Inside Job (2010)

Inside Job is a 2010 documentary film about the financial crisis of 2007–2010 directed by Charles H. Ferguson. The film was screened at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2010. The film won an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2011. Ferguson has described the film as being about "the systemic corruption of the United States by the financial services industry and the consequences of that systemic corruption." In five parts the film explores how changes in the policy environment and banking practices helped create the 2008 financial crisis. Inside Job was well received by film critics who praised its pacing, research and explanation of complex material.

One viewer-reporter characterized the film as "rip-snorting [and] indignant [with] support from interviews with professional Cassandra Nouriel Roubini, Barney Frank, George Soros, Eliot Spitzer and others. But the most effective presence," he continues, "may be the trusted voice of all-American actor Matt Damon, who narrates the furious takedown of the financial services and the government. It's a fairly bold move by the actor." The report goes on to speculate that Damon's participation, from a supporter of President Barack Obama, and the documentary as a whole "may be one more sign that Democratic celebrities are going to push harder against the man they helped elect." A reviewer writing from Cannes characterized the film as telling "a complex story exceedingly well and with a great deal of unalloyed anger. [It] lays out its essential argument, cogently and convincingly, that the 2008 meltdown was avoidable. ... [L]ess familiar faces, including a brothel madam and a therapist who each catered to Wall Street in the bubble years [are also seen, and t]he movie ends not long after Robert Gnaizda, formerly with the Greenlining Institute, a housing advocacy group, characterizes the Obama administration as 'a Wall Street government', a take Mr. Ferguson clearly endorses." It was named the best single film at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival.