History Film / TheBigShort

* AluminumChristmasTrees: Some may not believe that chefs will take meats that don't sell and convert them into stews or pies, days later. This practice is quite common, as restaurants have razor thin margins and need to maximize the shelf life of every single ingredient in their kitchens. Of course, Creator/AnthonyBourdain is the person explaining this, and he has never been shy about making frank comments about his own industry.

* AmbiguousDisorder: Michael Burry is portrayed as quirky, isolates himself from his employees, and has very awkward social skills. He communicates to his investors in very blunt e-mails and is insolent with his co-financier in a face-to-face conversation. The epilogue mentions that after his child is diagnosed with Asperger's, he feels he might have it too.
* AMillionIsAStatistic: Defied. This trope is verbatim the reason why Rickert hates banking as it reduces people to mere numbers in a ledger regardless of the damage it causes to others. Eventually both Geller and Shipley share this view and go from being excited over their prospective earnings to horrified of the crash that is about to come.

** Baum and the stripper he interviews share an OhCrap moment when he tells her that her monthly mortgage payments are likely to go up at least 200%, and she reveals that she has five houses and a condo, all of which she bought under the impression that she would always be refinance, which won't be the case if prices don't go up.

* AMillionIsAStatistic: Defied. This trope is verbatim the reason why Rickert hates banking as it reduces people to mere numbers in a ledger regardless of the damage it causes to others. Eventually both Geller and Shipley share this view and stop being excited over their prospective earnings to horrified of the crash that is about to come.

--->'''Baum''': Banks have given us 25% of interest rate on credit cards, they have saddled us with student debt that we will never get out from under; then this guy comes in and tells me those same banks got greedy, they lost track of the market and I can profit of their stupidity? ''Fuck yeah!'' I want him to be right.

** Vennett is upfront about the fact he only cares about making money for himself, but when Baum tells him he wants to buy more swaps from him after meeting with the Merryl-Lynch CDO manager, Vennett warns him that doing so could result in Baum's fund going bankrupt from having to pay the collateral calls until the bonds collapse. How much of it is genuine care and how much EnlightenedSelfInterest (since his own profit would be far smaller if Baum goes under) is to debate.

--> '''Jarred Vennett''': "When you come for the payday, I'll rip your eyes out. I'm gonna make a fortune. But the good news is you are not going to care because you are going to make so much fucking money. That's what I get out of it. You know what you get out of it? You get the ice cream, the hot fudge, the banana and the nuts. Right now I get the sprinkles, and yeah, if this goes through, I get the cherry. But you get the Sundae Vinny, you get the Sundae."

* WretchedHive: The American Securitization Forum is played up like this in the film, and it shows given how many of its attendants are clueless or neglectful of the impact that the default rate of the mortgages will have in the economy so long as they get their money.

* AmbiguousDisorder: Michael Burry is portrayed as quirky, isolates himself from his employees, and has very awkward social skills. He communicates to his investors in very blunt e-mails and is insolent with his co-financier in a face-to-face conversation. The epilogue mentions that after his child is diagnosed with Aspergers, he feels he might have it too.

** After Baum's speech about the catastrophic level of fraud within Wall Street, Miller counters that he's still optimistic about Bear Sterns because no investment bank has ever failed unless caught in criminal activities. When he's told that Bear's stock has kept falling 38% ever since the two began their presentation, he still insists that he would buy more stock, not realising that Bear Sterns has just done exactly that and is now caught in a death spiral. There's another layer of irony here since Miller's assesment was valid not just for Bear Sterns but also for Lehman Brothers and the other banks that crashed when their greed and deception caught up to them.

** One of the biggest one is when Chau describes what syntethic [=CDO=]s are and he gives an estimate of how much money is tied up in what is essentially betting on the good performance of the [=CDO=]s which, as the film has pointed out before, are filled with high risk bonds that are pretty much financial trash.

