''The Big Short'' is a 2015 American biographical

crime In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in C ...

comedy-drama film directed and co-written by Adam McKay. Co-written by

Charles Randolph Charles Randolph is an American screenwriter and producer for film and television. In 2015, he won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay along with Adam McKay for co-writing ''The Big Short''. In 2019, he wrote and produced the film '' ...

, it is based on the 2010 book '' The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine'' by Michael Lewis showing how the

financial crisis of 2007–2008 Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of ...

was triggered by the United States housing bubble. The film stars

Christian Bale Christian Charles Philip Bale (born 30 January 1974) is an English actor. Known for his versatility and physical transformations for his roles, he has been a leading man in films of several genres. He has received various accolades, includin ...

Steve Carell Steven John Carell (; born August 16, 1962) is an American actor and comedian. He played Michael Scott in ''The Office'' (2005–2011; 2013), NBC’s adaptation of the British series created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, where Ca ...

Ryan Gosling Ryan Thomas Gosling (born November 12, 1980) is a Canadian actor. Prominent in independent film, he has also worked in blockbuster films of varying genres, and has accrued a worldwide box office gross of over 1.9 billion USD. He has receive ...

and

Brad Pitt William Bradley Pitt (born December 18, 1963) is an American actor and film producer. He is the recipient of various accolades, including two Academy Awards, a British Academy Film Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Awar ...

, with John Magaro, Finn Wittrock,

Hamish Linklater Hamish Linklater (born July 7, 1976) is an American actor and playwright. He is known for playing Matthew Kimble in ''The New Adventures of Old Christine'', Andrew Keanelly in ''The Crazy Ones'', and Clark Debussy in '' Legion''. He is the son of ...

, Rafe Spall, Jeremy Strong, and Marisa Tomei in supporting roles. The film is noted for the unconventional techniques it employs to explain

financial instrument Financial instruments are monetary contracts between parties. They can be created, traded, modified and settled. They can be cash (currency), evidence of an ownership interest in an entity or a contractual right to receive or deliver in the form ...

s. Among others, it features

cameo appearance A cameo role, also called a cameo appearance and often shortened to just cameo (), is a brief appearance of a well-known person in a work of the performing arts. These roles are generally small, many of them non-speaking ones, and are commonly ei ...

s by actress

Margot Robbie Margot Elise Robbie (; born 2 July 1990) is an Australian actress and producer. Known for her work in both blockbuster and independent films, she has received several accolades, including nominations for two Academy Awards, four Golden Glob ...

, chef

Anthony Bourdain Anthony Michael Bourdain (; June 25, 1956 – June 8, 2018) was an American celebrity chef, author, and travel documentarian who starred in programs focusing on the exploration of international culture, cuisine, and the human condition. Bourda ...

, singer-songwriter Selena Gomez, and economist Richard Thaler, who break the

fourth wall The fourth wall is a performance convention in which an invisible, imaginary wall separates actors from the audience. While the audience can see through this ''wall'', the convention assumes the actors act as if they cannot. From the 16th cen ...

to explain concepts such as subprime mortgages and synthetic collateralized debt obligations. Several of the film's characters directly address the audience, most frequently Gosling's, who serves as the narrator. ''The Big Short'' began a

limited release __FORCETOC__ Limited theatrical release is a film distribution strategy of releasing a new film in a few theaters across a country, typically art house theaters in major metropolitan markets. Since 1994, a limited theatrical release in the Unit ...

in the United States on December 11, 2015, followed by a

wide release In the American motion picture industry, a wide release (short for nationwide release) is a film playing at the same time at cinemas in most markets across the country. This is in contrast to the formerly common practice of a roadshow theatrical r ...

on December 23 by

Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...

. A critical and commercial success, the film grossed $133 million on $50 million budget and received acclaim for the performances of the cast (particularly that of Bale), McKay's direction, editing, and the screenplay. The film won the

Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay The Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay is the Academy Award for the best screenplay Film adaptation, adapted from previously established material. The most frequently adapted media are novels, but other adapted narrative formats include st ...

in addition to nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor (Bale), and Best Film Editing.

Premise

The film consists of three separate but concurrent stories, loosely connected by their actions in the years leading up to the 2007 housing market crash.

