The Big Short
Outsiders on Wall Street discover the housing market is a house of cards and bet millions against it before the 2008 crash. Dark comedy and fourth-wall explainers track how their short positions pay off when the system collapses. The Big Short follows hedge-fund manager Michael Burry as he digs into subprime mortgage data and concludes the U.S. housing boom is unsustainable. Burry’s Scion Capital begins buying credit-default swaps that will pay only if the loans fail, alarming his own investors. Trader Jared Vennett catches wind of the trade and pitches the same short to skeptical fund manager Mark Baum and Baum’s team. Baum’s group tours Florida housing tracts, meets mortgage brokers, and finds rampant fraud, liar loans, and ratings agencies rubber-stamping junk as AAA. Their research convinces them a nationwide collapse is coming even while banks and regulators insist the market is fin