* TheBadGuyWins: A ForegoneConclusion for anyone who remembers the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2007-2009. [[spoiler: Sure, a lot of fat cats lost their money and some firms like Lehman Brothers went under, but the ending of the film leaves no doubt about it - the banking industry got out of the crash entirely regulation-free, shifting the blame to the poor, immigrants, and even teachers. They even start offering [=CDOs=] again years later, repackaged as "bespoke tranche opportunities."]]

* StupidEvil: As Vennett points out and Baum's team and Shipley and Geller later corroborate in the American Securitization Forum, a lot of the people in charge of the market are not only short-sighted and clueless but also also willingly fraudulent to the point of self-sabotage. This is later alluded to in Baum's speech when he points out how fraud is not only immoral, but also deeply foolish at its core, yet somehow there are always people trying ''anyway'', learning zero lessons from all of human history.

** In a movie full of swearing, Vinnie drops a beautifully executed one of these.

'''Mark Baum''': All right. Could you go in there, very calmly and very politely, tell them to fuck off.\\
'''Vinnie''': Sure.\\

* StupidEvil: As Vennett points out and Baum's team and Shipley and Geller later corroborate in the American Securitization Forum, a lot of the people in charge of the market are not only short-sighted and clueless but also also willingly fraudulent to the point of self-sabotage. This is later alluded to in Baum's speech when he points out how fraud is not only immoral, but also deeply foolish at its core, yet somehow there are always people trying ''anyway'', learning zero lessons from the entire human history.

* StupidEvil: As Vennett points out and Baum's team and Shipley and Geller later corroborate in the American Securitization Forum, a lot of the people in charge of the market are not only short-sighted and clueless but also also willingly fraudulent to the point of self-sabotage. This is later alluded to in Baum's speech when he points out how fraud is not only immoral, but also deeply foolish at its core.

* StupidEvil: As Vennett points out and Baum's team and Shipley and Geller later corroborate in the American Securitization Forum, a lot of the people in charge of the market are not only short-sighted and clueless but also also willingly fraudulent to the point of self-sabotage.

** When the bonds don't fail when Burry predicted they would, he ends up telling his assistant that there's the reason why this could be is that the system is utterly fraudulent while his assistant points out that he could have also been wrong. As it's later revealed in the film, Burry was wrong. Not on his math though, but rather on underestimating the degree of fraud in Wall Street and the lengths the banks would go to squeeze out as much money as possible even if that meant the final crash would end up being worse.

* HeelFaceDoorSlam: After they realize they were proven right, Shipley and Geller go to the press to tell their story, as a form of atonement. The journalist they talk to refuses to publish what they know, on the grounds that no bank would verify their information, and asking banks about it would burn bridges.

* DramaticIrony: When the bonds don't fail when Burry predicted they would, he ends up telling his assistant that there's the reason why this could be is that the system is utterly fraudulent while his assistant points out that he could have also been wrong. As it's later revealed in the film, Burry was wrong. Not on his math, but rather on underestimating the degree of fraud in Wall Street and the lengths the banks would go to squeeze out as much money as possible even if that meant the final crash would end up being worse.

* DudeNotFunny: This is the implicit reaction that Baum and his team have when they interview the mortgage sellers and they keep bragging on how much they are ripping off from people. Geller and Shipley also have this reaction when they start to dig up information in the American Securitization Forum and the people they interview are more interested on making money than caring about the rising default rate.

* MoodWhiplash: Initially, Geller and Shipley end up in a cheer mood after being able to short the AA tranches at a low cost and secure themselves a net profit, then Rickert slams them both with the full consequences of what they are betting will happen as detailed below.

* ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney: Or want money. Or don't get paid enough to care about the rules. The SEC agent Shipley and Geller meet in Vegas is happy to hobnob with bankers to try to get a cushy job instead of investigating them. And Georgia, the S&P executive, doesn't crack down on the bankers, because if she did they'd just go to S&P's competition instead.

** The reporter that refuses to publish Shipley and Geller's story as the [=CDOs=] begin to fail is certainly helping the ultimate crash become even worse by staying silent, but as he himself points out, he has his own family to look out for and covering their claims would certainly burn all the bridges he had made in his career with the financial industry, if not end up killing his career.

