The Big Short (2015)

Every few scenes, The Big Short stops so a celebrity can explain finance to you, which tells you how the banks got away with it: nobody understood the words. The tricks are clever, but the movie is so pleased with its own style that the fourth wall gets a revolving door, and a couple of the side plots blur together. It’s also hard to know who to root for, since every hero here is getting rich off a disaster. Christian Bale plays Michael Burry as a guy who’d rather drum along to metal in his office than talk to a client. Steve Carell is the angriest man in finance and the only one who seems to feel the weight of it. Ryan Gosling narrates like a smug salesman, which he is. When the crash comes, the jokes stop, and the movie remembers the families who lost their homes. An 8.6 because it makes you laugh and then makes you furious. $229 says you sit through the credits and then ask someone you trust how a mortgage actually works.

What works: The cast is stacked and sharp, and the celebrity explainers turn impossible financial jargon into something you can actually follow.

What doesn’t: The constant style tricks get exhausting, and the side plots with the smaller investors blur together.

Who it’s for: People who never understood how the housing market collapsed and want to be both entertained and angry about it.