Movies About the Stock Market, Traders, Shares, and Wall Street

Antonio NEMCD Author

Published May 1, 2010 · 7 min

Whether you want to unwind after a trading session, learn something new about how financial markets work, brush up on theory, or pass the time on a trip – we all look for a good finance movie from time to time.

A curated collection of feature films, series, and documentaries about the stock market, traders, investment banks, and financial crises.

So what is actually worth watching about the stock market, Forex, and big money? Ideally, it should not be another dry tutorial on “how to make a million dollars for beginners,” but a well-crafted thriller, a biographical drama about a broker’s real career and costly mistakes, or a sharp comedy set on the trading floor. Below is my list of movies and series that I have either watched myself (marked with a “+” and brief impressions) or bookmarked for an upcoming evening.

Watched Stock Market and Trading Movies (With Personal Notes)

• + Rogue Trader (UK, 1999): A biographical drama starring Ewan McGregor as derivatives trader Nick Leeson. I really enjoyed it: the guy was quite the gambler – hiding massive futures losses in Singapore for so long that he single-handedly brought down Barings, Britain’s oldest merchant bank.
• + Boiler Room (USA, 2000): A solid drama about the dark side of chop-shop brokerages, cold calling, and high-pressure penny-stock pitches; Ben Affleck, Vin Diesel, and Giovanni Ribisi all deliver great performances.
• + Wall Street (USA, 1987): Oliver Stone’s classic drama with Charlie Sheen and Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko. It is a special treat today just watching the 1980s trading floors, vintage computer terminals, and brick-sized mobile phones.
• + The Pursuit of Happyness (USA, 2006): A powerful biographical drama starring Will Smith as real-life stockbroker Chris Gardner. It is an inspiring film about setting a goal and seeing it through to the very end – definitely worth watching.
• + Good Advice (USA, 2001): A light romantic comedy with Charlie Sheen playing a Wall Street trader who loses his license after a bad insider tip and ends up anonymously writing a newspaper advice column. A warm, upbeat movie that I liked a lot.
• + Buy & Cell (USA, 1988): An old-school comedy directed by Robert Boris and starring Robert Carradine and Malcolm McDowell (often misspelled on movie lists as Buy&Sell, missing the pun on a prison cell). Framed by his boss, an honest financial analyst lands in prison and sets up a stock-trading cooperative with his fellow inmates. It is pure slapstick – complete with dancers in prison and a computer trading room hidden behind roll-up shutters – but fun enough if you have a free evening.
• + Wall Street Warriors (USA, 2006–2009): A documentary series following the work and daily lives of real market participants. It is slickly filmed, and in the first season you can see and hear well-known day trader Alexander Gerchik.
• + Glengarry Glen Ross (USA, 1992): A dialogue-driven drama with Al Pacino, Alec Baldwin, Jack Lemmon, and Kevin Spacey. In a smoke-filled office, veteran real-estate brokers battle day and night for leads, and Baldwin’s famous speech remains the gold standard for high-pressure sales cinema.
• + Bear Hunt (Medvezhya okhota, Russia, 2007): An action drama starring Valery Nikolaev. The creators packed everything into one plot: stock trading, a market crash, the mafia, government officials, America, beautiful women, betrayal by a wartime friend, and the hero’s signature line, “I killed the market” :-) A very specific film, strictly for fans of 2000s Russian action dramas.
• + August (USA, 2008): A drama starring Josh Hartnett about two brothers fighting to keep their Wall Street dot-com startup afloat in August 2001, just days before September 11. There are a few interesting takeaways, though overall the production feels fairly low-budget.

Market Classics, Documentaries, and Financial Thrillers

• Trading Places (USA, 1983): The famous comedy with Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd built around a cruel bet between two millionaire brothers and a classic corner on frozen concentrated orange juice futures.
• Dealers (UK, 1989): A British drama starring Paul McGann and Rebecca De Mornay about rivalry, high stakes, and risky currency trades inside the London branch of a major investment bank.
• Traders (Canada, 1996–2000): A Canadian television drama series exploring the inner workings of the fictional investment bank Gardner Ross.
• Pi (USA, 1998): Darren Aronofsky’s black-and-white psychological thriller about a brilliant mathematician obsessed with uncovering a hidden numerical pattern behind stock market quotes.
• A Perfect Murder (USA, 1998): A crime thriller starring Michael Douglas, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Viggo Mortensen. While the plot centers on a murder scheme, it is set in motion by the looming bankruptcy of a Wall Street investor; both the suspense and acting are top-notch.
• The Man Who Broke Britain (UK, 2004): A BBC docudrama that reconstructs the real mechanics behind Nick Leeson’s unauthorized trades and the collapse of Barings Bank.
• Deception (USA, 2008): A thriller with Ewan McGregor and Hugh Jackman about a solitary corporate auditor working late nights on Wall Street who meets a charismatic lawyer and gets pulled into a dangerous financial fraud.
• Million Dollar Traders (UK, 2009): A three-part BBC Two reality experiment in which former Goldman Sachs trader Lex van Dam handed a group of everyday novices a million dollars of his own money to trade stocks during the financial crisis.
• Overheard (Hong Kong, 2009): A tense thriller from the creators of Infernal Affairs about police surveillance officers wiretapping executives of a listed company who cannot resist trading on the insider tips themselves.
• Limitless (USA, 2011): A fast-paced sci-fi thriller starring Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro, featuring a memorable subplot about rapidly compounding trading capital on the stock market and brokering corporate mergers.

Major Movies and Series About Financial Markets After 2010

Over the following years, global financial crises, hedge-fund battles, and the rise of retail traders inspired several more standout releases:

• Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (USA, 2010): Oliver Stone’s direct sequel to the 1987 classic, starring Michael Douglas and Shia LaBeouf against the backdrop of the 2008 subprime mortgage and banking meltdown.
• Margin Call (USA, 2011): A taut chamber drama with Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Irons, and Paul Bettany tracking twenty-four hours inside a major investment bank after risk analysts discover overnight that toxic mortgage assets are about to sink the firm.
• The Wolf of Wall Street (USA, 2013): Martin Scorsese’s sprawling biographical black comedy starring Leonardo DiCaprio about the rise and fall of Jordan Belfort and his brokerage house Stratton Oakmont, built on aggressive penny-stock schemes.
• The Big Short (USA, 2015): Adam McKay’s Oscar-winning drama starring Christian Bale, Steve Carell, and Ryan Gosling about a handful of contrarian investors who spotted the US housing bubble early and bet against subprime mortgage bonds.
• Billions (USA, 2016–2023): A seven-season drama series chronicling the high-stakes clash between hedge-fund billionaire Bobby Axelrod of Axe Capital and relentless US Attorney Chuck Rhoades.
• Dumb Money (USA, 2023): The fast-moving true story of the early 2021 GameStop short squeeze, when everyday retail traders from the WallStreetBets forum banded together against major Wall Street hedge funds.

If you know other worthwhile movies or documentaries about traders, stock speculation, and financial markets – feel free to share your favorites and impressions in the comments :-)