MADOFF: The Monster of Wall Street is a documentary series directed by Joe Berlinger about the rise and fall of Bernie Madoff, who masterminded one of the largest scale Ponzi schemes.
In four episodes the figure of Bernie Madoff is explored. The man who led the biggest ponzi scheme on Wall Street, who managed 64 billion dollars, a business that played with hedge fund money, regular investors’ money and more. It was a business built on greed.
About the Series
In the center of this series we have this figure who represented the worst of the disaster of 2008, and who actually brought to light the truth at the base of a system that destroyed the mortgage system, and showed how rotten it was.
So, in the midst of the carnage there he was, Bernie Madoff, in December of 2008, following his own confession to his children, he was arrested, claiming the whole thing was, “one big lie”. As for the money he had been entrusted to manage, had vanished or simply had never existed. Raising the obvious question, where is the money all these people had invested with his fund?
‘Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street’ is a kind of docu-drama, there is quite a lot of dramatizations, and it comes to remind us what happened fifteen years ago.
Full of testimonies by former acquaintances, victims to fraud, and Wall Street insiders. They all pitch in with their impression of this “financial sociopath” who created an unregulated mutual fund.
Note though, we hardly learn anything new. The Madoff case has been covered numerous times, both in documentaries and movies such as The Wizard of Lies (2017) with Robert De Niro taking on the role as Madoff.
As a documentary it follows the classic docu-drama approach, with, as mentioned, a lot of dramatizations, found footage, and testimonies aplenty. It manages to look into the background of the protagonist, and reviews some of the crashes Wall Street has been through in the past five decades, and how Madoff learned to maneuver from those. It is a documentary that manages to create its own tone, and knows how to reach the spectators without becoming too sensationalist, which it does fall prey to at times, in fact.
Be that as it may, it is a good occasion to hear about the story of this man, who left thousands of people penniless, and who once was considered a genius, but turned out to be a conman to nth degree.
Release Date
January 4, 2022
Where to Watch ‘Madoff: The Monster of Wall Street’ (2023)
Ponzi Scheme
This kind of illegitimate business practice has been named after Carlo Ponzi, and dates back to the 1920’s.
A ponzi scheme is said to be a pyramid scheme in which investors’ returns on investment depend on new investors injecting money into the respective company. A scheme that is misleading initial investors into believing that their ROI are actually based on real commodities or true assets that will yield returns, when in fact they are not.
Episode List
A Liar, Not a Failure
Starting his career in penny stock trades, Bernie Madoff builds a lucrative side business as an adviser, attracting clients with impressive returns.
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell
As word of Madoff’s seemingly golden touch spreads from Wall Street to Palm Beach, his empire branches out into hedge funds — and draws scrutiny.
See No Evil
Competitors investigate Madoff’s impossible numbers and alert the Securities and Exchange Commission, but the agency shrugs off multiple red flags.
The Price of Trust
Madoff’s scheme is exposed amid the 2008 financial market crisis. His victims’ lives are upended as they face years of obstacles to recoup their losses.