Scion Capital

In 2005, eccentric

hedge fund A hedge fund is a pooled investment fund that trades in relatively liquid assets and is able to make extensive use of more complex trading, portfolio-construction, and risk management techniques in an attempt to improve performance, such as ...

manager

Michael Burry Michael James Burry (; born June 19, 1971) is an American investor, hedge fund manager, and physician. He founded the hedge fund Scion Capital, which he ran from 2000 until 2008 before closing it to focus on his personal investments. He is best ...

discovers that the United States housing market, based on high-risk subprime loans, is extremely unstable. Anticipating the market's collapse in the second quarter of 2007, as interest rates would rise from

adjustable-rate mortgage A variable-rate mortgage, adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM), or tracker mortgage is a mortgage loan with the interest rate on the note periodically adjusted based on an index which reflects the cost to the lender of borrowing on the credit markets.W ...

s, he proposes to create a credit default swap market, allowing him to bet against, or short, market-based mortgage-backed securities, for profit. His long-term bet, exceeding $1 billion, is accepted by major investment and commercial banks but requires paying substantial monthly premiums. This sparks his main client, Lawrence Fields, to accuse him of "wasting"

capital Capital may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** List of national capital cities * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences * Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used fo ...

while many clients demand that he reverse and sell, but Burry refuses. Under pressure, he eventually restricts withdrawals, angering investors, and Fields sues Burry. Eventually, the market collapses and his fund's value increases by 489% with an overall profit (even allowing for the massive premiums) of over $2.69 billion, with Fields receiving $489 million alone.

FrontPoint Partners

Jared Vennett (based on

Greg Lippmann Greg Holden Lippmann (born 1968/1969) is an American hedge fund manager, and one of the key figures in Michael Lewis' book ''The Big Short''. Early life Greg Lippmann is the son of Susan Lippmann, a business manager at Purchase College, and Thoma ...

), the executive in charge of global asset-backed securities trading at

Deutsche Bank Deutsche Bank AG (), sometimes referred to simply as Deutsche, is a German multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, and dual-listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the New York St ...

, is one of the first to understand Burry's analysis, learning from one of the bankers who sold Burry an early credit default swap. Using his quant to verify that Burry is most likely correct, he decides to enter the market, earning a fee from selling the swaps to firms who will profit when the underlying bonds fail. A misplaced phone call alerts FrontPoint Partners hedge fund manager Mark Baum (based on

Steve Eisman Steven Eisman (; born July 8, 1962) is an American businessman and investor known for having shorted collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), thereby profiting from the collapse of the US housing bubble in 2007–2008. Early life, education, an ...

), who is motivated to buy swaps from Vennett due to his low regard for banks' ethics and business models. Vennett explains that the packaging of subprime loans into collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) rated at AAA ratings will guarantee their eventual collapse. Conducting a field investigation in South Florida, the FrontPoint team discovers that mortgage brokers are profiting by selling their mortgage deals to

Wall Street Wall Street is an eight-block-long street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It runs between Broadway in the west to South Street and the East River in the east. The term "Wall Street" has become a metonym for ...

banks, who pay higher margins for the riskier mortgages, creating the bubble. This knowledge prompts the FrontPoint team to buy swaps from Vennett. In early 2007, as these loans begin to default, CDO prices somehow rise and ratings agencies refuse to downgrade the bond ratings. Baum discovers conflicts of interest and dishonesty amongst the credit rating agencies from an acquaintance at

Standard & Poor's S&P Global Ratings (previously Standard & Poor's and informally known as S&P) is an American credit rating agency (CRA) and a division of S&P Global that publishes financial research and analysis on stocks, bonds, and commodities. S&P is con ...

. Vennett invites the team to the American Securitization Forum in Las Vegas, where Baum learns from a CDO manager that the market for insuring mortgage bonds, including " synthetic CDOs" which are bets in favor of the faulty mortgage bonds, is significantly larger than the market for the mortgage loans themselves, leading a horrified Baum to realize the entire world economy is set to collapse. As the subprime bonds continue to fall, Baum learns that

Morgan Stanley Morgan Stanley is an American multinational investment management and financial services company headquartered at 1585 Broadway in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. With offices in more than 41 countries and more than 75,000 employees, the fir ...

