The principal story takes place over a 24-hour period at a large Wall Street investment bank during the initial stages of the 2008 financial crisis.

The film stars an ensemble cast consisting of Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany, Jeremy Irons, Zachary Quinto, Penn Badgley, Simon Baker, Mary McDonnell, Demi Moore, and Stanley Tucci.

Sullivan calls his colleague, junior analyst Seth Bregman, to return to work with the head of credit trading, Will Emerson.

A subsequent meeting of division head Jared Cohen, chief risk management officer Sarah Robertson, and other senior executives concludes that Sullivan's findings are accurate, and firm CEO John Tuld is called.

He acknowledges the damage likely to be done to their reputations and careers but informs them that they will be well compensated with seven-figure bonuses if most of the traders' assigned assets are sold by day's end.

As trading progresses, the firm elicits suspicion and eventually anger from their counterparties and incurs heavy losses, but they manage to sell off most of the bad assets.

[11] Although the film does not depict any real Wall Street firm, and the fictional firm is unnamed, the plot has similarities to some events during the 2008 financial crisis: Goldman Sachs similarly moved early to hedge and reduce its position in mortgage-backed securities, at the urging of two employees,[12] which essentially mirrors Tuld's comment about the advantage of moving first.

The website's consensus reads: "Smart, tightly wound, and solidly acted, Margin Call turns the convoluted financial meltdown of '08 into gripping, thought-provoking drama.

[19] Jake Bernstein of ProPublica said that Chandor "used the financial crisis as a springboard to create the most insightful Wall Street movie ever filmed".

[20] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three and half stars out of four, noting that it "employs an excellent cast who can make financial talk into compelling dialogue.

His formal command – his ability to imply far more than he shows or says and to orchestrate a large, complex drama out of whispers, glances, and snippets of jargon – is downright awe inspiring.

[23] Film critic Bill Wine rated it 3/4, noting in a review for CBS: "Chandor takes a gamble with a screenplay that some might see as repetitive, but works nicely to make dense material clear and understandable.

The crackling, syncopated dialogue and the plot, full of reversals and double crosses, owe an obvious debt to David Mamet’s profane fables of deal-making machismo.

Hovering over all of it is the dark romance of capital: the elegance of numbers; the kinkiness of money; the deep, rotten, erotic allure of power.

"[22] Mike Russell of The Oregonian rated it C+, noting that Chandor downplayed "everything to the point of mild sleepiness" and wrote "far too many variations of that Hollywood device where a character asks for a spreadsheet or highly technical financial concept to be explained to them 'in plain English, please.

Frank DeMarco’s sleek cinematography of the Manhattan skyline effectively immerses us in the soulless but inviting universe where these financial dramas played out.