8 Documentaries Which Will Change The Way You See The World

5. Inside Job

The world is still reeling from the effects of the 2007/08 financial crisis in which €“ or so we are told €“ the banking sector nearly collapsed in on itself. Even today, the economy is struggling to recover, despite untold billions being poured into financial institutions in order to keep them afloat. Inside Job, the Oscar winning 2010 documentary by Charles H. Ferguson narrated by Matt Damon, goes some way to shedding light on the true causes of the crash €“ and the truth is a long way from what many people perceive. It outlines a worrying trend in systemic corruption throughout the financial sector, with fraud, manipulation, embezzlement and lies commonplace €“ a culture of intense greed which makes the activities of Gordon Gecko in Oliver Stone's Wall Street seem tepid by comparison. Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street may have offered a hyper-energetic vision of one particular example of the psychological character of those responsible for the large scale defrauding of the American people, but Inside Job goes to the heart of the corrupt system in a way that no fictionalized account ever could. It's enough to make you reconsider ever trusting a bank again.