Movies Like
15 Movies Like The Wolf of Wall Street — Excess, Greed, and the Spectacular Crash
If The Wolf of Wall Street's three-hour ride of drugs, money, and moral freefall had you glued to the screen, these films deliver the same charismatic antihero energy and rise-and-fall arc.
15 FILMS·April 2026·By MoviesPack
Section 1
Why The Wolf of Wall Street Works
Scorsese and DiCaprio understood something important: Jordan Belfort is not likeable, and they don't ask you to like him. The film makes you complicit in his fun — the parties, the drugs, the speeches — and then makes sure you feel it when it collapses. It's a three-hour moral hangover disguised as a party movie. DiCaprio's "lemon" scene alone contains more physical comedy than most actual comedies. When you want something "like Wolf of Wall Street," you're after **a charismatic antihero at the peak of his power, a true story of excess that goes too far, narration that makes you feel like an accomplice, and a crash that feels earned.** Here's the list. [Use our tool to find more: Movies Like The Wolf of Wall Street](/similar/the-wolf-of-wall-street)
Section 2
The Scorsese Blueprint
01
Goodfellas
1990
★8.7IMDb
A kid from a working-class Queens neighborhood decides he'd rather be a gangster than anything else — and spends the next twenty years living exactly like one. Henry Hill narrates his rise through the New York mob with the same breathless enthusiasm as Belfort narrates his: the same sense that crime is one long fantastic party, until it isn't. Ray Liotta, Robert De Niro, and Joe Pesci create the definitive portrait of organized crime as a performance of masculinity. Every film on this list owes something to Goodfellas.
Why it matters
Same director, same rise-and-fall structure, same narration trick of making you root for someone you shouldn't.
02
Casino
1995
★8.2IMDb
A mob-connected gambling genius is put in charge of a Las Vegas casino — the most beautiful trap the mob ever built. He runs it perfectly. His marriage to a troubled, beautiful woman starts to unravel it. His childhood friend running the street enforcement unravels the rest. Longer and darker than Goodfellas — the chaos is less fun, the consequences more brutal. But the first hour, showing how Sam Rothstein built his operation, is the best extended sequence Scorsese ever shot.
Why it matters
Scorsese, excess, true story, the machine running perfectly before it destroys everyone inside it.
03
Scarface
1983
★8.3IMDb
A Cuban refugee arrives in Miami with nothing, talks his way into the cocaine trade, and claws his way to the top through a combination of fearlessness and violence that everyone around him mistakes for ambition. Tony Montana's rise is the definitive American immigrant crime myth — operatically overblown by design, every scene three degrees louder than necessary. "Say hello to my little friend" is a punchline now, but in context, it's genuinely tragic.
Why it matters
Immigrant makes it big through crime, every scene drips with conspicuous wealth, the fall is as spectacular as the rise.
Section 3
The True-Crime Financial Frauds
04
The Big Short
2015
★7.8IMDb
A small group of outsiders — a hedge fund manager who reads mortgage prospectuses for fun, a pair of guys in a garage, a socially awkward doctor-turned-investor — all independently conclude that the American housing market is a fraud and bet everything on it collapsing. They're right. Nobody believes them until they're wiped out. Adam McKay uses fourth-wall narration and celebrity cameos to make something that should be dry feel like a thriller. It's the anti-Wolf of Wall Street: the anger is real and pointed at the system, not the individuals.
Why it matters
Wall Street world, true story, the same institutions that enriched Belfort failing the entire economy.
05
Catch Me If You Can
2002
★8.1IMDb
Before he turns 21, Frank Abagnale Jr. successfully impersonates an airline pilot, a doctor, and a lawyer — and cashes millions in fraudulent checks along the way. An FBI agent keeps missing him by one step. DiCaprio plays Abagnale as a man who is essentially playing pretend at adult life, and the film is a game of cat and mouse that's both funny and genuinely melancholy. The ending earns that melancholy. The connection: Both films are about the same trick: confidence as a substitute for credentials. Belfort sells worthless stocks by sounding like he's selling gold. Abagnale becomes a pilot because he buys a uniform and acts like he's already one. The difference is that Spielberg turns it into a game with a warm ending, and Scorsese turns it into a three-hour moral hangover.
06
American Hustle
2013
★7.2IMDb
Two small-time con artists get caught by the FBI and are forced into a sting operation targeting corrupt politicians in 1970s New Jersey. Everyone in the operation is running their own angle — on the politicians, on the FBI, on each other. Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Jeremy Renner, all messy and real, and Jennifer Lawrence's character shows up every 20 minutes to detonate a scene and leave. The film is less interested in the con than in the people running it. The connection: Everyone in American Hustle is running a con — on the FBI, on each other, on themselves. Irving Rosenfeld performing success; Richie DiMaso performing authority; Rosalyn performing oblivious innocence. Wolf of Wall Street's Belfort is the same game, except he's so committed to the performance he never steps outside it to see what it costs.
07
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
2005
★7.7IMDb
Enron was one of America's most admired companies — a darling of Wall Street, its executives on magazine covers — and it was almost entirely fictional. The documentary about how its executives built and then destroyed one of history's largest corporate frauds is more unbelievable than any dramatization. Actual footage of executives celebrating while ordinary employees lost their life savings is genuinely enraging. If you want to understand what Wolf of Wall Street's real-world consequences look like, watch this.
