Its frustrating to watch however. I have read that many economists equate what the banks were doing back before the crash to a world wide ponzi scheme... and it doesn't look like we have fixed anyhing. People will always resort to the easy buck, easy scam... I just hope the next crash isn't as drastic.

Excellent portrayal of recession and what led to it. Terrific ensemble cast.

Truly great movie

This is a movie that doesn’t shy away from putting out all the theory that is needed. It’s like a documentary with A-list actors.

Greatest movie of all time.

Very well done and very interesting. They had me wrapped around their little finger the whole movie with anticipation of what was next. What a ride.

Plot of the 2007 housing bubble, told through the investors who saw it coming, bet that it would happen, and made billons of dollars when it did. Not what you would call an uplifting film. All the characters are all slimey. It is base level infotainment attemting to be a work of art.

I'm sure that there were some people that did not want this movie to be released. I thouroughly enjoyed this film and will be watching it again and again.

Great directing, acting, and screenwriting. A great movie to explain a serious topic, commonly portrayed as being "too complicated for the average person to understand". Having lived through this and rebounded from it, this explains so much of the 10+ years of greed in our financial and legislative systems. Too bad this will happen again ... and again ... and again.

the scammers got richer grr

I rented movie because I wanted to see how producer was going to make this plot something people could understand. It was not bad but for most folks I think subject matter is boring and over their head. Try explaining selling something short to your mom. If you read any of the books about this time frame you have already seen the movie. Rent something else.

Makes you think… it will educate, entertain and empower you

We made it through 30-40 minutes and turned it off. Silly characters and story. Wall Street guys think a security is overpriced so they short it. Stop the presses! Oh wait, isn't that what every short seller does every day? Total waste of time and incredibly inaccurate.

I am a stock market and economics expert but this movie still proved enlightening as to all that transpired and continues even now.

Great movie

The ominous final seconds of the movie made this the scariest film I've ever seen in my entire life.

This movie was so bad. avoid.

Absolutely great movie. I have watched multiple times and every time I watch it I love it more and more

Wow. This is a must see.

If you know the history of the 2008 housing crash this film is insulting to watch.

Hollywood propaganda rewriting history.

Yeah sure, a guy with a glass eye, and a 40 year old virgin crashed the housing market.

One of the best movies I've seen

I wish these actors were in a different movie, this movie is predictable and boring. Of course we all know the ending having recent history as a subject. The angle is mildly thought provoking but not enough to justify an hour of time watching the events unfold. Its not hip or funny. Steve Carell gives a valiant effort to be funny but the scenes just don’t work.

'The Godfather' it ain’t. 60 seconds into The Big Short, it’s pretty clear that ‘conventional’ is not the approach director Adam McKay was aiming for. Which is what shoots this movie rocket-like to the top of my you-gotta-see-this list. If you loathe the fact that you can’t get good satire anymore, then this treat is super-sweet... bc as satire goes, this as good as it gets. Walking out of the theater, I thought... if Warhol and (Chuck) Palahniuk went on a bender and crashed into celluloid, then this is what the result might look like.

If you passed on the opportunity see this movie in the theater, here is what you missed:

Forty-odd feet of Ryan Gosling, intimating his thoughts and feelings to little ol’ you, via super-sized baby blues. For those who aren't the Gosling type, there’s Margot Robbie, the thinking man’s blonde, in a bubble bath, sipping champagne while she breaks down the scammers’ scam so that us on the outside can understand. To insert Robbie here is pure genius; one wonders is she there as eye candy? Or comic relief? I’d say both. Either way, seems to me she’s there to take the edge off… to remind us common folk not to feel bad about getting duped. It’s the crooks, not us, who are dumb. God bless ‘em every one.

When I heard the helmer was Adam McKay, I thought that sounded absurd. Watching the movie made me eat my words. McKay nails it— the absurdity of the situation, that is.

Turns out that McKay’s thumbing his nose at convention is precisely what makes the movie what it is: Entertaining. Art-like. And Biting (as social commentary) all rolled into one. Mr. McKay steals like an artist, yet repeats no one. If there’s a screening room in heaven, then somewhere up there, Mr. Kubrick is poking God and Godot in the ribs. Betcha my last mortgage payment that there’s a lot of smiling and nodding. ;)

I think you have to understand all the terminology and be in the financial business to understand what’s really going on here…

They had some spots where they stopped the movie and had people explain things because I think for most people the financial world is difficult to understand unless you work in it.

After watching this movie I will be supporting & voting for Bernie Sanders for president.

Vote Sanders, Vote Progressive.

perfect movie. funny, dramatic, interesting, intelligent

Amazingly brilliant movie! Highly recommended!

Very well made movie depicting the financial collapse of 2007-2008.

