Julia Garner stars as Ellison and Anthony Boyle plays Bankman-Fried in the series, which arrives as the next major screen adaptation of one of the most high-profile financial fraud cases of the decade.
The logline frames the two figures as ambitious idealists who “tried to remake the global financial system in the blink of an eye – before they were accused of stealing $8 billion and became Gen Z’s own Bonnie & Clyde.”
Cast and Creative Team
The supporting cast features Alex Lawther as Sam Trabucco, Karan Soni as Nishad Singh, Naomi Okada as Claire Watanabe, Madison Hu as Constance Wang, Matt Rife as Ryan Salame and Eugene Young as Gary Wang.
Additional cast includes Hudson Williams, Paul Reiser, Robin Weigert, Maddie Hasson, Marianna Phung, Jennifer Grey, Terry Chen, William Mapother, Jack Greenlees, Elizabeth Adams, Hannah Galway, Donald Heng, David James Lewis and Jasmine Lukuku.
Oscar-winning writer Graham Moore created the series and serves as writer and showrunner alongside Jacqueline Hoyt.
Moore, Hoyt, Barack and Michelle Obama, Tonia Davis, James Ponsoldt, Lauren Morelli and Garner executive produce.
Jessie Dicovitsky and Vinnie Malhotra executive produced for Higher Ground Productions, with Scoop Wasserstein for New York Magazine/Vox Media Studios.
Directing duties are shared by Ponsoldt, Kyle Patrick Alvarez, Mairzee Almas, Moore and Silver Tree.
The series draws from New York Magazine articles by Kevin T. Dugan and Jen Wieczner.
Moore, who won an Academy Award for writing The Imitation Game, said he was drawn to the complexity of the real figures at the center of the scandal.
“From the very beginning, I was so fascinated by both Sam’s and Caroline’s real stories. Those are both characters who I could not have possibly made up had I tried — I’m not nearly a good enough writer to create characters as fascinating as either Sam Bankman-Fried or Caroline Ellison…This form [of storytelling] allowed us to tell not just a kind of headline version of the story, but to tell what we believed was the much more fascinating, intimate, personal, deeply heartbreaking story of these two people.”
Hoyt echoed that interest in the human dimension of the case.
“I think viewers will find our deeply intimate story of these two individuals with morally conflicted motives fascinating, and will ultimately have a better understanding of why they did what they did.”
From Forbes Lists to Federal Charges
At his peak, Bankman-Fried was listed as the 41st-richest American on the Forbes 400 and appeared on the 2021 Forbes 30 Under 30 list.
He was later included on Forbes’ 2023 Hall of Shame list as a selection the publication wished it could take back.
In November 2022, evidence of fraud surfaced and FTX was forced into bankruptcy.
Bankman-Fried was arrested the following month.
Ellison, who was CEO of Alameda Research, lost her position after FTX and Alameda filed for bankruptcy.
She and Bankman-Fried had been in a relationship before the collapse, and she later testified against him in court.
Netflix has also released first-look photos for the series ahead of the November premiere.
D. Roberts covers movies and TV for The Pop Reporter — big studio releases, streaming shows, renewals, and casting news. He writes the news and the reviews, and he explains what a story means, not just what happened: which studio is taking a risk, what it says about a franchise, who it affects. His reviews give a clear opinion and back it up with what's actually on screen.
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Aug 14, 2026
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3 min read
