There are plenty of movies about money, greed, and collapse, but very few make boardrooms feel this terrifying. Margin Call turns financial jargon into a full-blown pressure cooker, locking viewers inside one long night as a company realizes it is on the edge of disaster. The result is not flashy in the usual Hollywood way, but it is still one of the most stressful dramas of the last 15 years. Prime viewers only have until March 31 to watch it there.
Written and directed by J.C. Chandor, Margin Call unfolds over a 24-hour period at a major investment bank during the early stages of the 2008 financial crisis. When a junior analyst discovers that the firm’s position could collapse the company, executives are dragged into a brutal overnight reckoning about how much they are willing to burn in order to survive.
The cast includes Scarpetta star Simon Baker as Jared Cohen, Kevin Spacey as Sam Rogers, Paul Bettany as Will Emerson, Jeremy Irons as John Tuld, Zachary Quinto as Peter Sullivan, Penn Badgley as Seth Bregman, Mary McDonnell as Mary Rogers, Demi Moore as Sarah Robertson, and Stanley Tucci as Eric Dale.
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How Good Is ‘Margin Call’?
Collider’s review stated that while the 2008 financial collapse has all the makings of gripping cinema, Margin Call struggles to turn that real-world catastrophe into something truly insightful. J.C. Chandor’s film has all the surface-level ingredients of a prestige drama — a stacked cast, sharp suits, and a high-stakes setting — but beneath that polished exterior, it often feels more like a hollow exercise than a meaningful exploration of one of the most defining crises of our time.
“Unfortunately Margin Call wastes the rest of its talented cast by making them nothing more than plastic figures moving around a poorly constructed play set (Note to toy manufacturers: do not make the Financial Firm Play Set). The devil is in the details and Chandor wants to make a movie without devils or even people. We need a good film about the financial collapse, but if Margin Call is the best we can get, then fuck me…”
Prime subscribers have until March 31 to stream Margin Call before it leaves.
- Release Date
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February 11, 2011
- Runtime
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109 minutes
- Director
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J.C. Chandor
- Writers
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J.C. Chandor
- Producers
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Cassian Elwes, Corey Moosa, Joshua Blum, Kirk D’Amico, Neal Dodson, Rose Ganguzza, Zachary Quinto, Randy Manis, Anthony Gudas, Laura Rister, Michael Benaroya, Robert Ogden Barnum, Joe Jenckes
