Best Wall Street Movie According to IMDb

October 19, 1987 a sudden major crash in the global stock market rocked the world of finance. Dubbed Black Monday, the crash caused widespread concern over fears of unabated economic instability, even among the uninitiated. . Shortly after that “Wall Street” has made its way into theaters and enlightened us on the allure of the stock market as well as the risks that lurked beneath its glamorous facade. This fictional depiction of Wall Street in the 1980s, right after the real-world crisis that scared and confused many, gave birth to a new genre. A film about finance, usually exploring various aspects of Wall Street culture, was born.

Many financial films have managed to leave their mark over the years, including 2015’s The Big Short (which attempts to shed light on the early days of the 2008 financial crisis) and the poignant 2010 documentary Inside Job. If we don’t get too rigid with the criteria that define these genre entries, American Psycho can also be considered a Wall Street movie, as it takes a satirical approach to the hedonistic shallowness of Wall Street culture. However, there are none of these examples took first place on IMDb’s list of the best movies about Wall Street and finance. IMDb’s Best Financial Film — Which is ranked #129 on IMDb’s Top 250 Movies list is Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street.

Stockbroker/financial criminal Jordan Belfort’s 2007 memoir The Wolf of Wall Street. serves as the basic foundation for Scorsese’s film of the same name. A sense of controlled kineticism permeates throughout, as Leonardo DiCaprio portrays Belfort with unabashed power, both narrating and experiencing the chaos of Wall Street’s stock market culture. We begin in 1987, when Belfort takes a job at L. F. Rothschild directed by Mark Hannah (Matthew McConaughey)which instilled the self-centered instincts of financial opportunism (at any cost) deep into Belfort’s heart. After losing his job after Black Monday, he embarks on a new journey that becomes the definition of a moral vacuum in which Belfort wears his monstrous manipulation and irresponsibility like a shiny badge of honor.

The lack of a moral core is vital to The Wolf of Wall Street, which complements Belfort’s ridiculously extreme lifestyle with the unbridled visual splendor achieved by performances of no less magnitude. Belfort’s true memoir predictably allows for some degree of self-mythologizing, and DiCaprio’s performance of the character consciously pushes this to its limits. The results are more spontaneous and gleefully satirical in the skilled hands of Scorsese, who expertly exposes the empty, fraudulent cult of personality.

Some have criticized The Wolf of Wall Street for glamorizing Belfort’s overindulgence, but the film makes it clear that there’s a certain looseness at the heart of the film’s frenzied footage. Scorsese is simply here to create cinematic magic and entertain, even if the characters inhabiting the fictional world are just as morally bankrupt and horrible as their real-life counterparts.