, under whose umbrella FrontPoint operates, had also taken short positions against mortgage derivatives. However, in order to offset the risk and the monthly premiums, it had bought higher-rated mortgage derivatives. Now that these are also collapsing in value, Morgan Stanley is facing severe liquidity problems. Despite pressure from his staff to sell their position before Morgan Stanley collapses, Baum refuses to sell until the economy is on the verge of collapsing, making over $1 billion in their swaps. Even so, Baum laments that the banks, as well as the government, will not admit what caused the economy to collapse, but will instead blame "immigrants and poor people".

Brownfield Capital

Young investors Charlie Geller and Jamie Shipley run a small firm called Brownfield Capital (based on the firm

Cornwall Capital Cornwall Capital is a New York City-based private financial investment corporation. It was founded in 2003 by Jamie Mai, President and Chief Investment Officer, under the guidance of his father, Vincent Mai, who ran the private equity firm AEA ...

). They accidentally discover a marketing presentation by Vennett on a coffee table in the lobby of a large investment bank (the characters address the audience stating that in reality they had heard about Vennett's plan through word of mouth from friends and family), convincing them to invest in swaps, as it fits their strategy of buying cheap insurance with big potential payouts. Below the capital threshold for an ISDA Master Agreement required to enter into trades like Burry's and Baum's, they enlist the aid of Ben Rickert, a retired securities trader who was based in

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...

. When the bond values and CDOs rise despite defaults, Geller suspects the banks of committing fraud. The trio also visit the American Securitization Forum, where they learn that the SEC has no regulations to monitor mortgage-backed security activity. They successfully make even more profit than Burry and Baum by shorting the higher-rated AA mortgage securities, as they were considered highly stable and carried a much higher payout ratio. Later, as default numbers rise, the value of the CDOs and mortgage bonds does not change, and they realize the banks and the ratings agencies are maintaining the value of their CDOs in order to sell and short them before the inevitable crash. Horrified, they try to tip off the press about the upcoming disaster and the rampant fraud, but a writer from ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'' exposes his own personal conflict of interest and will not listen in order to not endanger his relationships at the Wall Street investment banks. As the market starts collapsing, Ben, on vacation in England, sells their swaps. Ultimately, they turn their $30 million investment into $80 million, but their faith in the system is broken when Ben tells them of the severe consequences for the general public.

Epilogue

Jared Vennett receives a bonus of $47 million for all of his swap sales. Mark Baum becomes more gracious from the financial fallout, and his staff continue to operate their fund. Charlie Geller and Jamie Shipley go their separate ways after unsuccessfully trying to sue the ratings agencies, with Charlie moving to

Charlotte Charlotte ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 at the 2020 census, making Charlotte the 16th-most populo ...

to start a family, and Jamie still running the fund. Ben Rickert returns to his peaceful retirement. Michael Burry closes his fund after public backlash and multiple IRS

audit An audit is an "independent examination of financial information of any entity, whether profit oriented or not, irrespective of its size or legal form when such an examination is conducted with a view to express an opinion thereon.” Auditing ...

s, now only investing in water securities. The personnel of the banks responsible for the crisis escape any consequences for their actions, with the single exception of one trader. It is noted that as of 2015, banks are selling CDOs again under a new label: " Bespoke Tranche Opportunity".

Cast

: one of the first people to discover the American housing market bubble. Burry operates his own hedge fund, Scion Capital, and uses his liquidity to short the housing market. *

as Mark Baum: the leader of FrontPoint Partners, a small independent trading firm. Baum is in a state of constant disgust with the American banks. The character is based on

. *

as Jared Vennett: a salesman from

who decides to sell Burry's credit default swaps for his own profit. The character of Vennett is based on

. *

as Ben Rickert: a retired former trader who helps Jamie and Charlie with their trades. The character is based on Ben Hockett. * John Magaro as Charlie Geller: one half of Brownfield Fund (based on

), who discover Vennett's prospectus and also decide to short the housing market. The character is based on Charlie Ledley. * Finn Wittrock as Jamie Shipley: Charlie's partner in Brownfield Fund. The character is based on James Mai. *

as Porter Collins: one of Baum's team. * Rafe Spall as Danny Moses: one of Baum's team. * Jeremy Strong as Vinny Daniel: one of Baum's team. * Marisa Tomei as Cynthia Baum: Mark Baum's wife.