* ExplainExplainOhCrap: Geller has such a moment while he and Shipley call Rickert to discuss how illogical it is that the mortgage bonds have hit the critical default rate yet the bonds and [=CDO=]s have gone up in value, as that would mean that either the banks have no idea how to rate the bonds, or, they are aware and are deliberately hiding how worthless they are.

** After being lectured by Rickert, Shipley and Geller realize the real world implications of what they're predicting. Geller is so shaken he calls his mother to warn her to save her money, and the two decide to try to warn the media - which isn't interested.

** The scene is set a few years before Snowden would expose said monitoring program to the public, making Ben [[ProperlyParanoid]].

** Vennett is upfront about the fact he only cares about making money for himself, but when Baum tells him he wants to buy more swaps from him after meeting with the Merryl-Lynch CDO manager, Vennett warns him that doing so could result in Baum's fund going bankrupt from having to pay the collateral calls until the bonds collapse.

** Vennett is upfront about the fact he only cares about making money for himself, but when Baum tells him he wants to buy more swaps from him after meeting with the Morgan Stanley CDO manager, Vennett warns him that doing so could result in Baum's fund going bankrupt from having to pay the collateral calls until the bonds collapse.

* HoistByTheirOwnPetard: When Burry approach Goldman Sachs (and then few other banks) to create for him a new investment tool - credit swaps that pay off in case of failure of [=CDO=]s - they eagerly go with it, thinking he's some sort of lunatic that they can easily fleece. After all, there is no way the mortgage and real estate market will collapse. By doing so, every single bank Burry made a deal with ends up not only going down with the financial meltdown, but on top of that, they ''also'' have to pay him for his swaps, netting his fund almost 2.7 ''billion''. And that's just Burry, since others of course also used the tools he created. The very bankers Burry made the deal with end up without jobs by the end of it, completely puzzled what even happened.

** Burry, the constantly drumming, monologuing, and shorts-wearing financial investment genius.

* CentralTheme: Outside of the whole "financial systems are capable of really fucking over the layman" thing, the movie discusses the idea of personal incentive versus moral obligation- if the entire market ''really is'' as stupid and corrupt as they seem, then the protagonists have no financial incentive to do anything other than bet against it. At the same time, none of them like this situation, and all three groups of protagonists go through either a HeelRealization or an outright HeroicBSOD in dealing with the fallout of what's about to happen. It's a movie about profiting off a bad situation when there's no way to stop it from happening, and the film explores each character's reaction to the eventual market collapse: [[spoiler: Baum becomes forlorn with what he's done, Shipley and Geller get totally disillusioned with the banking world, and Michael outright quits finance in disgust.]]

* HoistByTheirOwnPetard: When Burry approach Goldman Sachs (and then few other banks) to create for him a new investment tool - credit swaps that pay off in case of failure of [=CDO=]s - they eagerly go with it, thinking he's some sort of lunatic that they can easily fleece. After all, there is no way the mortgage and real estate market will collapse. By doing so, every single bank Burry made a deal with ends up not only going down with the financial meltdown, but on top of that, they ''also'' have to pay him for his swaps, netting his fund almost 2.7 ''billion''. And that's just Burry, since others of course also used the tools he created.

* MorallyBankruptBanker: Far too many to list.

* RuleOfSymbolism: Baum's friend at the ratings agency is literally almost blind.

* RefugeInAudacity: Several of the characters in the movie flaunt this attitude, proud of how much money they're making for essentially selling shoddy goods. This trope is deconstructed by the fact that the characters who engage in this attitude are shown as [[{{Manchild}} juvenile tools]] with no sense of responsibility or knowledge of the consequences of their actions and by showing the end results of applying this attitude on a systematic level. It gets far, far less amusing then Baum realises the top echelon isn't any better, being too busy with here-and-now big profit to see the long-term consequences.

** Shipley has one moment when he realises that not only is the SEC unable to track the mortgage bonds due to budget cuts, but also that Evie, which works for the SEC, is deliberately being neglectful at her job so she can secure herself a better position in the banking industry once her tenure is over.