Christian Bale: 10 Greatest movies of all time
By Rachel Roth
10. The Big Short
Original Release Date: December 11, 2015
Box Office Earnings: $133.4 million
Critical Reception: Rave reviews from critics and won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, was also nominated for Best Director, Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor (for Bale) and Best Film Editing.
About the Role: Christian Bale is Michael Burry, a quirky, socially awkward funds manager who’s probably the most interesting person to ever deal with investing. A physician, investor, and hedge fund manager. He was the founder of Scion Capital, which he ran for eight years until he closed in 2008 to focus more on personal investments. He was one of the first investors to recognize and profit from the subprime mortgage crisis between 2007 and 2010.
Simply the Best: Based on the book “The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine” by Michael Lewis, the film shows how the financial crisis starting in 2007 was triggered by the United States housing bubble that affected over half the United States. Told through three separate, but concurrent stories, a group of investors discovers the flaws of the mortgage market, noticing how unstable it is and bet against it. The group consists of Michael Burry, Jared Vennett (Ryan Gosling) who is based on Greg Lippmann, Mark Baum (Steve Carell) who is based on Steve Eisman, and Ben Rickert (Brad Pitt) who is based on Ben Hockett.
There are a hundred movies about the stock market, but The Big Short is one of the best because it uses different storytelling techniques in the narrative, and gives you reason to care. Told like a dramatic documentary, it not only details how various investors profited from the crash, it also reveals the events leading up to it.
Money makes the world go around, people have killed for it and they’ll sell their souls for a pay raise. Getting a glimpse at the corruption happening behind closed doors occurring at the expense of others will make you want to stand up and yell at the screen.