The stock market is a complex arena but more than that it is interesting if you try connecting the dots of events with one another.
The most significant perspective about the stock market is that you can learn it by deriving various parallels.
A crocodile’s patients for grabbing its prey underwater goes in analogous with an investor waiting patiently for the stock to be bought.
This is just one example.
Even the entertainment industry didn’t shy away to contribute its part to learn the how’s, what’s and why’s of the stock market story.
From biographical dramas to high-octane thrillers, here’s a list of films and TV shows set in the stock market and financial industry that should be on your watch list.
Based on real stories and fiction, there are also great action thrillers and comedies.
Our list of the best stock market films, eye-catching financial documentaries, captivating
crash and market fraud films is among the best stock market stories ever told.
The films about stock exchange entrepreneurs with enormous wealth are always interesting for the public.
I guarantee you will be shocked and thrilled by these real-life incidents.
The stock exchange films are set in the world of high finance, where the scenery corresponds to the income of the main actors.
Among the most famous of the lot, Wall Street is the first one which comes to our mind.
Wall Street is a fictional feature based on a true story.
The film is about the inner workings of large shorts and revolves around the global financial crisis of 2008.
Stock market films and series can help to improve the understanding of the stock market and offer a good perspective on the profession.
Not all films about Wall Street are great but financial and stock market films with impressive stories and great actors guarantee great entertainment.
Another noted example is that of Jim Cramer.
He is the host of CNBC’s Mad Money, has two key features that make the show a success.
The first is his encyclopaedic knowledge of the stock market, its boom and bust cycles, factors affecting various industries, personalities on the market and the most successful companies.
The goal of Cramer is to create a level playing field and help ordinary people invest at the same level as professionals.
Even Bollywood films and series around the stock exchange play an important role in inspiring people and informing them about the market.
Here’s a full list of Bollywood films that revolve around the stock market.
Scam 1992
‘Scam 1992’ series prominently played by characters including Angad Bedi, Richa Chadha, Vivek Oberoi and Siddhant Chaturvedi was another ice-breaker to the stock market world.
It’s the only Indian series based on the Indian stock market so far.
The plot traces the details of a Harshad Mehta stock exchange fraud that rocked the financial world in 1992.
It’s definitely a must-watch!
Gafla
This movie was released in 2006, which was said to be quite ahead of time because of its storyline.
Gafla focuses on ‘Harshad Mehata’s’ story.
If you indent to know the details I would recommend you watch the ‘Scam 1992’ web series, which is a detailed version of it.
Share Bazaar
A 1997 movie, starring Ravi Kishan, Jackie shroff, Anupam Kher and Dimple Kapadia was said to be a masterpiece at the time.
The plot revolves around ‘Mehta brothers’ and how they ruined lives.
You will surely get to watch the full movie on youtube.
Baazaar
This is another thriller that focuses on the life of a normal stock trader whose life takes a twist when his professional guru is completely different from what he thought of.
Corporate
This Bollywood movie features actors Bipasha Basu and Kay Kay Menon in the leads focusing on the twisty tale of ‘Marwah Group of Industries.
It did well at the box office and has an IMDb rating of 65 / 60 and Rotten Tomatoes.
I’ve seen this film twice times and intend to do it again because it’s not just a boring documentary, it’s a good film in itself.
The Big Bull
Here it goes again!
This is the third movie on the then infamous ‘Harshad Mehta’.
This film is the most recent one, released on April 2021.
The storyline is slightly different, you would be able to understand the difference if you have watched the remaining two.
Sometimes I feel, if a person has three movies completely based on real-life incidence, how adventurous and thrilling would his actual journey be!
After watching these movies, I would highly recommend you to read this article about the best swing trading books and best virtual reality stocks.
Let us know what you think of this list of stock market films that you absolutely must watch and let us know how you rate Bollywood films and series about the stock market in the comments below.
The stock market has embodied itself many times in the film world in recent years.
Thanks to such films, not only have we seen the mechanics but also the sadness, complexity, deceit, loopholes and a lot of other human emotions associated with participation in the markets.
If you like to watch great short films, you will enjoy this award-winning documentary ‘Inside Job’ that takes us through the slowdown in growth in 2008 and the real estate, banking and financial crisis.
The film explains what happened before the financial crisis and how great fear and greed are with high-profile interviewees and a fast-paced, gripping narrative by Matt Damon.
The film teaches valuable lessons about the dangers of market manipulation, reckless investment, and borrowed money, but most of the film focuses on greed and the dramatic highs and lows.
‘The Big Short’ is another award-winning documentary that follows the growth and downturn of the housing and banking crisis of 2008 offers a good perspective on what happened afterwards.
It also gives you shocking insights into several former partners and close friends of Steve Jobs.
The award-winning film focuses on the global financial crisis and the 2008 meltdown and stars Christian Bale as a hedge fund manager.
When Christian Bale, acting as a hedge fund manager, finds an astonishing data structure in a large number of mortgage bonds, he decides to bet on it.
Christian Bale plays in this violent and thought-provoking thriller with a dark secret set against the backdrop of the financial world a wealthy investment banker who has forgotten the 1993 television movie about the leveraged buy-out of LBO RJR Nabisco.
There is little actual finance in the film, but it sheds light on the surreal world in which the financial elite lives and the total disconnect they have between themselves and reality.
‘The Wolf of Wallstreet’ follows former stockbroker Jordan Belfort (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) as an investor.
If you are not familiar with the life of Belfort, this is the movie you should catch up on.
The story revolves around the rise and fall of a stockbroker.
It depicts how a stockbroker with sheer intelligence and discipline became wealthy quickly by holding his horses on penny stocks.
The darker phase focuses on drugs, greed and his ultimate downfall.
There is another movie which is called the ‘Barbarians at the Gate’ directed by Glen Jordan.
This forgotten 1993 TV movie revolves around Nabisco’s leveraged purchase of LBO RJR.
The storyline revolves around how the president of a major tobacco company decided to buy the company for himself.
This movie is interesting because there is ‘unthinkable manipulation’ on every corporate move.
‘The China Hustle’ is another interesting movie, which examines how the next big thing was invested in Chinese equities after the 2007 financial crisis.
This film exposes a real-life fraud that occurred on the US stock exchange in 2018.
‘Billions’ is a story focusing on the hedge fund manager.
This stock market web series is available on Netflix with five seasons.
But recently it has been renewed for a sixth season as well.
Yay!
‘The Wizard of Lies’ is a 2017 movie starring Robert De Niro in the lead portraying the role of Bernie Madoff.
The movie attributes to a robbery of $65 billion, which is recorded as the largest in US history that too from innocent targets.
This biopic is a must-watch because it proves that everything is not what it appears to be!
Another masterpiece directed by J.C. Chandler in 2011 is the ‘Margin Call’.
This movie is a complete finance thriller throwing light on the lives of investment banking employees.
If you are a person desiring to make a career in investment banking, without any doubt, this movie is for you.
Last on this list is ‘Boom Bust Boom’.
Terry Jones is the man behind this 2015 documentary whole focal point is about the history of economic patterns.
Of all the above movies and web series this coup is exceptional because it’s in an animated form in addition to adding perspectives from Nobel prize-winning economists Daniel Kahneman, Robert J. Shiller, and Paul Krugman.
This movie’s sole aim is to educate people and make them aware of changes, patterns in the economic system.
While many of us are too busy to sit down and read finance books, there are several films and films that are meant to be entertaining and educational.
Of all these ‘Wall Street’ and ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ still remains my all-time favourite.
Let me know what’s yours in the comments below?
Until next time…
