Movies on Stock Market: 10 Must-Watch Films for Investors & Traders

The stock market can seem complex, but movies have a unique way of bringing these financial concepts to life. Whether you're an expert investor or just curious to learn about the stock market, these movies on stock market offer entertainment along with insights into the world of finance. Here are the top 10 films about the stock market that combine entertainment with valuable investment lessons.

1. The Big Short

The Big Short tells the true story of investors who predicted the 2008 housing market crash. The film shows how Michael Burry, played by Christian Bale, spotted the bubble in subprime mortgages and bet against the market.

The most powerful takeaway from this film is that doing your own thorough research can reveal opportunities that the majority miss. When Michael Burry analyzed thousands of individual mortgage loans, he found what big banks and rating agencies overlooked.

2. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room

Considered as one of the best movies about the stock market, this documentary reveals how energy giant Enron collapsed due to corporate fraud and corruption. The film exposes how executives used accounting tricks to hide debt and inflate profits. An important lesson to be learned here is to be skeptical of companies that seem too good to be true.

Enron demonstrates that when a company's financials are too complex to understand, it might be deliberate. Key warnings for investors include:

• Be suspicious of companies that report consistent growth without setbacks.
• Watch for aggressive accounting methods and off-balance-sheet entities.
• Pay attention to company culture - Enron's aggressive, win-at-all-costs mentality was a red flag.

3. The Wolf of Wall Street

Based on the memoir of Jordan Belfort (played by Leonardo DiCaprio), this film shows how he built a fortune through stock market manipulation and fraud. While entertaining, the movie serves as a warning about the dangers of excessive greed and unethical behavior. This is a must-watch movie if you are looking for top share market movies. The film highlights key lessons about financial scams: 

• Be cautious of unsolicited calls promising incredible returns.
• Understand that get-rich-quick schemes are typically fake.
• Be cautious of brokers who may recommend stocks for their benefit rather than yours.

4. Too Big To Fail

This film shows the 2008 financial crisis from the perspective of government officials and bank executives. It narrates the difficult decisions made to prevent a complete economic collapse. It demonstrates several fundamental principles about market dynamics and risk.

The story also highlights the importance of portfolio diversification across sectors to save your investments. It also reminds long-term investors to build strategies that account for occasional market-wide disruptions.

5. Inside Lehman Brothers

Lehman Brothers is among one of the good stock market movies focusing on corporate culture. The documentary shows the story of some employees at Lehman Brothers who tried to warn others about problems brewing within the company. The main issue was that Lehman Brothers chose quick profits over being careful and responsible. These bad decisions led the company to go bankrupt and shut down completely.

The lesson from this story is that companies need to have good values. They should not just chase profits. When you invest in companies, you should look carefully at corporate governance.

6. Barbarians At The Gate

This movie tells the true story of a big company called RJR Nabisco in the 1980s. Due to a failed product, the CEO of the company tries to buy the company to deflect shareholders with borrowed money.

However, there are other individuals in the fray wrestling to assume control of RJR Nabisco. The main lesson for investors is how borrowed money (debt) can be used as a tool to take control of companies. The CEO ultimately loses the game and the company gets takenover by Henry Kravis but the company ends up with a huge amount of debt.

7. Equity

Equity is among the top movies on stock market that offers a Wall Street narrative from a woman's point of view. The main character is a female investment banker trying to succeed in an industry where most workers are men. The story focuses on her work helping a company sell its stocks to the public for the first time, also known as the initial public offering (IPO).

The movie teaches us to carefully research and check all the facts about a company, especially when there's a lot of hype around its IPO. Just because there is excitement and buzz around a company going public doesn't mean it's automatically a good investment.

8. Boiler Room

Boiler Room is a movie about a young gentleman who doesn’t finish college and gets a job at a dishonest stock brokerage company. The company tricks people by selling fake stocks. They use something called a "pump and dump" scheme. First, they convince people to buy certain stocks (the "pump" part), which makes the stock price go up. Then, when the price is high, they secretly sell their own shares (the "dump" part), making lots of money while leaving other investors with worthless stocks.

The big lesson from this movie is pretty straightforward:

• Be very careful when strangers call you out of the blue with amazing investment opportunities. 
• If someone is pressuring you to invest quickly, that's usually a red flag.

9. Scam 1992 – The Harshad Mehta Story

Harshad Mehta was an Indian stockbroker who found ways to cheat the banking system. He took advantage of weak rules to illegally move huge amounts of money into the stock market, This led stock prices to go up artificially. This real-life story teaches us two lessons:

• We need strong rules and watchdogs to protect investors. In fact, this scam led to the the passing of  Securities Laws (Amendments) Act in 1995, which strengthened the jurisdiction of the Securities and Exchange Board of India. 
• Trying to manipulate the market for quick profits will eventually fails and can have ripple effects.

10. Trading Places

Trading Places is a funny movie where Eddie Murphy plays a homeless man and Dan Aykroyd plays a rich businessman. The story centers around two wealthy brothers who make a bet - they want to see what happens when they switch the lives of these two men. It's like a social experiment: will a poor person succeed if given opportunities? Will a rich person fail if everything is taken away?

The movie also teaches about how the financial markets work, specifically something called futures trading (betting on future prices of goods). It shows how some traders try to cheat by using secret information that others don't have access to.