Coming from a background of family and friends in the smallest mortgage and banking arena (not big banks but they had to work with them daily), this movie is the ultimate Hollywood fake crap about really happened. Only inexperienced people believe this is how the world works. I watched without expecting truth but entertainment. It couldn't even entertain; it was so poorly written.

Great point to draw from.

Great movie with wild-eyed presentation. Wild-eyed like the times that the movie examines. I enjoyed learning about some of the background behind the big 2008 crash. Just today (April 2016) in the paper, it was announced Goldman Sachs settled for $5B for their part in the wrong doing. Art imitates life.

I really liked how this movie shed light on how corrupt everything really was and at the end it stated how there is a new term for CDOs so that people on Wall Street can try and do the same thing again just naming it something different.

I really liked this movie, very entertaining and informative. It also is extremely frustrating.

Wow, insightful..unlike my review

EXCELLENT!! This is what its all about. GREAT FILM!! Do yourself a favor and watch the big short its a great story (sad about the reality of it all) great pace, great cast everything bravo!!

You have to understand the way the economic works before you'll understand this movie

The movie is eye- opening entertainment that should be a documentary but isn’t. It is incredibly entertaining and probably (likely?) based on true events. And that is the catch. If everything in this movie actually happened then it is the greatest news story about the 2nd great depression/recession in the U.S. I have ever seen. It might have been more interesting if they had provided footnotes. That would be new and novel for Hollywood.

I love historical fiction and this comes pretty close to a documentary which made it more intriguing. It was really difficult to follow all the financial jargon but they do a good job simplifying in lay men's terms every 30mins in a humorous way that still keeps the flow of the movie going. Really job well done! It is really crazy how blinded by money the lenders got and acted on pure stupidity. Hopefully we learn from our mistakes.

I was looking forward to this because of the subject matter but didn't get more than 10 minutes into it when I had to turn it off. I felt like I was being talked down to, the filmmaking / editing was clearly trying to make up for what could easily be very dry subject matter and Christian Bale's performance was distracting….although it probably wouldn't have been if delivered by an unknown actor. Very few films really make me angry but I couldn't bring myself to spend one more minute watching this. I feel like it could have engaged me right away if done well.

This movie is so boring I could not even finish watching it. Unreal!

I don't normally take the time to leave a review, but this movie is incredible and a must see!

Everyone knows by now that this all stems back to the Clinton administration's 1994 National Homeownership Strategy in which Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were under pressure to increase lending to minorities and low-income home buyers--a policy that necessarily entailed higher risks. The bubble continued to balloon under the Bush administration which either failed to realise the danger or ignored it until it burst just as the Obama administration took over. This description already more information that the movie provides. It takes a very simplistic view of the overall issues and focuses on predictable curruption that came about from bad policy.

..just so happens my Mom was in Florida real estate just before she retired. I was down there on vacation in '05 and she took me around the developments being built. No one was living in them. She retired in '06 with her entire 401k tied up in the real estate company she had worked for. I told her to move the money she had out of it as fast as she could. She didn't entirely get it, but she moved 75% out on faith. It saved her retirement. Living through the Tech Bubble of the late 90's made it easy to see this one.

Good film. Great work by all the actors. Breaking the fourth wall was a genius move. The Big Short is a hard movie to take because the truth of the massive fraud perpetrated by Wall Street was even harder.

Saw it on a plane. Had to see it again. CDO, CDS, subprime for dummies ...

Greed, deception, power, the ultimate turning the other cheek scam pulled on the American people….wait until you see the write up at the end of the movie. Thank you to those who made sure this movie (real life truth) was seen!

Great movie

Not a very good film. It's hard to follow and the performances are weak. Christian Bale is the only one that does not disappoint. Brad Pitt is horrific and Steve Carell's acting seems to be getting worse.

Pretty mediocre. Nothing about this movie was really that good.

All actors in this were fantastic. Steve Carell stood out with his outrage. It was also nice to see Brad Pitt in a supporting, mellow role.

Solid film. Never gets boring.

Fascinating movie.

No, Holywood is not expert in financial markets. It is still just expert in appealing to people’s existing bias’s and telling them what they want to hear. Funny how the script gave simplistic definitions to a variety of financial derivatives, then threw those terms around willy nilly.

Not once was there any mention of the government’s role in all of this, which was substantial. The government essentially required subprime lending, then guaranteed large blocks of them. (Remember that Freddie and Fannie were massively bailed out). I’m no fan of Wall Street, but when the government is in on the deal, it’s not surprising the banks were as well.

And for those that shorted the mortgage market derivatives (and banks, and home builders, and in fact one could have just shorted the S&P 500) most were overjoyed. For them, it was not really a story of all these conflicting feelings and deep depression.

Finally, the note at the end of the movie that $X Trillion of pension, 401K, etc. money just disappeared is totally false. Anyone that did not sell recovered as the markets recovered, albeit slowly. And slow is good because it was about time American’s learned the lesson that there is no free lunch, even in financial markets. Make a respectable return and be thankful for it.

