--- title: The Big Short: What to Know Before You See the Movie description: The movie is based on a book about the housing crisis of the 2000s, which TIME covered as it was happening canonical: https://time.com/4139899/the-big-short-market-explained/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-12-13T17:00:12.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T13:10:55.481Z article:section: History og:title: What to Know About the Housing Bubble Before You See 'The Big Short' og:description: A quick explanation of the forces behind the Great Recession og:url: https://time.com/4139899/the-big-short-market-explained/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9ddeba2151c16be5/698778922dce018e5a9dccdf/money-dollar-bill.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2560 og:image:height: 1440 og:image:alt: TIME.com stock photos Money Dollar Bills og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: What to Know About the Housing Bubble Before You See 'The Big Short' twitter:description: A quick explanation of the forces behind the Great Recession twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9ddeba2151c16be5/698778922dce018e5a9dccdf/money-dollar-bill.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # What to Know About the Housing Bubble Before You See _The Big Short_ > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription.  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Dec 13, 2015 5:00 PM UTC  Elizabeth Renstrom for TIME  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Dec 13, 2015 5:00 PM UTC The new movie _The Big Short_ takes a subject that is ordinarily as far from exciting as you might think possible—true-life mortgages and bonds—and turns it into what TIME’s critic Stephanie Zacharek [calls ](http://time.com/4134370/the-big-short-knows-why-your-rent-is-too-damn-high/)“a crackerjack entertainment…with a conscience.” Then again, perhaps it shouldn’t be so surprising that the subject is ripe for drama, given how crazy the mortgages in question actually were. In 2007, TIME broke down the financial systems that set the movie’s plot in motion. First came “subprime and exotic mortgages that did away with many of the safeguards built into the classic 30-year fixed rate with a 20% down payment.” These special mortgages were meant for just a small slice of home buyers, but they became widely popular during the real-estate bubble. “The demand was coming not so much from borrowers as from Wall Street, which packaged the loans into securities to sell to investors looking to pile into ‘low risk’ real estate,” the article continued. “So mortgage brokers found ways to squeeze buyers into first and second mortgages even when their finances were questionable. Consider the appellation NINJA, used to indicate a buyer with no income, no job and no assets.” And then it just got worse: --- > “” --- **_Read the rest of the story, here in the TIME Vault:_** [Real Estate’s Fault Line](http://time.com/vault/issue/2007-08-27/page/36/) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4139899/the-big-short-market-explained/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4139899/the-big-short-market-explained/"},"headline":"What to Know About the Housing Bubble Before You See The Big Short","datePublished":"2015-12-13T17:00:12.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T13:10:55.481Z","description":"A quick explanation of the forces behind the Great Recession","url":"https://time.com/4139899/the-big-short-market-explained/","keywords":["movies","Economy"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9ddeba2151c16be5/698778922dce018e5a9dccdf/money-dollar-bill.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt9ddeba2151c16be5/698778922dce018e5a9dccdf/money-dollar-bill.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"TIME.com stock photos Money Dollar Bills","caption":"TIME.com stock photos Money Dollar Bills","creditText":"Elizabeth Renstrom for TIME","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/movies/","name":"movies"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4139899/the-big-short-market-explained/","name":"What to Know About the Housing Bubble Before You See The Big Short"}}]}] ```