collapse of the economy is imminent, Baum holds off on selling until the very last moment of the movie.

In Baum’s eyes, if he sold his position, then he would be no better than those other people, whom he considered “ crooks .”

Baum was one of the main characters who was aware of what was going to happen and who would profit massively from the crash, so it initially seems confusing that he refused to sell. However, the reason he held off on selling for so long speaks directly to the values integral to Mark Baum’s character. The Big Short establishes Baum’s distrust of the system and cynical nature when it came to his job and the people around him, and the 2008 financial crisis exposed to him that the system was even worse than he originally thought.

Upon realizing how the crash would affect real people, Baum was disgusted with the careless actions of his contemporaries in profiting off of others’ miseries . In Baum’s eyes, if he sold his position, then he would be no better than those other people, whom he considered “ crooks .” Not selling until the last moment is how Baum attempted to retain his morality, which it was unfortunately too late for.

Ryan Gosling, Christian Bale, and Steve Carell in The Big Short.

The Big Short highlights a handful of the individuals who benefited from the 2007 housing market crash – read on for how much money they made.

Why Michael Burry Closed His Hedge Fund

Burry faced immense backlash leading up to his massive profits.

Although The Big Short presents Michael Burry as the first person to realize the truth about the faulty mortgage bonds and bet against them, he ultimately closes his hedge fund at the end of the movie. Burry’s decision to close the fund is initially odd considering his heavy involvement in betting against the market against the wishes of his investors. However, some of his rationale for this decision can be gleaned from the email he drafts at the end of the movie.

According to Michael Burry’s email, during the lead-up to the crash, he became burdened by the pressure and backlash caused by his actions, exemplified by his claim that “ All the people I respected won’t talk to me anymore except through lawyers .” Additionally, Burry began to have difficulty reconciling his actions with the impact that the crash he was betting on would have on real people .

The backlash Burry had been receiving as well as the realization that he was profiting off of the despair of real people is ultimately what led him to close down the hedge fund.

The Big Short’s Interjected Images Of Real People Explained

The movie highlights the real victims of the crisis.

People standing in front of a home in The Big Short

Throughout The Big Short , the movie intersperses its scenes with still images of real people. In the rest of the movie, these still images have several functions, such as grounding audiences in the time period of the movie or showing what was happening in the rest of the world while this impending crisis was happening on Wall Street.

...doing this divorces audiences from the actual humans that the collapse of the bonds impacts, which is the sudden realization that both Michael Burry and Mark Baum eventually have.

However, the appearance of these images ramps up significantly toward the conclusion of the movie, giving The Big Short ’s ending a frenetic yet depressing feeling. Though these images could feel random or distracting, their intensified frequency actually has an important meaning.

Given that The Big Short tells the story of the onset of the 2008 financial crisis from the points of view of investors, the emphasis is often put on the CDOs and making profits off of them. However, doing this divorces audiences from the actual humans that the collapse of the bonds impacts, which is the sudden realization that both Michael Burry and Mark Baum eventually have.

Therefore, these interjected images of real people at the end of The Big Short serve as reminders of the impact of the collapse and financial crisis: the real people who lost their jobs and homes as a result of The Big Short ’s events.

Why Kareem Serageldin Was The Only Trader Sent To Jail For The 2008 Financial Crisis

Settlements allowed many bigger offenders to avoid jail.

Kareem Serageldin standing in the street in The Big Short

A narration from Ryan Gosling’s Jared Vennett at the end of The Big Short reveals that despite the widespread knowledge of wrongdoing by banks and investors in the lead-up to the 2008 financial crisis, only one person, Kareem Serageldin, was imprisoned for his actions. Serageldin hid several millions in mortgage bond losses for Credit Suisse, which Vennett notes is “ something most of the big banks did on a good day during the crisis .”

If Vennett’s claim that other big banks were doing the same criminal acts as Serageldin during the crisis, it seems bizarre that he was the only one to suffer the consequences. The reason that Kareem Serageldin was the only trader to be imprisoned for his criminal actions reveals the nefarious nature of Wall Street. As Mark Baum predicted, the banks took taxpayers’ money to reimburse themselves, used real people as scapegoats, and lobbied against big reform.

Additionally, the Department of Justice’s focus on reaching settlements rather than prison sentences meant few received real punishments for their actions . This meant that ultimately, there were no meaningful changes put in place, so many people who facilitated the crisis got out unscathed, except Serageldin.

What Happened To The Real Characters After The Big Short's Ending

The epilogue details the aftermath of their success.

During The Big Short ’s epilogue, the fates of several of the characters after the 2008 financial crisis are revealed. The Big Short states that Mark Baum became incredibly gracious after the 2008 financial crisis, which contrasts with his acerbic persona during the movie. In real life, Mark Baum’s inspiration, Steve Eisman, ended up leaving FrontPoint Partners in 2011 and now serves as a managing director and portfolio manager for the Eisman Group. According to The Big Short , Baum’s staff members continue operating their fund in Manhattan.

