Insider trading film

Given that we are all spending more time at home and inevitably more time in front of the TV, we have updated our top finance and investment film recommendations. We hope you enjoy our top picks including the good, the bad and the provocative on the world of finance and investment. Heavy on entertainment and light on financial education, Wolf on Wall Street is the perfect finance movie to start with. Wolf of Wall Street covers the memoir of crooked broker Jordan Belfort and shows the profitable, yet ugly, side of Wall Street. Not a film to watch with your kids!

There's a new movie coming out about high-speed trading on Wall Street, and it looks bonkers

There are no carolers or large family gatherings. But the trappings of a great holiday movie are there: It does, in fact, take place around the holidays, include a company Christmas party that features a drunk and disgruntled Santa Claus, and focus on themes of generosity or lack thereof and redemption. The premise of the bet is that if they elevate Valentine from poverty, giving him all the things that Winthorpe has money, a job, a network, and social status —he will soon begin to act like a wealthy, entitled, successful elite.

On the other hand, they wager, if they take away all that Winthorpe has, he will turn into a homeless, jobless, thieving degenerate. Below, Atlantic editors Gillian White and Bourree Lam talk about the film and its relevance three decades later. The opening montage is a long stretch of scenes that jump from the swanky home of Winthorpe to iconic Philadelphia landmarks to impoverished neighborhoods and homeless people.

The point is, of course, to set the scene for the movie. But it also serves to prime the viewer to note that extreme wealth and excess and disturbing, abject poverty often exist within mere footsteps of each other in American cities.

But what I thought was interesting is the choice to demonstrate the stark contrast: Winthorpe wakes up Gossip Girl- style with a butler and breakfast in bed, a scene that comes directly after a glimpse of a homeless man sleeping on the street.

Especially in post-Great Recession times, inequality in America is one of the most contentious issues in the country. I think the kind of contrast shown on screen in Trading Places would make us very uncomfortable now. White : Agreed. What felt enduring in some ways, albeit a bit extreme, were the professional aspects of the film.

The Dukes are in the commodities business, which compared to the sectors portrayed in movies like The Big Short , The Wolf of Wall Street , and the original Wall Street , can seem kind of lame?

Lam : I loved that scene too! That was pretty offensive. White : The idea that money was the cure to all the issues inherent to a lifetime of poverty or that all people, divested of their money and status would become violent criminals was, yet again, gross.

It was all made worse that the bet was essentially just for bragging rights, showing how little the Dukes value human life.

But luckily it all felt pretty fantastical, and so did the solution when Winthorpe and Valentine find out that they are both being played by the Dukes. Winthorpe and Valentine learn that the Dukes were going to get the inside scoop on the orange juice contracts—the Dukes already bribed the person tasked with keeping the Department of Agriculture report about how orange crops were doing to give them the report a full day before it was released publicly.

This allowed them to engage in a bit of insider trading and make a mint. Once those contracts are set, Winthorpe and Valentine wait for the price to bottom out after the crop report comes out saying that oranges are doing just fine. That final scene made me a little nostalgic, as the commodities-trading pits at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange closed this past July.

But I agree, just seeing the trading pits in action is one of the most fascinating parts of the movie, remembering that there was a time not so long ago when all of these high-level trades were made by people essentially running around a room, yelling at each other and gesticulating wildly.

In , the movie was mentioned by Gary Gensler, the chief of the U. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, in a testimony to Congress. We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to the editor or write to letters theatlantic.

Skip to content. Sign in My Account Subscribe. The Atlantic Crossword. The Print Edition. Latest Issue Past Issues. Paramount Link Copied. Gillian B. White is a deputy editor of The Atlantic.

Connect Facebook Twitter. Bourree Lam is a former staff writer at The Atlantic. She was previously the editor of Freakonomics. Connect Twitter.

On IMDb TV, you can catch Hollywood hits and popular TV series at no cost. Select any poster below to play the movie, totally free! A League of Their. While most of the movies portray financial professionals in a less than the movie serves to warn us about the dangers of insider trading, let's.

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , and wherever you get your podcasts! Adult siblings Thomas Reid and Natalie Reid have been estranged for years following the death of their father from cancer. He left the bulk of his estate to Thomas and Natalie's disabled brother Daniel, a move which Natalie understood but which Thomas felt unfair. Thomas' contesting of the will is the source of their estrangement. Thomas receives news from their family doctor that he too has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and hopes that Natalie will show some compassion in him living out his final days in comfort by trying to get some of their father's money from Daniel.

While roughly true to the original plot of Wall Street , Money has a refreshed, modern take on the trappings of wealth—a style that reminds us more of the over-the-top presentation in The Wolf of Wall Street.

