Film

Arbitrage

Name: Arbitrage
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Released: 2012
Cast: Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon, Tim Roth, Brit Marling, Laetitia Casta

A slick Manhattan thriller about a hedge-fund king caught between a dying marriage, a catastrophic mistake, and the detective closing in. Richard Gere's charisma meets genuine moral quicksand—he's charming and guilty and running out of moves. Taught, urban, suffocatingly tense.

TMDb rating

3.2

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you enjoy tense financial thrillers that care more about a man's lies and moral slippage than about explosions, and you like watching a polished star hold a scene together under pressure.

Skip it if you want a fast, plot-driven caper; this one is mostly quiet rooms, phone calls and a protagonist working hard to keep his story straight, which can feel slow and talky.

What it asks of you: Settle in for about 107 minutes of close, measured tension, where the drama builds through conversation and small cracks rather than big set pieces.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Michael Clayton2007

George Clooney as a fixer in a law firm where everything rotates on hidden guilt and institutional corruption. Sharper dialogue, higher stakes, the same suffocating sense that the system protects its own.

But Slower than Arbitrage, less viscerally thrilling. If you want plot momentum over moral decay, this will feel deliberate.

Margin Call2011

A ensemble thriller set inside an investment bank during the 2008 crisis. Gleaming offices and men in suits making catastrophic choices. Same DNA as Arbitrage—corruption, complicity, the cost of staying quiet.

But Very dialogue-heavy and technical. If finance jargon bores you, the tension dissipates fast.

The Wolf of Wall Street2013

Excess, delusion, and the corruption of the soul in the financial world. Gere's fallen magnate and DiCaprio's cocaine-fueled trader are opposite ends of the same story—men hollowed out by wealth and power.

But At nearly three hours and far darker in register. Arbitrage is surgical; this is baroque and exhausting.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Arbitrage

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Killing2011

Both are about how the system protects the guilty when the cost is externalized: Arbitrage's corruption erupts in weeks; The Killing shows it spreading across a society like a stain.

A Danish crime series where corruption, institutional failure, and personal desperation interweave across seasons. It has Arbitrage's moral weight but spreads it across time—watching institutions and individuals corrode together is devastatingly effective.

But Glacially paced and deliberately grim. Fourteen hours is a commitment for a story about people's lives collapsing.

A Most Wanted Man2014

Philip Seymour Hoffman as a spy handler threading impossible choices. Post-9/11 moral ambiguity and institutional pressure. The same atmosphere of men justifying unjustifiable compromises.

But Glacially paced and unresolved. Closure matters to Arbitrage in a way it doesn't here.

Disclosure1994

Michael Douglas and Demi Moore in a corporate thriller about power, seduction, and cover-ups. High-gloss 90s paranoia with that same one-mistake-spirals-into-ruin DNA.

But Aged badly in tone and politics. The gender dynamics feel dated and uncomfortable.

The Insider1999

Al Pacino and Russell Crowe in a procedural about a whistleblower and corporate malfeasance. Methodical, morally rigorous, gripping. Same terrain: institutions protecting themselves, one man caught in the machinery.

But Three-hour runtime and an attention span for details. Less a thriller than a patient dismantling of a system.

Match Point2005

Woody Allen's darkest thriller about a man whose luck runs out and morality becomes negotiable. Gere's smoothness and Rhys Meyers' desperation are cousins—the fall of a plausible man.

But Allen's neurosis becomes grating. Some scenes feel rote; the psychoanalysis drags.

Compliance2012

A fastidious, unsettling film about how institutional authority corrupts judgment. Released the same year as Arbitrage; both explore how good people rationalize terrible choices under pressure.

But Deeply upsetting and built on a true story that feels contrived. Not a comfort watch; the moral humiliation lingers.

All Is Lost2013

Robert Redford alone against the sea. A man's past failures catch up in real time. Same actor-versus-consequence engine as Arbitrage, stripped to existential simplicity.

But Almost no dialogue. If you want wit and confrontation, this is isolation and silence instead.

The Knick2014

Both examine how brilliance and charm become tools for justification, and how addiction—financial, chemical, psychological—corrupts judgment until the fall is inevitable.

Steven Soderbergh's miniseries about a genius surgeon at a Manhattan hospital in 1900, addicted to cocaine and making impossible decisions. Gere's empire-builder and Clive Owen's doctor are different eras of the same moral narcissism—brilliant men convinced their talent exempts them.

But Only two seasons and it ends unresolved. Grim, repetitive, and the cocaine addiction is relentless—some viewers find it gratuitous rather than illuminating.