01
Inside Job
Why this pick
A brisk, devastating investigation into the financial crisis, using lucid interviews and archival material to map how institutional incentives and elite self-protection enabled catastrophe.
A FILM WORTH A CLOSER LOOKTHE FEATURE PRESENTATION
MOVIE2005 1h 50m USA
IF THIS ONE STAYED WITH YOU
Movies like
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
Documentary
CINEHUNCH / THE NEXT FRAME
Keep the feeling.
SIMILAR PICKS / A PERSONAL CONNECTION
If you loved Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, try these.
01
02
The Panama Papers
Why this pick
A propulsive journalistic procedural about turning a vast leak into accountability, with the global scale, opaque money trails, and mounting moral outrage that suit Enron.
03
Dirty Money (2018)
Why this pick
This investigative anthology extends Enron’s appetite for clear-eyed corporate accountability, using individual cases to show how wealth, power, and public trust are manipulated.
Finding the atmosphere, tension and little details that made this one stay with you.
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01 / THE STORY
A little about the film.
The film begins with a profile of Kenneth Lay, who founded Enron in 1985. Two years after its founding, the company becomes embroiled in scandal after two traders begin betting on the oil markets, resulting in suspiciously consistent profits. One of the traders, Louis Borget, is also discovered to be diverting company money to offshore accounts. After auditors uncover their schemes, Lay encourages them to "keep making us millions". However, the traders are fired after it is revealed that they gambled away Enron's reserves; the company is narrowly saved from bankruptcy by the timely intervention of executive Mike Muckleroy, who managed to bluff (poker) the market long enough to recover Borget's trading losses and prevent a margin call. After these facts are brought to light, Lay denies having any knowledge of wrongdoing.
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02 / FACES IN THE FRAME
The people who bring it to life.
John Beard
Himself
Dick Cheney
HImself
Gray Davis
Himself
David Freeman
Himself
Loretta Lynch
Herself
Bethany McLean
Herself
Kevin Phillips
Himself
Henry Waxman
Himself