The best films about finance and money: From The Big Short to Mary Poppins

She opened up the messy world of millennial women to the viewing public with Girls; can Lena Dunham do the same with the macho world of finance? 

Industry,  a new series directed and co-produced by Dunham (but written by two escapees from banking, Mickey Down and Konrad Kay), follows a mixed group of young graduates competing for a handful of roles at a top London investment bank. 

Expect a lot of sex, drugs and dividends when it launches on BBC Two next week. To prepare you, here are our favourite examples of finance on film.

American Psycho, 2000

Now, we’re not for one second saying that all high-flying investment bankers are murderous lunatics, but after watching American Psycho, you’ll be disturbed to witness just how seamlessly this particular madman fits into the world of Wall Street. Patrick Bateman, played by Christian Bale in this 2000 adaptation of the Bret Easton Ellis novel, enjoys looking after his skin, working out, listening to music and, as it happens, doing lots of killing. His character is an extremity of dark comedy, but there are themes here — from toxic one-upmanship to violent misogyny — that ring chillingly true in today’s climate of male-dominated business. JE

The Big Short, 2015

Adam McKay’s film about how the American housing bubble contributed to the 2008 financial crisis is incredibly hard to understand unless you are some kind of god-like maths genius — and McKay is very aware of this. That’s why he enlisted a number of stars for fourth-wall breaking cameos, including Margot Robbie explaining subprime mortgages while drinking champagne in a bubble bath. The mood is fast-moving and VERY masculine, with Christian Bale, Steve Carrell and Brad Pitt all starring as socially awkward finance whizz kids, and Ryan Gosling sleazily narrating. Although it seems to have been a condition of being in the film that all the men must do something strange with their hair. JT

Billions, 2016-

High stakes, d***-swinging rivalries, sex, drugs and a tenuous relationship with legality — it’s just another day at the office for billionaire hedge-funder Bobby Axelrod. This zingy show pits Damian Lewis’s dynamic, dodgy, ruthless Axelrod against Paul Giamatti’s dogged, suspicious, ruthless attorney Chuck Rhoades (whose wife happens to work at Axelrod’s firm) in a cat and mouse game that has gone on now for five seasons, with another recently announced. This dance got a whole lot more complex in season three, making Billions one of the most fascinating, thrilling and, ultimately, depressing skewerings of the corrupting influence of power you could wish for. ND

Margin Call, 2011

Watch this for its superb performances by Jeremy Irons, Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany and Stanley Tucci, the principal players working at a fictional Wall Street firm — think Goldman Sachs-meets-Lehman Bros — about to go into meltdown. When it’s revealed that the firm holds toxic assets on its books in the form of mortgage-backed securities, the decision to dump them or go bankrupt must be made. “Be first, be smarter or cheat,” CEO John Tuld (a creepily brilliant Irons) tells his subordinates. Most of the action takes place in a boardroom, but it pulses as fast as any thriller. KL

Mary Poppins, 1964

You thought that Mary Poppins was a larky children’s film about a nanny teaching a family to care for each other, but underpinning all that is a message about money — how else do you think the Banks family can afford to live in a huge Georgian house in central London and pay for full time childcare? The clue is in the name, Banks. For a concise explanation of how our financial system works look no further than the song Fidelity Fiduciary Bank, which the Elder Mr Dawes deploys to persuade a reticent Michael Banks to invest his tuppence. If only finance was that exciting now — Rishi Sunak should take note. SB

McMafia, 2018

“Let me guess — you’re a gangster,” says the slippery Tanya (Yuval Scharf) to James Norton’s Alex Godman when they meet in a club. “Close,” says a smiling Godman. “Banker?” she smiles back. This bleak, nerve-shredding series, based on Misha Glenny’s non-fiction book of the same name, followed Russian-born “ethical” fund manager (hollow laugh) Godman around the globe on his journey from upstanding citizen to murderous uber-mafioso via a network of increasingly shady businessmen who appear to have a finger in almost every major pie in the world. It left us feeling a bit like just burning everything and starting again to be honest. ND

Trading Places, 1983

Yes, it’s of its time. Jamie Lee Curtis does her best with the ‘kindly hooker’ role and there’s a wild blacking up scene that makes this role-reversal romp a painful watch in places. But the depiction of ghastly rich white men destroying people’s lives on a whim has only got richer in the intervening decades. Eddie Murphy steals every available scene as the street hustler who switches places with Dan Ackroyd’s commodities broker (both men are the victims of a secret bet between Ackroyd’s bosses) and the legally dodgy but deeply satisfying denouement where the villains get their comeuppance on the trading floor is a delight. ND

The Wolf of Wall Street, 2013

Forget Leonardo DiCaprio’s boring, bearded and bear-fighting turn in The Revenant — we all know he should have got the Oscar for his gleefully unhinged portrayal of stockbroker Jordan Belfort. Everything about The Wolf of Wall Street is excessive, from its gargantuan three-hour run time (which, to director Martin Scorsese’s credit, rattles by at breakneck speed) to the gratuitous sex and drug use (that quaaludes scene, in which a semi-comatose Belfort has to drag himself into his sports car, is both hilarious and horrifying). Margot Robbie is brilliant as Belfort’s put-upon wife Naomi, while Matthew McConaughey and Joanna Lumley almost steal the show with their brief cameos. KR

Glengarry Glen Ross, 1992

It’s not banking per se but David Mamet’s screenplay (adapted from his play) is an acute insight into a harmful and very specifically male mindset around money and success. Four Chicago real estate agents are told that the two lowest performers will be fired by the end of the week, leading to desperation, deception, theft and despair. In Shelley Levene (played here by Jack Lemmon) Mamet paints an unsurpassed portrait of an alpha in decline, at the mercy of events while younger, stronger males circle threateningly. This is toxic masculinity at its most insidious. ND

Wall Street, 1987

“Greed is good,” “money never sleeps” and “lunch is for wimps” were just three of the classic phrases uttered by arch villain Gordon Gekko, so memorably played by Michael Douglas in Oliver Stone’s genre-defining movie from the late 1980s. With his slicked back hair, contempt for poverty and wide-boy charisma, Gekko was corporate rapaciousness personified. It’s a cracking story too, with a strong moral message, not to mention the frosted hair dos, the ruffled collared blouses and the love of novelty gadgets, from sushi rice-making machines to brick-like portable phones. Fabulous! KL

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, 2010

Twenty-three years on, Douglas reprised his role as Gekko, who ended up in prison for insider trading and securities fraud. At the beginning of this sequel, he emerges, grey and grizzled, to find the world has moved on, but only sort of. “While I was away, it seemed greed got greedier with a little bit of envy mixed in,” he tells a crowd at a talk to launch his new book. The twist here is that Gekko’s estranged daughter Winnie (Carey Mulligan) is in love with trader Jake (Shia LaBeouf) who soon becomes entangled in her father’s sticky web. Not as good as the original, but not half bad. KL