--- title: "Capitalism: A Love Story" year: 2009 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/capitalism-a-love-story" fi1m_score: 56 critics_score: 58 critics_reviews: 20 published: "2026-09-17T06:55:10.482633+00:00" updated: "2026-09-17T06:55:27.847234+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Capitalism: A Love Story (2009) Directed by Michael Moore · 2h 08m · MPA R · Documentary, History **Fi1m score: 56** · Critics 58 from 20 reviews *In a sentence:* Two hours of a man in a baseball cap trying to arrest Wall Street with a roll of tape > Michael Moore’s film about the 2008 crash is angry, often funny and moving whenever it sits with the people who lost their homes and jobs. As a case against capitalism it heads off in six directions and comes back with a plea to vote. ## Synopsis Michael Moore begins in Flint, Michigan, where his father worked for General Motors and where he first turned a camera on what happens when the money leaves town. This time the money has left the whole country. It is the autumn of 2008, Wall Street has been handed seven hundred billion dollars, and families in Illinois and Florida are filming their own evictions. Moore tours repossessed flats with Peter Zalewski, a Florida broker who trades under the name Condo Vultures, listens to Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur tell constituents to stay put in their foreclosed homes, and asks Elizabeth Warren where the bailout money went. Then he drives to New York with an empty sack and a roll of crime scene tape. ## Review Michael Moore has spent twenty years going after one company, one industry or one president at a time. Here he goes after the whole arrangement. *Capitalism: A Love Story* opens with security camera footage of bank robberies, then a schools film about the fall of Rome, and then gets to the point: the crash of 2008, the seven hundred billion dollar bailout that followed, and the people at the bottom who paid for both. It runs 128 minutes and is angry for all of them. The anger carries it, and it stops him finishing a thought. It works when Moore stops talking and lets people speak. A family in Illinois films the sheriff’s deputies arriving to put them out of their house, and the picture shakes because the man holding the camera is shaking. Peter Zalewski, a broker who trades as Condo Vultures, shows Moore round repossessed flats in Florida. Airline pilots explain that they qualify for food stamps. A widow reads a letter showing that her husband’s employer had taken out a life insurance policy on him and collected when he died, under a practice the industry calls dead peasant insurance. We were angry at that, properly angry, and Moore had done nothing clever to get us there. He held the camera still and let her read. The Washington material is better than his usual. Marcy Kaptur, a congresswoman from Ohio, tells her constituents on camera to stay in their foreclosed homes and make the banks prove they own the paperwork. Elijah Cummings describes the bailout vote with the tiredness of a man who lost it. Elizabeth Warren, asked where the money went, admits she does not know, which is more damning than anything Moore stages. Bernie Sanders gets a few minutes on what he means by socialism, and Wallace Shawn turns up, improbably, to explain what free enterprise was meant to be. The stunts are the same stunts. Moore drives to Wall Street with an empty sack and asks for the money back on behalf of the American people; he wraps the Stock Exchange in yellow crime scene tape; he is politely turned away by security guards. Twenty years ago this was the film. Now it is a break between segments. The archive is more skilful: Bill Clinton signing away the wall between high street banking and the casino kind, and a reel of Franklin Roosevelt, visibly ill, reading out a second bill of rights that never became law. Jeff Gibbs’s score sits under it without fuss and never competes. The trouble is the charge. The title says capitalism is the defendant, and for stretches the film means it, with Catholic priests calling the system a sin. Then the defendant changes. For twenty minutes it is Ronald Reagan and deregulation; then greed, then a few bad laws, and by the end the remedy on offer is Roosevelt, a factory occupation in Chicago and the word democracy said with feeling. Moore films the election of Barack Obama as the night things turned, and by the time the film reached British cinemas on 26 February 2010 that hope looked dated. We wanted to know what he would put in capitalism’s place. He tells us to vote. Against his own record it is the loosest thing he has made. [*Roger & Me*](https://film.one/film/roger-and-me) (1989) had one town, one company and a chairman who would not come to the door. *Fahrenheit 9/11* (2004) was scattershot too, but it kept returning to one question. This one has a dozen. It is also an odd film to be lectured by from a British sofa, since much of what it presents as scandal, that health or housing might be a public matter, is the ordinary arrangement here. See it for the people. The widow, the pilots, the family with the shaking camera, Kaptur telling her voters to stay put: those scenes are as good as anything Moore has shot. Watch at home, where you can skip the lectures, though we suspect you will not, because he is hard to switch off even when he is wrong. It carries a 12A. *Fi1m score 56, published 17 September 2026.