The Brownfield Capital team has a fairly bittersweet experience after The Big Short . Jamie Shipley and Charlie Geller attempted to sue the rating agencies without success. In the epilogue, it’s revealed that the two investors eventually parted ways, with Jamie still running Brownfield and Charlie moving to Charlotte to start a family. Brad Pitt’s Ben Rickert returned to enjoying his peaceful retirement after the crash, making his ending one of the few overtly happy ones .

While it’s known that Michael Burry closed his hedge fund at the end of The Big Short , it’s also revealed that he has been audited several times by the IRS as well as questioned by the FBI. In 2013, Burry reopened his hedge fund, now called Scion Asset Management. According to the movie’s epilogue, the little investing that Burry still does is focused on water. In August 2023, it was reported that Burry’s hedge fund had placed bets on a U.S. stock market crash, meaning the history shown in The Big Short could potentially repeat itself .

The Real Meaning Of The Big Short Ending

The victories of the main characters are tainted by the loss of the american people.

Several men yelling at Ryan Gosling's Jared Vennett in a board room in The Big Short

The ending of The Big Short is one that recontextualizes the movie that audiences just watched. For much of the runtime, The Big Short is a fun and exciting story about a group of underdogs who, despite everyone else telling them how wrong they were, found an opportunity no one else could see. It was like a heist movie with these characters setting the stage to get a big payoff in the end. However, when that payoff comes, the result is very different from what audiences usually see in these kinds of caper movies.

While there is some satisfaction in seeing characters like Burry proven right and collecting on those risky bets, The Big Short makes the cost of their victories clear. As Rickert points out, they are betting against the American economy and if they're right it will mean a lot of people's lives will be ruined . That is the sentiment in the final scenes of the movie. The victories are bittersweet, with the main characters understanding that the reality of what has happened is a crisis for many and they just happen to be the few who made it out on top.

The Big Short

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Cast & crew

Nicole Kidman and Harris Dickinson in Babygirl (2024)

A high-powered CEO puts her career and family on the line when she begins a torrid affair with her much younger intern. A high-powered CEO puts her career and family on the line when she begins a torrid affair with her much younger intern. A high-powered CEO puts her career and family on the line when she begins a torrid affair with her much younger intern.

Halina Reijn
Nicole Kidman
Antonio Banderas
Harris Dickinson
1 nomination

Top cast 35

Intern Rose

Giggling Girl

Nude cult member

Uber Driver
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Runtime 1 hour 54 minutes

