A sudden, severe global stock market crash rocked the world of finance on October 19, 1987. . Soon after, "Wall Street" has made its way into theaters and enlightened us about the lure of the stock market, along with the risks that lay beneath its glamorous facade. This fictional depiction of 1980s Wall Street, in the wake of a real-world crisis that scared and confused many, ushered in a new genre. The finance film, which usually explores various aspects of Wall Street culture, was born.

Many finance films have managed to make their mark over the years, including 2015's The Big Short (which attempts to shed light on the early days of the 2008 financial crisis) and 2010's searing documentary Inside the Job. If we're not too rigid about the criteria that define these genre entries, American Psycho can also be considered a Wall Street movie, as it takes a satirical approach to the hedonistic shallowness of Wall Street culture. However, none of these examples have won the first place in IMDb's Top List of Wall Street & Finance Movies. IMDb's Best Financial Movie — Which is ranked 129th on IMDb's Top 250 Movies list — is Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street.

Stock market/financial criminal Jordan Belfort's 2007 memoir, The Wolf of Wall Street. serves as the rudimentary basis for Scorsese's film of the same name. A sense of controlled kineticism flows throughout, as Leonardo DiCaprio embodies Belfort with unbridled energy, narrating and living through the chaos of Wall Street stock market culture at the same time. We begin in 1987, with Belfort taking a job at LF Rothschild mentored by Mark Hanna (Matthew McConaughey)which embeds the self-centered instincts of financial opportunism (at the cost of, well, everything) deep into Belfort's heart. After losing his job after Black Monday, he embarks on a new journey that becomes the definition of a moral vacuum, in which Belfort wears his angry manipulation and irresponsibility like a shining badge of honor.

This lack of moral core is vital to The Wolf of Wall Street, which complements Belfort's ludicrously extreme lifestyle with an unhinged visual splendor driven home by equally larger-than-life performances. The real Belfort's memoir predictably indulges in a degree of self-mythologizing, and DiCaprio's performance of the character knowingly pushes this to its limits. The results are more spontaneous and happily satirical in the capable hands of Scorsese, who deftly exposes the hollow, deceptive cult of personality.

Some have criticized The Wolf of Wall Street for glamorizing Belfort's excessive self-indulgence, but the film makes it clear that there is a detachment at the heart of the film's frenetic shots. Scorsese is simply there to weave cinematic magic and have fun, even when the characters inhabiting the fictional world are as morally bankrupt and horrible as the real-life ones they're based on.