Best Finance Movies of All Time, Ranked

Greed is not good, but there’s something great about taking a complicated topic like stock markets and finance and breaking everything down into a movie the general public can consume and understand.

The films that do this best are endlessly rewatchable. With the uncertain state of the economy and financial markets, now is a good time to invest your time in some movies about money and finance. 

These are the best finance movies of all time. 

Year: 2012

Director: David Cronenberg

Starring: Robert Pattinson, Paul Giamatti, Samantha Morton, Sarah Gadon, Mathieu Amalric, Juliette Binoche, Jay Baruchel

Budget: $20.5 million

Worldwide box office: $6.1 million

Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 31%

Bottom line: There are two really weird, cool Hollywood players in the mix here with director David Cronenberg and leading man Robert Pattinson teaming up to bring a Don DeLillo novel to life. 

The movie was a huge box-office bomb, but it’s worth watching for Pattinson, who has been steady if not spectacular in leading roles for a decade now, and the audacity of Cronenberg as a director. Don’t forget this is the same guy who made “The Fly,” “Dead Ringers” and “A History of Violence.” 

The two of them somehow make watching Pattinson’s character’s descent from billionaire to dead broke and into murderous madness pretty entertaining.

Year: 2009

Director: Joanna Bartholomew

Starring: N/A

Budget: N/A (BBC Two documentary)

Worldwide box office: N/A

Rotten Tomatoes audience score: N/A

Bottom line: One of the great warnings from history is that if we don’t understand our past, we’re condemned to repeat it. That is in sharp focus with many of the movies on the list, including this British-produced documentary about the stock market crash on Oct. 16, 1929 — Black Tuesday — that led to The Great Depression. 

This one should be required viewing for anyone who wants to understand the modern economy because it shows how without regulation of banks, as much as those regulatory agencies are criticized, the alternative is much, much worse.

Year: 1999

Director: James Reardon

Starring: Ewan McGregor, Anna Friel, Pip Torrens, Tim McInnerny 

Budget: $12.8 million

Worldwide box office: $1.3 million

Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 52%

Bottom line: This movie took a bath at the box office, but the true story of corrupt derivatives trader Nick Leeson gets a huge boost from the presence of a young Ewan McGregor in one of his last roles before the “Star Wars” prequels turned him into an A-List star for the next decade. 

Never heard of Leeson? He single-handedly brought down Barings Bank, which had operated in England since 1762, with a series of fraudulent and unauthorized trades in 1995 that led to $1.4 billion in losses — double what Barings had available.

He fled to Singapore, where he was caught and sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison. And Singapore prisons are pretty rough.

Year: 1991

Director: Kevin Hooks

Starring: Tommy Davidson, Joseph C. Phillips, Halle Berry, Kim Coles, Sam Rockwell, Anne-Marie Johnson, David Marshall Grant, Samuel L. Jackson

Budget: $2.5 million

Worldwide box office: $7.6 million

Rotten Tomatoes audience score: 57%

Bottom line: This movie is largely forgotten aside from being one of Oscar-winning actress Halle Berry’s first roles, but it’s a pretty lighthearted romp that capitalized on having up-and-coming comedian Tommy Davidson with top billing. 

It also featured some lower-level stars who catapulted to fame in later years. Alongside Berry, future Oscar nominees Sam Rockwell and Samuel L. Jackson had supporting roles.

Director Kevin Hooks went on to direct some big-budget action movies in “Passenger 57” and “Fled,” and was one of the key directors on the hit TV show “Prison Break.”