Tracy Letts Tracy S. Letts (born July 4, 1965) is an American actor, playwright, and screenwriter. He started his career at the Steppenwolf Theatre before making his Broadway debut as a playwright for '' August: Osage County'' (2007), for which he received ...

appears as Lawrence Fields, an investor in Burry's hedge fund, a fictional composite of Joel Greenblatt and others who had invested with Burry but came to disagree with his strategy.

Byron Mann Byron Mann is a Hong Kong-American actor of film and television. His best-known roles include Ryu in '' Street Fighter'', Silver Lion in '' The Man with the Iron Fists'', Wing Chau in ''The Big Short'', Admiral Augusto Nguyen on ''The Expanse'' ...

appeared as Mr. Chau, a CDO specialist whom Baum interviews in Las Vegas, and Melissa Leo as Georgia Hale, an employee of Standard and Poor's who admits to giving inaccurate ratings for bonds. Adepero Oduye portrays Kathy Tao, an employee of

, who oversees Baum's fund. In minor roles, Karen Gillan appears as Evie, an employee of the SEC and Jamie's brother's ex-girlfriend, whom he meets with in Las Vegas. Max Greenfield and Billy Magnussen appear as mortgage brokers taking advantage of people looking for homes. Jae Suh Park features as Burry's wife, and

, Richard Thaler and Selena Gomez make cameo appearances as themselves in non-sequiturs to explain different financial aspects of the film. The real Michael Burry made a cameo in the film as a Scion employee. At the beginning of the scene in which the fictional Burry's investors confront him at his office, he is briefly shown standing near the front door, talking on the phone.

Production

Development

In 2013, Paramount acquired the rights to the 2010 non-fiction book '' The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine'' by Michael Lewis, to develop it into a film, which

's Plan B Entertainment would produce. On March 24, 2014, Adam McKay was hired to write and direct a film about the housing and

economic bubble An economic bubble (also called a speculative bubble or a financial bubble) is a period when current asset prices greatly exceed their intrinsic valuation, being the valuation that the underlying long-term fundamentals justify. Bubbles can be c ...

. Screenwriter

, who co-wrote the film with McKay, said one of the first challenges was finding the right tone for the film. He told ''Creative Screenwriting'', "In general it was trying to find the right tone that was slightly funnier than your average

Miloš Forman Jan Tomáš "Miloš" Forman (; ; 18 February 1932 – 13 April 2018) was a Czech and American film director, screenwriter, actor, and professor who rose to fame in his native Czechoslovakia before emigrating to the United States in 1968. Forman ...

comedy, which is all grounded character-based but not so satirical where you got ''

Wag the Dog ''Wag the Dog'' is a 1997 American political satire black comedy film produced and directed by Barry Levinson and starring Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro. The film centers on a spin doctor and a Hollywood producer who fabricate a war in Alb ...

.'' Somewhere between there was what I was shooting for. Once I got the tone down, then I went through the plot. The market's movements provided you with an underlying plot. You make your short deal, then the bank is trying to squeeze you out, and then it all breaks loose. So that was pretty easy, and it provided character arcs against that." Two years after Randolph wrote his draft, McKay, as director, rewrote Randolph's screenplay. It was McKay's idea to include the celebrity cameos in the film to explain the financial concepts.

Casting

On January 13, 2015, '' Variety'' reported that

, and

were set to star in the film, with Pitt producing the film along with Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner. Plan B Entertainment would finance, with Paramount handling the distribution rights. Before this, Pitt had already starred in the adaptation of the author's ''

Moneyball ''Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game'' is a book by Michael Lewis, published in 2003, about the Oakland Athletics baseball team and its general manager Billy Beane. Its focus is the team's analytical, evidence-based, sabermetric appro ...

