The Wolf of Wall Street is a 2013 American epic biographical black comedy crime film[3] co-produced and directed by Martin Scorsese, written by Terence Winter, and based on Jordan Belfort's 2007 memoir.

It recounts Belfort's career as a stockbroker in New York City and how his firm, Stratton Oakmont, engaged in rampant corruption and fraud on Wall Street, leading to his downfall.

The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Belfort; Jonah Hill as his business partner and friend Donnie Azoff; Margot Robbie as his second wife, Naomi Lapaglia; Matthew McConaughey as his mentor and former boss Mark Hanna; and Kyle Chandler as FBI agent Patrick Denham.

[5] However, the film initially received considerable controversy for its moral ambiguity and lack of sympathy for victims, as well as its explicit, graphic sexual content, extreme profanity (with at least 500 uses of the expletive "fuck"), depiction of hard drug use, and use of animals during production.

The film's financing became implicated in the 1Malaysia Development Berhad corruption scandal; the U.S. Department of Justice and the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission investigated Red Granite Pictures, and producer Riza Aziz was arrested in 2019.

In 1987, twenty-five-year-old Jordan Belfort lands a job as a Wall Street stockbroker for L.F. Rothschild, employed under Mark Hanna.

They recruit Jordan's childhood friends Robbie Feinberg, Alden Kupferburg, Nicky Koskoff, Chester Ming, and Toby Welch, as well as local drug pusher Brad Bonick, all of whom Jordan trains in the art of the "hard sell," and set up the company in an abandoned auto repair shop.

In 1993, Jordan illegally makes $22 million in three hours after securing the IPO of Donnie's childhood friend and women's shoes designer Steve Madden, bringing him and his firm further FBI attention.

To hide his money, Jordan opens a Swiss bank account with corrupt banker Jean-Jacques Saurel in the name of Naomi's aunt Emma, a British subject who is outside the immediate reach of American authorities.

To bypass the border patrols, he orders his yacht captain Ted to sail to Monaco, but their ship capsizes in a storm.

In addition, cameos and smaller roles include Bo Dietl as himself, the real Jordan Belfort as the Auckland Straight Line host at the end of the film, Stephanie Kurtzuba as Kimmie Belzer, Thomas Middleditch as a Stratton broker whose goldfish is eaten by Donnie for slacking off, Jake Hoffman as Steve Madden, Fran Lebowitz as The Honorary [sic] Samantha Stogel, Edward Herrmann as the voice over the Stratton Oakmont commercial at the beginning of the film, and an uncredited Spike Jonze as Dwayne, the head of the Long Island brokerage firm who introduces Belfort to the world of penny stocks.

The FBI agent Patrick Denham is the stand-in for real-life Gregory Coleman,[21] and lawyer Manny Riskin is based on Ira Sorkin.

In contrast, Mark Hanna's name remains the same as the LF Rothschild stockbroker who, like Belfort, was convicted of fraud and served time in prison.

[25] The role of Aunt Emma was initially offered to Julie Andrews, who declined as she was recovering from an ankle injury, and was replaced by Joanna Lumley.

[27] In January 2014, Jonah Hill revealed in an interview with Howard Stern that he had made only $60,000 on the film (the lowest possible SAG-AFTRA rate for his amount of work), while DiCaprio (who also produced) received $10 million.

[43] The film's distributor in the United Arab Emirates cut 45 minutes of scenes of swearing, religious profanity, drug use, sex, and nudity, and "muted" dialogue containing expletives.

[50] It was officially rated R by the Motion Picture Association (MPA) for "sequences of strong sexual content, graphic nudity, drug use and language throughout, and for some violence".

[52][53] The release of The Wolf of Wall Street marked a shift in cinema history when Paramount became the first major studio to distribute movies to theaters exclusively in a digital format, eliminating 35mm film entirely.

The website's consensus reads: "Funny, self-referential, and irreverent to a fault, The Wolf of Wall Street finds Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio at their most infectiously dynamic.

[66] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone magazine named The Wolf of Wall Street as the third-best movie of 2013, behind 12 Years a Slave and Gravity.

[75] In 2017, Richard Brody named The Wolf of Wall Street the second-best film of the 21st century so far, behind Jean-Luc Godard's In Praise of Love.

[81] Steven Perlberg of Business Insider saw an advance screening of the film at a Regal Cinemas near the Goldman Sachs building with an audience of finance workers.

He strongly criticized the film for not depicting the "thousands of victims who lost hundreds of millions of dollars", not accepting the filmmakers' argument that it would have diverted attention from the wrongdoers.

[95] According to court filings, a company owned by fugitive businessman Jho Low gave the film's producers a $9 million advance.

[6] Various people have criticized the film as materialistic, encouraging greedy behavior, extreme wealth, and advocating for the infamous individuals portrayed in the film.[who?]

Christina McDowell, whose father, Tom Prousalis, worked in association with Belfort, accused the filmmakers of "exacerbating our national obsession with wealth and status and glorifying greed and psychopathic behavior".

[104] Nikole TenBrink, vice president of marketing and membership at Risk and Insurance Management Society, has said the film is a "cautionary tale of what can happen when fraud is left unchecked".

She describes Belfort's business acumen, his talent in communicating and selling his ideas, and his ability to motivate others as offering "valuable lessons for risk professionals as they seek to avoid similar pitfalls".

[105] Belfort said of the film's depiction of himself and Stratton Oakmont that it did an excellent job at describing the "overall feeling" of those years, adding, "the camaraderie, the insanity, that was accurate".

[106] Belfort also analyzed the inaccuracies in the film's oversimplification of Stratton Oakmont's gradual transition from advocating for "speculative stocks" to "help build America" to committing crimes.