Section 4
The Charismatic Antihero Picks
08
Pain & Gain
2013
★7.3IMDb
Three Miami bodybuilders decide they deserve a better life and kidnap a wealthy businessman to steal it. The plan is deranged. The execution is worse. A true crime comedy about men who genuinely believe hard enough wanting is a substitute for intelligence. Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson, and Anthony Mackie are all excellent, and the film's demented energy captures something real about a very Florida-specific kind of delusion. The connection: The bodybuilders have the same problem as Belfort — they're certain they're owed a lifestyle that requires more intelligence than they have. Wolf of Wall Street's Belfort papers over the gap with drugs and salesmanship. Pain & Gain's Sun gym crew patches it with brute force. Both films document the specific American delusion that wanting something badly enough is a substitute for actually knowing how to get it.
09
The Aviator
2004
★7.5IMDb
Howard Hughes builds the fastest plane in the world, produces the most expensive movie ever made, and runs an airline — all before 40. He is also quietly losing his mind. The first half is the Wolf of Wall Street pattern: a man with no ceiling, achieving the impossible, living impossibly large. The second half is the descent. DiCaprio plays Hughes' crumbling mental state with total commitment.
10
Blow
2001
★7.6IMDb
A kid from Massachusetts figures out that weed is worth ten times more in California than it is in Boston and builds a drug distribution network that eventually leads him to partnering with the Medellín Cartel — making him the man who introduced cocaine to America. It's narrated from inside the fall, and it has the same tension as Wolf of Wall Street between genuine love (for his daughter) and the addiction to the lifestyle that destroys the relationship. The film is sometimes too in love with its own protagonist, but the emotional core works.
Section 5
The International Picks
11
Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story
2020
★9.3IMDb
A small-town boy arrives in Bombay with nothing, talks his way into the stock market, and through a combination of genuine insight and systematic fraud becomes the most powerful broker on the Bombay Stock Exchange. Then a journalist starts asking questions. The series (not a film, but essential) dramatizes the real Harshad Mehta scandal of the late 1980s — same rise-and-fall arc, same charisma-as-manipulation, same spectacular implosion. Pratik Gandhi's performance is one of the great acting achievements in recent Indian television. If you've never seen Indian content before, this is the one to start with.
Why it matters
Identical rise-and-fall arc, identical charisma-as-manipulation dynamic, a financial fraud with real victims that the protagonist never quite acknowledges.
12
The Founder
2016
★7.2IMDb
Ray Kroc is a struggling milkshake machine salesman who stumbles onto a small, perfectly efficient hamburger restaurant in San Bernardino and immediately understands it better than the brothers who built it. He doesn't found McDonald's — he takes it. Michael Keaton makes Kroc terrifying because he believes his own mythology completely. The scene where he explains "You're not in the burger business, you're in the real estate business" is Wolf of Wall Street-level instructional villainy.
13
Molly's Game
2017
★7.4IMDb
An Olympic-class skier blows out her knee and ends up running the world's most exclusive underground poker games — Hollywood celebrities, sports stars, Russian oligarchs, and eventually the mob, until the FBI comes for her. The voice-over narration is directly in the Wolf of Wall Street tradition: a smart, ambitious person telling you exactly how they built something extraordinary and exactly how it came apart. Aaron Sorkin's screenplay is an absolute torrent, and Jessica Chastain holds the whole thing together.
Section 6
The Slightly Different Angles
14
Margin Call
2011
★7.1IMDb
A junior risk analyst at an investment bank works late, runs a model his fired boss started, and realizes the company's entire portfolio is worthless. He calls his boss. His boss calls his boss. By 2 AM the CEO is in the conference room making a decision that will destroy the market to save the firm. The film takes place over 24 hours and is essentially a single long conversation. Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Irons, Stanley Tucci, Zachary Quinto. Zero excess, total dread.
15
Boiler Room
2000
★7.0IMDb
A college dropout running an underground casino out of his apartment gets a job at a Long Island brokerage firm and discovers it's a massive pump-and-dump fraud — but by the time he realizes it, he's already in. Giovanni Ribisi, Vin Diesel, and Ben Affleck in his best supporting role (his speech to new recruits is a masterclass). This is the younger, pre-internet version of Wolf of Wall Street: the same scam, the same sales culture, the same story of men who want to feel like Gordon Gekko.
Section 7
Quick Comparison
| Movie | Vibe | Best For | |-------|------|----------| | Goodfellas | Mob rise-and-fall | The blueprint for this genre | | The Big Short | Financial crisis, smart | Understanding the system | | Catch Me If You Can | Con man, lighter tone | The charming version | | Scarface | Pure excess, operatic | The most iconic antihero | | Scam 1992 | Indian stock fraud epic | The closest international twin | | Margin Call | Corporate dread | The cerebral, quiet version | | Molly's Game | True crime, sharp writing | The female-led version | | Boiler Room | Pre-internet same scam | The grittier, smaller-scale version |
Section 8
Want More?
- [Full list: Movies Like The Wolf of Wall Street](/similar/the-wolf-of-wall-street) — 20+ crime drama and antihero matches - [Intense movies](/mood/intense) — high-pressure, high-stakes cinema - [Best crime movies](/best/crime) — top-rated crime films of all time - [Martin Scorsese filmography](/pack/director/martin-scorsese) — all Scorsese films ranked
More from Movies Like
15 Movies Like 10 Things I Hate About You — Sharp Teen Romances That Still Hold Up
Smart, witty, and genuinely romantic — if 10 Things I Hate About You is your comfort movie, these teen romances will hit exactly the same notes.
15 Movies Like Hereditary — Elevated Horror That Gets Under Your Skin
If Hereditary broke you, these slow-burn horrors will finish the job. Family trauma, dread that builds for an hour before it hits, and images that don't leave.
15 Movies Like Sinners — Vampire Horror With Style, Soul, and Cultural Weight
Ryan Coogler's Sinners proved vampire films can carry real cultural depth. These 15 movies match its horror-action bite, Southern Gothic atmosphere, and genre ambition.