"Entertainment predominates, but entertainment with smarts, and a well-honed edge."
Wall Street Journal (10/28/2011)
"MARGIN CALL isn't' the first film to peer into the moneyed, aspirationally heartless world of finance, and it's not going to be the last, but it's got a fair shot of being the one with the most masterful timing....It's a tense but contemplative exploration of being on the other side of one of those mirrored skyscraper windows..."
Movieline - Alison Willmore (10/20/2011)
"The gripping intrigue of MARGIN CALL is the way it puts you right up close to the decision-making, the mix of greed, fear, and cunning." -- Grade: A-
Entertainment Weekly - Owen Gleiberman (11/04/2011)
"[R]elentless in its honesty and shrewd in its insights and techniques..."
New York Times - A. O. Scott (10/21/2011)
3.5 stars out of 4 -- "[A] smart, harrowing and mordant drama set inside a fictional Wall Street firm at the trip-wire moment just before the 2008 financial collapse."
Washington Post (10/21/2011)
4 stars out of 5 -- "Kevin Spacey excels as a conscience-wrestling head of trading; Paul Bettany matches him as a pragmatic alpha male..."
Total Film - Total Film Staff (02/01/2012)
"[A]s a vision of what happened when the first few loose pebbles of the current worldwide disaster slid inexorably towards an avalanche -- and why -- MARGIN CALL is all too horribly plausible."
Sight and Sound - Philip Kemp (02/01/2012)