* ## What the critics say Most critics come out warm but not far past it. The agreement is that Moore is back on home ground: the film is called punchy, timely and entertaining, and the praise clusters on his stunts, his comic timing and the interviews with families losing their homes, which several reviews find moving. The archive footage of Roosevelt and the passages on dead peasant insurance and derivatives are singled out as the moments where the film explains something rather than shouts it. Variety goes furthest, calling it one of his best. The reservations cluster on the argument. Even friendly reviews say the film is scattershot, offers no coherent account of the crash or the bailout, and proposes nothing beyond faith in democracy and, several note, in Obama. The spread is wide. Sight and Sound dismisses it as didactic agit-prop without analytic rigour, Slant as a simplistic diatribe, and two British reviews written after the 2010 release find it already old news. ### Reviews we read (20) - **Evening Standard** (80/100, inferred): Moore returns to his roots with a timely, fiery exposé of corporate greed and its human cost, full of shocking revelations and moral fury. The film succeeds as an entertaining, inflammatory call to arms even if it is preachy and archive-heavy. [Read](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/film/crash-bang-wallop-its-capitalism-a-love-story-7418764.html) - **Variety**, Leslie Felperin (80/100, inferred): By returning to his roots, Moore turns in one of his best films, skewering the banking industry and explaining the meltdown accessibly; it has plenty to annoy critics but delivers a pugnacious, upbeat message despite some sentimentality. [Read](https://variety.com/2009/film/markets-festivals/capitalism-a-love-story-1200476414/) - **RogerEbert.com**, Roger Ebert (75/100, inferred): The film speaks eloquently at times through archival footage of FDR and revelations about corporate practices like dead peasant insurance and derivatives, but Moore's message is sometimes unclear and he offers no clear solutions beyond faith in democracy. [Read](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/capitalism-a-love-story-2009) - **Los Angeles Times**, Kenneth Turan (70/100, inferred): Moore picks a timely big subject and retains his provocateur skills and comedic instincts, but the scattershot approach means the film is the sum of its parts; it reveals him as a New Deal Democrat rather than a socialist. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-sep-23-et-capitalism23-story.html) - **The Guardian**, Peter Bradshaw (70/100, inferred): Moore's punchy, entertaining documentary takes on bankers and the bailout with his familiar mix of stunts, revelations and victim interviews. The critic is won over by the energy, wit and pertinence despite familiar format and omissions. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/feb/25/capitalism-a-love-story-review) - **The Hollywood Reporter**, The Associated Press (70/100, inferred): The critic finds the film a typical Moore work that is funny and over-the-top with dubious documentation but makes strong points about corporate America's impact on ordinary people. It is less focused than his earlier films due to its abstract subject but features genuinely moving personal stories. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/capitalism-love-story-film-review-93464/) - **The Times**, Wendy Ide (70/100, inferred): Moore's broadest film lands some telling blows on Wall Street despite seeming skittish and unfocused. It mounts a persuasive case that something is rotten in the economic system. [Read](https://www.thetimes.com/culture/tv-radio/article/capitalism-a-love-story-vdg8gz9spf8) - **Empire**, Damon Wise (60/100, inferred): The film is a blend of angry indictment and palliative reassurance that leaves it contradictory and less powerful than it could be. Moore's passion and provocative highlights are still evident despite the confusion. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/capitalism-love-story-review/) - **The New York Times**, Manohla Dargis (60/100, inferred): Moore goes after the capitalist system itself after years of targeting big business, but the film lacks real answers and is limited as mainstream socially minded filmmaking; it is a tragedy disguised as comedy and entertainment. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/23/movies/23capitalism.html) - **Time Out**, Ben Walters (3/5): Moore excels with impactful stunts and addresses the US audience on capitalism’s social harms and incompatibility with democracy or Christianity, but offers no cohesive argument on the subprime crisis or bailout. The thesis on social consequences is credible though familiar to European viewers. