The cast includes William Hurt, Edward Asner, Billy Crudup, Paul Giamatti, Topher Grace, Cynthia Nixon, Bill Pullman, Tony Shalhoub, and James Woods.

The film chronicles the 2008 financial crisis, focusing on the collapse of Lehman Brothers investment bank and the subsequent ripple effects on the global economy.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson (Hurt) and Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke (Giamatti) lead efforts to stabilize the system, including rescuing AIG and lobbying Congress to pass the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).

The most promising US-based buyer for Lehman, Bank of America, is uninterested without Fed involvement, but U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is adamant that the government will not subsidize any more acquisitions.

Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve System, argues that Congress must pass legislation to authorize any continued intervention by the Fed or the Treasury.

After a wave of panic and personal haranguing from President George W. Bush, the legislation passes on a second attempt and the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) is created.

Paulson's team realizes that buying toxic assets will take too long, leaving direct capital injections to the banks as their only option to use TARP to get credit flowing again.

An epilogue notes that the banks made little use of the loan money to ease credit conditions as intended, while Wall Street compensation continued to rise, reaching $135 billion by 2010.