Starring: Brad Pitt, Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling, Steve Carell, Melissa Leo, Marisa Tomei, Karen Gillan, Tracy Letts, Selena Gomez, Rafe Spall, Jeremy Strong, Finn Wittrock, Max Greenfield
OUR RATING: ★★★★☆
Story: Drama written and directed by Adam McKay set during the financial crisis of 2007–2010 by the build-up of the housing and credit bubble. The Big Short (2015) follows four outsiders who after seeing what the big banks, media and government refused to, the global collapse of the economy, they had an idea: The Big Short. Their bold investment leads them into the dark underbelly of modern banking where they must question everyone and everything.
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24 Best The Big Short Quotes
Mark Baum: You know what? I’m pissed off! American people are getting screwed by the big banks. And I am getting madder and madder, then this guy walks into my office and says…
Jared Vennett: There’s some shady stuff going down.
Mark Baum: We’re going to make the big banks hurt.
Jared Vennett: A few outsiders saw what no one else could. The whole world economy might collapse.
Mark Baum: Banks have conditioned us to trust them and what have we got from that? Twenty-five percent interest rates on credit cards. They have screwed us on student loans so we can never get out from under.
Michael Burry: The whole housing market is propped up on these bad loans. They will fail.
Alan: The housing market is rock solid.
Michael Burry: It’s a time bomb.
Michael Burry: We have to act now!
Georgia Hale: I’m sure the world’s banks have more incentives than greed.
Mark Baum: You’re wrong.
Jared Vennett: No one’s paying attention.
Mark Baum: The banks got greedy and we can profit off of their stupidity.
Ben Rickert: Do you have any idea what you’re up against.
Mark Baum: Fraud has never ever worked, eventually things go south. When the hell did we forget all that?
Jared Vennett: How can the banks let this happen? It’s fueled by stupidity.
Mark Baum: But that’s not stupidity, that’s fraud.
Jared Vennett: Tell me the difference between stupid and illegal and I’ll have my wife’s brother arrested.
Ben Rickert: Do you have any idea what you just did? You just bet against the American economy.
Jared Vennett: There’s some shady stuff going down. God, this is intimate. I feel like I’m financially inside of you or something.
Mark Baum: Okay.
Ben Rickert: If we’re right, people lose homes. People lose jobs! People lose retirement savings, people lose pensions. You know what I hate about f***ing banking? It reduces people to numbers. Here’s a number, every one percent unemployment goes up, forty thousand people die, did you know that?
Truth is like poetry. And most people f***ing hate poetry.
Porter Collins: We can do everything straight and still go broke.
Danny Moses: The ratings agencies, the banks, the government, they’re all asleep at the wheel?
Jamie Shipley: This is a once in a lifetime deal.
Ben Rickert: I’m thinking.
Cynthia Baum: [to Baum] Sometimes there’s nothing you can do. It’s scary.
Vinny Daniel: The banks have fraud the American people. Now we can kick them in the teeth.
Mark Baum: You’re not going to be able to refinance.
Dancer: On all my loans?
Mark Baum: What do you mean all your loans?
Dancer: I have five houses, and a condo.
Mark Baum: How much do you make a year?!
Mark Baum: Thank banks got greedy and we can profit off of their stupidity.
Ben Rickert: Do you have any idea what you’re up against.
Everyone, deep in their hearts, is waiting for the end of the world to come.
[on screen quotation from Mark Twain] “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”