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COMMENTS

The Big Short movie review & film summary (2015)
The money masters of the universe depicted in this film—and while their stories are interconnected, their lives are not, necessarily—barely drink a sufficient amount of red wine to get a good buzz on. Their buzz derives from an enhanced sense of smell. The closest to a " Wolf "-like character here is Ryan Gosling 's Jared Vennett, the ...
The Big Short
The Big Short is a fast-paced, thrilling movie even though it's mainly built on dialogues. Rated 4.5/5 Stars • Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 07/12/24 Full Review Read all reviews The Big Short ...
Review: In 'The Big Short,' Economic Collapse for Fun and Profit
Dec. 10, 2015. A true crime story and a madcap comedy, a heist movie and a scalding polemic, " The Big Short " will affirm your deepest cynicism about Wall Street while simultaneously ...
The Big Short
Full Review | Jan 7, 2021. The Big Short is a remarkable piece of cinema and nothing seems to change. Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Dec 23, 2020. Even a talented cast cannot make this ...
'The Big Short' Review: Adam McKay's Financial-Crisis Comedy
Film Review: 'The Big Short'. Adam McKay's financial-crisis comedy turns a dense economics lecture into a hyper-caffeinated postmodern farce. By Andrew Barker. Courtesy of Paramount. Of all ...
The Big Short (2015)
"The Big Short," directed by Adam McKay, based on the book by Michael Lewis, was adapted by McKay and Charles Randolph and made its world premiere Thursday, November 12, 2015 at the historic TCL Grauman's Chinese Theater as the closing night film for the latest edition of the American Film Institute's AFI FEST film festival.
The Big Short (film)
The Big Short is a 2015 American biographical crime comedy-drama film directed and co-written by Adam McKay.Co-written by Charles Randolph, it is based on the 2010 book The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine by Michael Lewis showing how the 2007-2008 financial crisis was triggered by the United States housing bubble. [4] The film stars Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, and Brad ...
The Big Short
Review: 'The Big Short', directed by Adam McKay. Lewis's "heroes just for one day" — to give them a Bowie benediction — were the rebel brokers who bet against the banks in the ...
The Big Short Review: Exciting, Passionate Filmmaking
The Big Short is the exact story that McKay needs to tell. He is passionate about the subject and The Big Short is exciting, passionate filmmaking. McKay wants to entertain you, sure, but he also ...
The Big Short
2015. R. Paramount Pictures. 2 h 10 m. Summary When four outsiders saw what the big banks, media and government refused to, the global collapse of the economy, they had an idea: The Big Short. Their bold investment leads them into the dark underbelly of modern banking where they must question everyone and everything. [Paramount Pictures]
The Big Short Movie Review
Our review: Parents say ( 7 ): Kids say ( 17 ): The Big Short is a flashy, quick-witted, and, yes, entertaining film about the housing and banking collapse. But it might just be a little too entertaining, a little too funny for a film that's so sobering. You laugh at all the asides -- and they are funny, though perhaps not all of them were ...
'The Big Short' Movie Review
December 10, 2015. Steve Carell, second from left, and Ryan Gosling in 'The Big Short.'. It sounds like a horror show: a doomsday epic about the 2008 financial crisis and the Wall Street wolves ...
The Big Short turns the financial collapse into an angry, funny, sad
The Big Short never wants you to be bored — because its message is so urgent. 3) This is a riotous comedy, shot through with anger, that eventually gets really sad Comedy and anger taste great ...
The Big Short Review
This is the best film yet to tackle the biggest financial disaster since 1929. To dissect the more technical aspects of the crash, McKay cuts to silly little skits with yet more big names. Margot ...
The Big Short Review
The Big Short has its flaws, but is one of the more unique movies based on non-fiction literature in recent memory.. The Big Short tells the story of different individuals who foresaw the 2007 credit and housing bubble collapse a couple years before the U.S. financial crisis got underway. Scion Capital LLC founder Michael Burry (Christian Bale) is among the first to recognize that mortgage ...
Movie Review: 'The Big Short'
Movie Review: 'The Big Short'. By AINARA TIEFENTHÄLER and ROBIN LINDSAY • December 10, 2015. The Times critic A.O. Scott reviews "The Big Short.".
'the Big Short' Movie Review
The trailer is awesome. The cast is made up of some of the best actors in Hollywood, including Academy Award winner Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, and Brad Pitt. And the acting is ...
The Big Short Turns the Financial Meltdown Into a Heist Comedy
The Big Short ends with some pointed editorializing about the lack of consequences for the fraudsters who cost the country trillions, and I was going to complain about the movie turning preachy ...
The Big Short
This is a group of weirdos and bizarre individuals, including the socially inept Dr. Michael Burry (Christian Bale), the rage-fueled Mark Baum (Steve Carell), the egotistical Jared Vennett (Ryan ...
The Big Short Summary and Synopsis
A fictionalized depiction of the events surrounding the financial crisis of 2007-2008, The Big Short employs narrative techniques such as fourth-wall breaks to succinctly explain financial concepts to its audience, using Michael Lewis's 2010 book as a template. The film features an ensemble cast that includes Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, and Brad Pitt.
The Big Short
"The Big Short" starring Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling is reviewed by Matt Atchity (Rotten Tomatoes), Alonso Duralde (TheWrap and Linoleum Knife...
5 Things You Should Know Before You See "The Big Short"
Anchorman auteur Adam McKay's new film The Big Short based on Michael Lewis's book about a handful of Wall Street sharps who made billions betting on the housing crisis, is filled with explanation. (The movie opens in limited release on Friday, Dec. 11 and goes wide on Dec. 23.) We're not talking about the kind of incidental explanation that gets tucked into the story via implausibly ...
The Big Short
Movie Review. The Bible tells us to never build a house on sand: It's a good way to lose your house. ... The Big Short is an angry movie—and as preachy a film as you'll see this side of God's Not Dead. Everything we see—the tremendous acting, the celebrity asides, the heavy-handed symbolism (one employee at Standard & Poor's who's ...
The Big Short Ending Explained: Oh, So That's Why We're All F*cked
The Big Short does a great job of making complex financial topics accessible to viewers, but the movie's ending still leaves a few aspects of its true story unexplained. Based on Michael Lewis's 2010 book about the 2008 financial crisis, Adam McKay's film highlights how some key figures in the world of finance were able to profit from the housing market crash.
How Similar Is The Big Short to the Real Life Story It's Based On?
The Big Short explores the flawed and corrupt U.S. mortgage market through a group of investors in 2006-2007.; Christian Bale's character is the only main character whose name stays unchanged in ...
Paris Olympics Closing Ceremony: Biggest Moments and Performances
Paris Olympics' closing ceremony delivered a blockbuster show with a Hollywood twist from Tom Cruise, Billie Eilish, Snoop Dogg and more.
Babygirl (2024)
Babygirl: Directed by Halina Reijn. With Nicole Kidman, Antonio Banderas, Harris Dickinson, Sophie Wilde. A high-powered CEO puts her career and family on the line when she begins a torrid affair with her much younger intern.

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The Big Short turns the financial collapse into an angry, funny, sad underdog story

1) This is a feel-good, underdog story about the end of the world

2) The Big Short is about finance, but it’s shot like a Bourne film

3) This is a riotous comedy, shot through with anger, that eventually gets really sad

4) There’s lots of tension, even as you know what’s coming

5) This is a left-leaning movie about right-leaning heroes

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