The Big Short is a film based on the 2010 non-fiction book “The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine” by Michael Lewis. The film tells the story that led to the 2007-2008 financial crisis and real estate bubbles. The film may be too dry for people without financial experience. However, the director excellently added some pop culture explanations about finance and humor among the characters in the film to hold the viewer's attention. Help the world understand the economic collapse of Wall Street in New York, the financial market meltdown and its impact globally. Not only that, the film also focuses on some investors who predict in advance that the mortgage securities market will crash and collapse. Within the film there are three different stories, all connected to each other due to the real estate bubble. These people knew that a market crash was imminent, and decided to use this knowledge to profit and briefly bet against the “ever stable” mortgage market. This article will look at some of these individuals and how they contributed to the worst financial meltdown in history. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay From the beginning of the film, the first character who discovers the potential collapse of the financial market is Michael Burry, played by Christian Bale. In the film, he is a socially inept hedge fund CEO. From the beginning, even though no one trusted him, he recognized and believed that the real estate market was unstable. The main reason for this is that they rely on high-risk subprime loans, which provide ever-decreasing returns. No one selling them seems to understand this concept because they are too busy making money and believe the market can't crash. Therefore, he created a credit default swap (CDS), which is a short-selling investment strategy, and allowed him to bet against the U.S. mortgage market for profit. He invested more than $1 billion in CDS, which attracted the attention of other stockbrokers, as well as confusion and fear among his investors. As time goes by, waiting for the market to crash, he loses a lot of money and his investors become impatient. Subsequently, investors turned their backs on him with threats and lawsuits against him. Michael Burry's market prediction was right, but his timing was off. He predicted this so far in advance that he had to hold out and potentially got stuck with a significant loss. Ultimately, he managed to hang on long enough to do business and clear his name, but it left a deep scar on him. Another character who influenced and played a significant role in the financial crisis is Mark Baum, played by Steve Carell. He is a fund manager who recently suffered a family tragedy. He learns of the potential crisis, but isn't entirely sure of its scope. Unlike Michael Burry, Mark Baum doesn't dive into spreadsheets to find his answer; he is more interested in the real world. His team took to the streets and witnessed the real estate bubble with their own eyes. They saw an alarming problem with many late payments, foreclosure by uninformed people. Everyone expects house prices to continue rising. Only after the conversation with the bankers, who casually reveal to him all the potential risks, Mark Baum finally comes to the conclusion that the risk is much greater than he had ever imagined. It's only a matter of time before the bubble bursts and everything goes from there.