'', for which he was nominated for an Oscar. On January 14, it was announced that

would also star. On April 21, 2015, more cast was revealed by ''Deadline'', including Melissa Leo, Marisa Tomei,

, John Magaro,

, Rafe Spall, Jeremy Strong, and Finn Wittrock.

wrote the initial draft. Max Greenfield joined the ensemble cast of the film on April 23, 2015. Karen Gillan tweeted about her involvement in the film on May 8, 2015. Jeffry Griffin, who plays Vennett's assistant Chris, was originally only planned to appear as an extra, and was cast to a speaking role after a production assistant picked him out of a crowd.

Filming

Principal photography Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production. Personnel Besides the main film personnel, such as ...

on the film began on March 18, 2015, in

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is bord ...

. On March 25, filming was taking place on General de Gaulle Boulevard in the

Algiers Algiers ( ; ar, الجزائر, al-Jazāʾir; ber, Dzayer, script=Latn; french: Alger, ) is the capital and largest city of Algeria. The city's population at the 2008 Census was 2,988,145Census 14 April 2008: Office National des Statistiques d ...

section of New Orleans. On May 8, Gillan confirmed she was shooting her scenes. On May 20, 2015, filming took place on a short stretch of Mercer Street, between

Prince Street The Prince Street station is a local station on the BMT Broadway Line of the New York City Subway. Located in SoHo, Manhattan, it is served by the R train at all times except late nights, the W train on weekdays, the N train during late night ...

and

Spring Street Spring Street may refer to: * Spring Street (Los Angeles), USA * Spring Street (Manhattan), New York City, USA * Spring Street, Melbourne, Australia * Spring Street, Singapore * Spring St (website), a US based lifestyle website Subway and trolle ...

, in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. On May 22, the production crew recreated the offices of failed investment firm

Lehman Brothers Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. ( ) was an American global financial services firm founded in 1847. Before filing for bankruptcy in 2008, Lehman was the fourth-largest investment bank in the United States (behind Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, ...

in the lobby of the New York State Department of Financial Services in Manhattan. An assistant counsel for the Department of Financial Services played one of the extras in the scene.

Release

On September 22, 2015, Paramount set the film for a

on December 11, 2015, and a

on December 23, 2015. The film was released on DVD and

Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of st ...

on March 15, 2016.

Reception

Box office

''The Big Short'' grossed $70.3 million in the United States and Canada and $63.2 million in other countries for a worldwide total of $133.4 million, against a production budget of $50 million. The film was released in eight theaters in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17t ...

and

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

on December 11, 2015 and earned $705,527 (an average of $88,191 per theater). It set the record for the best ever per-screen gross for a film opening in eight locations, breaking the previous record held by ''

Memoirs of a Geisha ''Memoirs of a Geisha'' is a historical fiction novel by American author Arthur Golden, published in 1997. The novel, told in first person perspective, tells the story of Nitta Sayuri and the many trials she faces on the path to becoming and w ...

'' ($85,313 per theater), and was the third biggest theater average of 2015 behind the four screen debuts of ''

Steve Jobs Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American entrepreneur, industrial designer, media proprietor, and investor. He was the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple; the chairman and majority shareholder of Pixar; ...

'' ($130,000) and '' The Revenant'' ($118,640). The film had its wide release on Wednesday December 23, 2015 and grossed $2.3 million on its first day. In its opening weekend it grossed $10.5 million, finishing 6th at the box office.

Critical response

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

, the film has an approval rating of 89% based on 331 reviews, with an average rating of 7.80/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "''The Big Short'' approaches a serious, complicated subject with an impressive attention to detail – and manages to deliver a well-acted, scathingly funny indictment of its real-life villains in the bargain." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, the film has a score of 81 out of 100 based on 45 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". Audiences polled by

CinemaScore CinemaScore is a market research firm based in Las Vegas. It surveys film audiences to rate their viewing experiences with letter grades, reports the results, and forecasts box office receipts based on the data. Background Ed Mintz founded Ci ...

gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale. IGN gave the film a score of 8.6/10, praising its "energetic direction" and making "a complicated tale palpable for the layperson even as it triggers outrage at the fatcats who helped cause it". ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' "UpShot" series stated ''The Big Short'' offered the "strongest film explanation of the global financial crisis". The series also stated that it "wouldn't necessarily have been able to cash in as successfully as the characters in ''The Big Short''. The success of this film is due to the work of the actors who played the characters.”

