From Gekko To Belfort: 5 Favorite Finance Movies, Ranked

"Boiler Room" is not the best finance movie ever made. But it is the most fun.

Its penny-stock pump-and-dump schemes are so flagrantly illegal that suspension of disbelief is required. But that's beside the point. This film is a vehicle for an absurdly entertaining early-2000s cast playing Long Island brokers gone wild.

Vin Diesel delivers a perfect sales pitch to rapturous applause. Ben Affleck gets two electric motivational monologues, including the immortal observation that people who call money evil simply do not have any. Giovanni Ribisi anchors the movie as an ambitious poker-room hustler turned broker, while Jamie Kennedy steals scenes from what feels like a completely different movie.

The crew also ventures into Manhattan to beat up rival brokers and celebrate fraudulent IPOs — a reminder that subtlety was never on the menu.

Offensive? Often. Electric? Absolutely. A perfect 10.

Steve Carell wears a face throughout "The Big Short" that makes for a terrific reaction meme. Did someone say something questionable or out-of-pocket? Hit 'em with a Big Short Carell: pure confusion mixed with outright disdain.

Based on Steve Eisman, Baum slowly realizes that toxic mortgages are a ticking time bomb through encounters with overeager real-estate agents, exotic dancers buying second homes, and conference-hall shysters.

Christian Bale's Michael Burry air-drums to metal while combing through reams of mortgages, then gets punished for seeing the iceberg before everyone else. Ryan Gosling narrates with maximum swagger. Brad Pitt and a pre-"Succession" Jeremy Strong pop up, too.

Adam McKay somehow makes the financial crisis funny, furious, technical, and incredibly watchable. Watch it, then deploy the Carell face accordingly.

The granddaddy still absolutely holds up.

Michael Douglas' Gordon Gekko — a slick-haired, cold-blooded embodiment of Wall Street greed — is an all-time movie villain whose every line is quotable. "Ever wonder why fund managers can't beat the S&P 500? Cause they're sheep, and sheep get slaughtered," is a personal favorite of mine.

Young Charlie Sheen is excellent as Bud Fox, the ambitious trader pulled into Gekko's insider-trading orbit. The plot — Gekko's plan to raid an airline's pension fund — can be a little far-fetched, but the mechanics of trading, corporate control, and takeover tactics remain remarkably clear and credible. That accessibility helps explain its enduring Wall Street appeal.

The period details are fun, too: landlines on the floor, brick-sized cell phones, loose-leaf paper everywhere. Gekko even has a treadmill in his office.

Oh, and one last thing … the next time you're hanging out with someone in finance, casually drop the line "Blue Horseshoe loves Anacott Steel" and watch them go nuts. You can thank me later.

This has to be Martin Scorsese's most rewatchable film, which is really saying something. If I come across it on a movie channel, I have to finish. It draws me in every time.

That's because it's arguably the fastest-paced three hours in movie history. It spans years, tracking Leonardo DiCaprio's Jordan Belfort character from humble beginnings to penny-stock-hustling multimillionaire. To say hilarity ensues would be an understatement.

Jonah Hill — fitted with a comically large set of fake teeth — is outstanding as Belfort's money-hungry right-hand man, Donnie Azoff. Margot Robbie is Belfort's scene-stealing wife, who grows increasingly tired of his many antics, like crashing his white Lamborghini on quaaludes on the way home from the country club.

Belfort is despicable, hilarious, and impossible to look away from. Deep down, you know his gambit won't last, and the authorities are closing in on him throughout the movie. But it's still a blast to watch him fly too close to the sun.

"Margin Call" turns a Lehman-like bank collapse into an unnervingly quiet all-nighter.

While the release of the movie coincided with the Occupy Wall Street movement, its ultimate point wasn't that corporate overlords must be held accountable. The tone was more one of ambivalence and cynical resignation that big banks will always be bailed out.

Zachary Quinto is the real star, despite surprisingly low billing, as the analyst who discovers the firm's catastrophic risk. Kevin Spacey becomes the movie's uneasy conscience. Demi Moore and Stanley Tucci do plenty with limited screen time.

Then Jeremy Irons arrives as the all-knowing CEO and immediately steals the film in less than 10 minutes of screen time.

"Please, speak as you might to a young child or a golden retriever. It wasn't brains that got me here, I can assure you that," he says to Quinto's nervous young analyst, immediately taking control of the boardroom.

It's essential Wall Street viewing — smart, bleak, and impeccably acted — a touch too solemn to match "Boiler Room."