Inside Job

Best Documentary Oscar winner Inside Job wasn’t as vital as fellow nominees Restrepo and Exit Through the Gift Shop, but it’s the exact sort of film that its subject required. While not stretching any cinematic boundaries, this attempt at a big-picture view of the 2008 global financial crisis is a clearheaded recitation of causes and effects only occasionally clouded by the obvious outrage of director Charles Ferguson (No End in Sight). Ferguson assembled an incredibly wide-ranging group of high-ranking talking heads to tell the story of a deregulated, out-of-control financial market in which swindling, gouging and high-risk gambles were richly self-rewarded. Inside Job indicts not only the fat-cat CEOs, shadowy Federal Reserve chairmen and enabling politicians, but also shows how the shockwaves of a corrupt system can reach into almost every aspect of our society, from domestic home prices to academia, and even to Iceland.