Historical accuracy

David McCandless's visual blog ''Information is Beautiful'' deduced that, while taking creative licence into account, the film was 91.4% accurate when compared to real-life events, calling it a "shockingly truthful film" with "very little dramatization or fakery". Movie critics with backgrounds in finance also commented on the film. Many agreed with the public that ''The Big Short'' was entertaining and engaging, but also terrifying.

Glenn Kenny Glenn Kenny (born August 8, 1959) is an American film critic and journalist. He writes for '' The New York Times'' and ''RogerEbert.com''. Biography Kenny attended William Paterson University, where he majored in English literature.

reported that the film accurately got the message across that even though the lives of the characters were not interconnected, their stories were. While the general plot of the film is the same as the book, many of the character names have been changed. For example,

has become "Mark Baum" and

has become "Jared Vennett". Some biographical information has also been slightly modified. Eisman has said that he respects Carell's portrayal but that it was not 100 percent true to his real character. Speaking to ''

The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it ...

'', Eisman said, "Eliminate my sense of humour and make me angry all the time, and that's arell'sportrayal. It's accurate enough, but it's not really me." The film, along with '' The Wolf of Wall Street'', had a brief resurgence in the wake of the January 2021

GameStop short squeeze In January 2021, a short squeeze of the stock of the American video game retailer GameStop () and other securities took place, causing major financial consequences for certain hedge funds and large losses for short sellers. Approximately 140 ...

as the events shown in the films provided reference points for what was happening with the GameStop and related stocks.

Accolades

Adam McKay and

won the

Academy Award The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...

BAFTA Award The British Academy Film Awards, more commonly known as the BAFTA Film Awards is an annual award show hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) to honour the best British and international contributions to film. The cer ...

, and

Writers Guild of America Award The Writers Guild of America Awards is an award for film, television, and radio writing including both fiction and non-fiction categories given by the Writers Guild of America, East and Writers Guild of America West since 1949. Eligibility ...

for Best Adapted Screenplay. They also won an Empire Award for the Best Screenplay.

won the

Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Actor in a Comedy The Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Actor in a Comedy is one of the awards given to people working in the motion picture industry by the Broadcast Film Critics Association (BFCA) at their annual Critics' Choice Movie Awards. Winners and nomi ...

and the Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor (Motion Picture).

Hank Corwin Hank Corwin is an American film editor. He has been nominated for three Oscars for editing the films ''The Big Short'' (2015), '' Vice'' (2018), and '' Don't Look Up'' (2021). In addition, he has been nominated for two BAFTA Awards for Best Edit ...

won the American Cinema Editors Award for Best Edited Feature Film (Comedy or Musical) and Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Editing. The film earned the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Comedy and was named one of the Top 10 Films of the Year at the American Film Institute Awards 2015. Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, and

won the Producers Guild of America Award for Best Theatrical Motion Picture. The cast also won the National Board of Review Award for Best Ensemble.

References

External links

* * * * *
"The Big Short" at Second City Tzivi
{{DEFAULTSORT:Big Short, The 2015 films 2010s biographical films 2010s business films 2010s crime comedy-drama films American biographical films American business films American crime comedy-drama films BAFTA winners (films) Biographical films about businesspeople Biographical films about fraudsters Comedy-drama films based on actual events Crime films based on actual events Films set in the Great Recession Films about financial crises Films based on non-fiction books Films directed by Adam McKay Films produced by Brad Pitt Films scored by Nicholas Britell Films set in the 1970s Films set in 2005 Films set in 2006 Films set in 2007 Films set in 2008 Films set in Manhattan Films set in Colorado Films set in Miami Films set in the Las Vegas Valley Films set in Devon Films shot in New York City Films shot in New Orleans Films whose writer won the Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award Paramount Pictures films Plan B Entertainment films Regency Enterprises films Films with screenplays by Adam McKay Wall Street films Hyperlink films Films based on works by Michael Lewis Cultural depictions of fraudsters Cultural depictions of American men Short selling 2010s English-language films Films produced by Arnon Milchan 2010s American films

Premise

Scion Capital

FrontPoint Partners

Brownfield Capital

Epilogue

Cast

Production

Development

Casting

Filming

Release

Reception

Box office

Critical response

Historical accuracy

Accolades

See also

References

External links