If you only see one movie this year, Charles Ferguson's financial meltdown documentary is the one to see. Matt Damon narrates this essential soup-to-nuts explanation of the Wall Street and government players whose illicit methods brought down the global economy. Grade: A.  

Charles Ferguson's latest blood-boiler, 'Inside Job,' tackles the most important topic of our time: the Wall Street meltdown of 2008. Ferguson and crew (including narrator Matt Damon) give us an accessible, long-lensed view of a complex topic and its 30-year trajectory — from Ronald Reagan's 1980s-era laissez-faire, trickle-down economics to the Clinton administration's repealing of the Glass Steagall Act to the further relaxing of financial regulations and enforcement in the George W. Bush era to the unfortunate post-crash, business-as-usual hiring of the Obama economic team.