The film tells the story of Bud Fox Sheen , a young stockbroker who becomes involved with Gordon Gekko Douglas , a wealthy, unscrupulous corporate raider. Stone made the film as a tribute to his father, Lou Stone, a stockbroker during the Great Depression.

16 Must-See Wall Street Movies

The financial world, in all its incarnations, makes for great cinema. Tragedy, comedy, ingenuity, catastrophe, and redemption are all present in the many finance films that Hollywood has produced over the years. While most of the movies portray financial professionals in a less than flattering light, the unbelievable stories of excess, risk-taking, and of course greed make for compelling cinema and are required viewing for anyone thinking of or already working in the biz. Ross Johnson and the behind-the-scenes negotiations and skullduggery around this famous LBO. A violent and thought-provoking thriller set in the backdrop of finance, Christian Bale plays a wealthy investment banker with a dark secret.

10 Best Movies About Finance & The Stock Market

The stock market has always had its fair share of drama. Specifically, the film focusing on the bailout of investment bank Bear Stearns, the demise of its competitor Lehman Brothers, and how defaults on mortgage-backed securities spread the crisis from Wall Street to Main Street. It also depicts the mechanics and policies that the U. Federal Reserve implemented in an attempt to steady the financial markets. Ross Johnson portrayed by James Garner , who tries to buy Nabisco through a leveraged buyout. The movie also features a young Vin Diesel, before he was either fast or furious. Simultaneously, though, she becomes entangled in an insider trading scheme with her boyfriend. This movie can help you gain insight into the nuances of investment banking and IPOs. And, of course, fraud. The movie follows Belfort, who makes a fortune defrauding investors by selling them worthless penny stocks, all the while being pursued by the FBI and SEC.

R min Comedy.

Rarely is the uber-geeky term "high-frequency trading" put in the same sentence as "thriller," but the writer and director Kim Nguyen is giving it a shot with a new movie called " The Hummingbird Project. The movie's IMDB page says it "exposes the ruthless edge of our increasingly digital world," a vague description of how stock traders have become so desperate for any advantage that they're constantly trying to speed up trades before the market can catch up. In markets, this is called "front running. The opening scene of the trailer for "The Hummingbird Project" — which is strikingly similar to the opening pages of Michael Lewis' book about the same topic, called "Flash Boys" — shows two cousins from New York, Vincent Jesse Eisenberg and Anton Alexander Skarsgard , discussing the logistics of building a straight fiber-optic cable line between Kansas and New Jersey.

The 10 Must-Watch Movies For Finance Professionals

There are no carolers or large family gatherings. But the trappings of a great holiday movie are there: It does, in fact, take place around the holidays, include a company Christmas party that features a drunk and disgruntled Santa Claus, and focus on themes of generosity or lack thereof and redemption. The premise of the bet is that if they elevate Valentine from poverty, giving him all the things that Winthorpe has money, a job, a network, and social status —he will soon begin to act like a wealthy, entitled, successful elite. On the other hand, they wager, if they take away all that Winthorpe has, he will turn into a homeless, jobless, thieving degenerate. Below, Atlantic editors Gillian White and Bourree Lam talk about the film and its relevance three decades later. The opening montage is a long stretch of scenes that jump from the swanky home of Winthorpe to iconic Philadelphia landmarks to impoverished neighborhoods and homeless people. The point is, of course, to set the scene for the movie. But it also serves to prime the viewer to note that extreme wealth and excess and disturbing, abject poverty often exist within mere footsteps of each other in American cities. But what I thought was interesting is the choice to demonstrate the stark contrast: Winthorpe wakes up Gossip Girl- style with a butler and breakfast in bed, a scene that comes directly after a glimpse of a homeless man sleeping on the street. Especially in post-Great Recession times, inequality in America is one of the most contentious issues in the country. I think the kind of contrast shown on screen in Trading Places would make us very uncomfortable now. White : Agreed. What felt enduring in some ways, albeit a bit extreme, were the professional aspects of the film. The Dukes are in the commodities business, which compared to the sectors portrayed in movies like The Big Short , The Wolf of Wall Street , and the original Wall Street , can seem kind of lame?

Based on the Michael Lewis book by the same name, the film focuses on real-life events and a group of men who saw the build-up of the housing and credit bubble and anticipated the market crash -- making big money in the process. It is already generating Oscar buzz. Another finance-themed film, Equity , about a senior investment banker who is taking a company public, is also in the works for release in late or early What sets it apart: Its protagonist is a woman. The two are just the latest in a long line of Wall Street-inspired flicks to hit the silver screen. Following are 16 other Wall Street-themed movies you may want to watch if you haven't already.