Film

The Queen of Versailles

A timeshare mogul and his former-beauty-queen wife are building the largest house in America, modeled on Versailles, when the 2008 crash stops construction cold. What follows is part rags-to-riches fable, part slow-motion collapse, shot with startling access and a dark comic eye. It's a film about money as identity, and what's left of people once the money stops flowing. Absurd, then quietly devastating.

TMDb rating6.9

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The Big Short2015

Adam McKay turns the 2008 crash itself into a screwball comedy of arrogance and denial — the same forces that build a mansion also gut Wall Street.

But The finance jargon and fourth-wall winking can feel showy if you'd rather watch people implode, not markets.

The Big Short poster

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room2005

The original corporate-hubris documentary, tracing how confidence curdles into fraud with the same eerie, cheerful denial you'll recognize.

But Drier and more explanatory than character-driven — more time with testimony and spreadsheets, less with people.

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room poster

Fyre2019

A modern case study in delusion and grift, watching an entrepreneur's fantasy collapse in real time — disaster you genuinely can't look away from.

But Meaner and more mocking of its subjects, missing the odd tenderness that keeps this story from feeling cruel.

Fyre poster

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Grey Gardens1976

Direct cinema's original portrait of American wealth curdling into fantasy, decades before any camera crew ever set foot inside a knockoff palace — the same unflinching lens on decline.

The Maysles brothers get remarkably close to Big and Little Edie, aristocrats gone to seed in a decaying East Hampton estate — funny and unbearably sad at once.

But Grainier, stranger and more claustrophobic — a two-hander in one crumbling house rather than a sprawling family epic.

Grey Gardens poster
More like this (8)

Generation Wealth2018

Directed by the same filmmaker, it widens the lens on American excess across decades, finding the same hunger everywhere she points the camera.

But Sprawling and a bit unfocused — more essay than story, with no single family to hold onto.

Generation Wealth poster

Abacus: Small Enough to Jail2017no page yet

A small family bank fights prosecution after the crash while giant institutions walk free — a quieter, angrier companion about who actually pays.

But More legal procedural than character study, and less immediately entertaining if you came for spectacle.

American Factory2019

Swaps mansion for factory floor, showing the crash's aftermath from the other end of the economy — patient and humane where the other film is garish.

But Slower and more solemn, with none of the dark comedy that makes the source material so watchable.

American Factory poster

The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley2019

Elizabeth Holmes builds her own palace of self-belief on nothing but conviction — another portrait of a dream that outran the money behind it.

But Colder and more clinical toward its subject, with less sympathy and fewer laughs along the way.

The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley poster

Wild Wild Country2018

A six-hour dive into another self-built empire and its charismatic architects, with the same slow-motion sense of a fantasy outgrowing reality.

But A much longer commitment that drifts into cult politics and violence well beyond real-estate excess.

Wild Wild Country poster

Betting on Zero2016

A pyramid-scheme empire built on the same American faith in endless growth, and the investor betting everything on its collapse.

But Smaller and scrappier, with less visual spectacle and a narrower focus than a full family saga.

Betting on Zero poster

Succession2018

Dramatizes exactly what the documentary captures on camera: a family whose empire and identity are the same thing, and what happens the instant the money wobbles.

Watch a fictional dynasty claw at each other with a wit and viciousness real billionaires rarely show a camera crew — fiction filling in what documentary can't quite catch.

But Colder and more cynical where the real story is oddly tender, and four seasons is a much bigger ask than one film.

Succession poster

Keeping Up with the Kardashians2007no page yet

Same performance of wealth as identity, minus the collapse — pure spectacle with no fall, showing what that world looks like when the money never actually stops.

If you want the aspirational glitz without the reckoning, this is the sunnier, shinier, utterly unapologetic version of the same instinct toward wealth as performance.

But There's no crash here, no consequence, no depth — just the glossy surface the other film eventually punctures.

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