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/capitalism-a-love-story-1) - **Screen Daily** (50/100, inferred): Moore delivers another entertaining rallying cry against corporate and political injustice, effectively summarizing Wall Street greed and transgressions under Bush while defending socialism. The film is overly optimistic about Obama and relies on familiar stunts and illustrative cases. [Read](https://www.screendaily.com/venice/capitalism-a-love-story/5005301.article) - **IndieWire**, Eric Kohn (30/100, inferred): The review describes the film as simplistically charming but ultimately not adding up, critiquing its approach to the financial crisis subject. [Read](https://www.indiewire.com/news/general-news/review-simplistically-charming-capitalism-doesnt-quite-add-up-2-246534/) - **Sight and Sound**, Tony Rayns (30/100, inferred): Moore indicts capitalism as a betrayal of FDR’s Second Bill of Rights and targets the sub-prime American working class with emotional stunts and personal stories. The film lacks analytic rigour and historical perspective, functioning more as didactic agit-prop than investigation. [Read](http://old.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/review/5315) - **Slant Magazine**, Lauren Wissot (30/100, inferred): The critic finds the film an unfocused diatribe that relies on slick tricks rather than deep thinking, turning complex issues into something simplistic like 'Capitalism for Dummies' and failing to dig deeply despite covering a lot of ground. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/capitalism-a-love-story/) - **The Telegraph** (***): Moore's most personal film yet effectively shows small-scale stories of victims but stumbles on the big picture and remedy. It confirms him as a provocative entertainer who fails to sustain his argument. [Read](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmreviews/7314854/Capitalism-A-Love-Story-review.html) - **Collider**, Monika Bartyzel (75/100, inferred): The film is an entertaining but infuriating look at capitalism and the economic crisis, delivered with classic Moore style and spectacle. Its value lies in the timely message that will anger and resonate with audiences struggling with the fallout, rather than in its moviemaking. [Read](https://collider.com/michael-moores-capitalism-a-love-story-review/) - **Eye for Film**, Val Kermode (75/100, inferred): The critic calls it Moore's most entertaining film yet for its skillful mix of humor, editing, and historical context around the financial crisis and FDR-era ideals. Some familiar Moore techniques feel overused and the film preaches mainly to the converted. [Read](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/capitalism-a-love-story-film-review-by-val-kermode) - **The Wrap** (65/100, inferred): The critic describes Moore rejecting capitalism outright as an evil system that subverts democracy in favor of the wealthy few. Moore is praised as a shrewd filmmaker who taps public outrage through humor and personal stories, though the analysis is seen as open to debate. [Read](https://www.thewrap.com/moores-capitalism-not-love-story-call-revolt-7112/) - **Den of Geek**, Michael Leader (2/5): The critic finds the film manipulative and indulgent, with its sledgehammer style and stunts overshadowing any insight into the financial crisis. He criticizes Moore's familiar targets, cheap melodrama and outdated optimism about Obama. [Read](https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/capitalism-a-love-story-dvd-review/) - **The Skinny**, Philip Concannon (2/5): The critic views the film as another sloppy Michael Moore effort that relies on sarcasm, clumsy links and emotional manipulation rather than fresh analysis. He notes it feels like old news after a year of coverage on the banking collapse. [Read](https://www.theskinny.co.uk/film/new-releases/capitalism-a-love-story) ## Details - **Director:** Michael Moore - **Director:** Michael Moore - **Writer:** Michael Moore - **Music:** Jeff Gibbs - **Producer:** Michael Moore - **Cast:** Michael Moore as Self; Elijah Cummings as Self; Marcy Kaptur as Self; Bernie Sanders as Self; Elizabeth Warren as Self; Thora Birch as Self; Baron Hill as Self; Wallace Shawn as Self - **Runtime:** 2h 08m - **Certificate (MPA):** R - **Release (the US):** 2 October 2009 - **Genres:** Documentary, History - **Budget:** $20 million - **Box office:** $17 million ## Where to watch in the US - Tubi: free, hd, leaving 2026-10-01 - Amazon Prime Video: add-on - The Roku Channel: add-on, hd - Apple TV: rent $3.99, hd - Amazon Prime Video: rent $3.99, hd - Amazon Prime Video: buy $5.99, sd - Apple TV: buy $5.99, sd *Checked 2026-09-17.* Also available in: AU, BE, BG, CA, CH, CL, CZ, DE, DK, ES, FR, GB, HU, IE, IN, LT, MX, NO, NZ, RO, RS, SE, TR, US, ZA. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *Roger & Me* (1989), Fi1m 78: Moore’s first film: one town, one company, and a tighter grip on the argument — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/roger-and-me.md) - *Inside Job* (2010): The same crash explained patiently, with the bankers interviewed rather than ambushed - *The Take* (2004): Argentine workers occupy their shuttered factories; the alternative Moore only gestures at - *Margin Call* (2011): One long night inside a bank as it decides who will pay for its mistake - *Harlan County, USA* (1976), Fi1m 88: A Kentucky miners’ strike filmed from the picket line, with no stunts needed — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/harlan-county-u-s-a.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/capitalism-a-love-story