The Big Short (2015) on Netflix
R20152h 10mBiographyComedyDrama
Michael Burry, a hedge fund manager, decides the housing market is a bubble built on subprime loans and bets against it. Jared Vennett, Mark Baum and two small investors join the trade.
- Netflix4.3/5
- IMDb7.8/10548,107 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes89%
Trailer
Plot summary
In 2005, Michael Burry, the one-eyed manager of the Scion Capital hedge fund, works out that the United States housing market rests on subprime loans and is about to collapse. He buys credit default swaps from the banks, paying heavy monthly premiums while his client Lawrence Fields protests. Word of the trade reaches Jared Vennett at Deutsche Bank, who pitches it to other investors; an errant call brings it to Mark Baum, who leads FrontPoint Partners and despises the way the financial industry works. Baum's team travels to Florida to check the claims and meets brokers who admit to fraud. Charlie Geller and Jamie Shipley, who run a tiny fund called Brownfield, find Vennett's presentation and bring in Ben Rickert, a retired trader, so they can take part.
Cast
- Harold Gervaisas Lewis Bond Trader
- Maria Frangosas Exotic Dancer
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Big Short (2015)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Meredith Whitney's story was prominent in Lewis's book because of her pessimistic 2007-08 analysis of banks, and her report on Citigroup led to the CEO's resignation and the stock dropping over 90 percent, yet her narrative was entirely omitted from the film, drawing criticism from The Washington Post.
- Steve Eisman first said Carell's portrayal was not really him: "Eliminate my sense of humor and make me angry all the time, and that's [Carell's] portrayal." After rereading his 2010 Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission transcript he reassessed it, saying "Steve Carell was right. I was that angry."
- The real Michael Burry, who ran his own hedge fund Scion Capital and used its liquidity to short the housing market, turns up in the film himself in a cameo as a worker at Scion Capital.
- David McCandless's visual blog Information is Beautiful deduced that, allowing for creative license, the film was 91.4 percent accurate compared to real-life events, calling it a "shockingly truthful film" with "very little dramatization or fakery."
- Released in eight theaters in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Chicago on December 11, 2015, the film earned $705,527, an average of $88,191 per theater, a record for an eight-location opening that beat Memoirs of a Geisha's $85,313.
- Although the general plot follows the book, many character names were changed for the film: Steve Eisman became "Mark Baum" and Greg Lippmann became "Jared Vennett", and some biographical information was also slightly modified.
SPOILER
Just before the credits the film notes that most banks responsible for the crisis faced no consequences, with one single trader, Kareem Serageldin, imprisoned, and that banks are again selling CDOs under a new label, the bespoke tranche opportunity.
