The ifa watch list: From Ozark to Stavisky, what you should be watching this summer

Financial advice isn’t a profession that is well-represented in film and television, but the cupboard isn’t entirely bare. Unfortunately, Hollywood has decided the best way to depict financial advisers, or indeed anyone in the financial service industry is negative.

Below are some (mostly tenuously connected) financial advice TV shows and movies.

Ozark

Chicago financial adviser Marty Byrde (Jason Bateman) is a dedicated and pragmatic financial adviser who preaches the value of living within your means and making smart, long-term investments. He is so dedicated to providing the best financial advice for his clients that he will even launder tens of millions of dollars for a Mexican cartel. Truly a sterling example for the industry.

As is often the case when working for a cartel, things go bad and his family flees to the Missouri Ozarks where he can essentially work off debt and launder even more money.

Where to watch: Netflix

Ballers

The Rock as a financial adviser to athletes. Do you really need to read more?

Ballers is also the only example on this list that actually paints anyone in finance in a positive light, with The Rock’s Spencer Strasmore giving his all as he attempts to keep his NFL athlete clients from blowing all of their cash.

The series does stray from that central concept as the show goes on, but it is a lot of fun while it all gets out of hand.

Where to watch: Binge

Black Monday

Here we begin to stray from the realm of advice and enter the world of finance more broadly. But then, who doesn’t want to watch a comedy about Don Cheadle running a Wall Street firm in the lead-up to the Black Monday stock market crash of 1987?

Black Monday has a similar vibe to the earlier Cheadle vehicle House of Lies, which focuses on the world of management consulting, but with the added element of late ’80s style.

Where to watch: Stan

Succession

Is Succession about financial advice at all? No, not really. Where it brings value for advisers though is that it lends a direct view of exactly what not to do when it comes time for succession planning.

The Roy family is a perfect example of why a clear plan, that all involved parties understand and agree to, is vital. Will most businesses changing hands be multibillion-dollar media empires? Again, no. But if you were to slip into a half-season coma, how would your business operate?

Where to watch: Binge

Silver Bears

The film choices on this list are a bit more obscure than you will find spread around the internet, evidenced by the first entry: Silver Bears.

Michael Caine plays a mob accountant that buys a Swiss bank to launder money, which then evolves into investing in a silver mine. It then devolves into a farce involving a metals baron, another bank accountant, Caine seducing said accountant’s wife (Cybill Shepherd), and a heap of fraud.

If that’s not enough to get you interested, it also features a very young Jay Leno.

Where to watch: Tubi

Arbitrage

Things do not get better for the finance industry with Arbitrage, as hedge fund manager Robert Miller (Richard Gere) tries to sell his fund without the buyer finding out he cooked his books with a secret $142 million loan.

There’s also a mistress, a Chappaquiddick moment, and a Succession-esque working relationship with his daughter.

Where to watch: Stan

Stavisky

Directed by acclaimed French filmmaker Alain Resnais and starring Jean-Paul Belmondo in the titular role, Stavisky is perhaps the entry that is most tenuously connected to the advice profession.

Based on the life of Serge Alexandre Stavisky, a swindler and “financial consultant” in 1930s France, the film explores the real-life Stavisky Affair, which led to a riot and not one, but two prime ministers resigning.

Bonus points for the wonderful Stephen Sondheim score.

Where to watch: Kanopy

Honourable mentions

There are more than a few movies that could have made the list, headlined by the likes of The Big Short, Margin Call, Wall Street, Trading Places, The Wolf of Wall Street, Boiler Room and Rogue Trader. Hopefully, this list provided some options that are a bit off the beaten path.