Those that suffered were the people that lost their jobs. Many are still unemployed and underemployed. That’s the tragedy.

…before the sequel to this comes out.

Excellent movie. Thanks to the writer and producer for not dumbing the movie down. Exceptional performances by Steve Carell and Christian Bale. Glad that America can still produce a good movie.

The Inside Job documentary offers a much better insight on exactly what happened. The marquee actors don’t really add much to the characters and almost distracting.

Anyone honest with themselves, who has ever worked in/with "Wall St/DC” knows the movie is spot on. DC is there to bail Wall St out and Wall ST is there to ‘buy’ DC’s support.

Entertaining and informative...A true story showing exactly what Bernie is saying about Big Banks and their destruction of our economy #feelthebern

Very informative! Great movie and their should be more of these. Made me mad but not because the movie was bad. Everyone should watch. Especially now during election time. Feel the Bern!

Best movie I've watch in a long time, love the style, n how educational it is

You don't have to be interested in finance to like this movie. Disclosure: I'm very interested in finance.

Exceptional cast. Real events. A powerful story told well. Yes it’s a polemic, but it’s a polemic that happens to make for a highly entertaining and thought-provoking film.

It seems impossible to me that Christian Bale could ever be in this ridiculous movie. When making a pseudo documentary with a director at the take all kinds of things go wrong. But I have never seen so many frail people acting like gangsters. 'Straight out of Starbucks'

Well done and very interesting. It evokes curiosity, anger, sadness, and triumph. No, it didn't include certain aspects of the situation. No, you cant expect a movie to be a totally exact reenactment of an event that Didn't take place over a span of two hours. Great movie!

Easily one of the best films of 2015, The Big Short follows the journey of several people in the field of economics who understood the errors made by Wallstreet and the Big Banks who allowed for the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008 to occur. Sounds boring right? Well, the writers new that most audiences wouldn't have the slightest clue as to what the characters were discussing, so with a taste of comedy and some clever editing, they do their best to inform and also entertain. The ensemble was mesmerizing, and well rounded. Highly recommended.

I just have watched this 4 times already. Being I am in the Home Financing Industry and watching competitors pull some of these loans off, we often got blamed for the crash. Even the “bad lenders” that did these loans, did so because the big banks let them. Well, for most of the public that doesn’t research or read, this shows where the “crash” came from. Government and Big Banks. The greed, the deception, and all the time, the middle class foot the bill, and future generations will, as we always do. If anything, this helps everyone see how this happened, and hopefully, we won’t again. From this , you’d think an investigation would open, something again…. but if anything, use this as a what not to do, and just hope your not in the web of it, for they are doing it again… awesome film, funny at times, but seriously a great movie based off of truth.

Good

Best movie made in several years!

I knew this movie had a ton of great actors in it, but I wasn't expecting the entire cast to be so incredible. I don't know how they turned a boring yet horribly tragic event into something that genuinely made me laugh at loud!! This is a must watch!

Movies like this make you appreciate the magic of well produced films that draw you in and make you care about the characters, even if not much happens. This movie manages to have none of that, despite a fantastic true story, interesting back-drop, and star cast. They fail to explain the concepts well… in fact they missed the AIG insurance scam aspect of it entirely.

Instead of watching this, watch “Inside Job”. It’s more educational and more interesting than this.

Great Movie-

Very good movie

Accidentally picked this movie in theaters and is was good. Best performance hands down goes to Steve Carell. Not sure how true it is but it definitely entertaining.

Movie was put together well to explain the collapse in layman’s terms. Well done.

Too simplistic, not very engaging from people that are already familiar with the subject matter. Stars were overshadowed by the supporting actors, eg Vinnie. Bad wigs.

This movie is one tad above average. If the BIG SHORT wins an oscar; then the Oscar's value has plummeted.....

Hard to watch the subject matter but very good film and very creative!

This movie is like lifting a rock or log up and watching the bugs scurry away. The characters were awesome but the whole thing just makes you sick to your stomach. People are getting smarter and learning more about our society and how it functions. I’m happy about that. Everyone needs to see this movie.

Not only am I gonna buy 3 or 4, I'm gonna invest n the mattress industry.

Goldman Sachs...Lehman bros, to me have the same connotation as Hitler and Stalin.

Everyone in and surrounding this plague should have been sent directly to prison. Especially the ones in government.

I'm not sure I quite understood it all, but it made me think and started to ask myself questions. Very well acted and occasionally funny, although a little messy. I would recommend watching this movie it gives you a lot of important information that homeowners should know.

Smart dialogue and brilliant innovation conspire to revolutionize filmed storytelling. Don't miss it.

This movie was simultaneously awesome and terrifying. It's a great complement to the book (by Michael Lewis)--you should definitely still read the book if you haven't read it because it's amazing, and the movie has picked a lot of the great scenes and characters from the book to showcase.