TV series
Longer form gets closer to the texture of the job than any film has managed — desk culture, hierarchy, and the parts nobody puts in a prospectus.
A film has two hours and needs a crisis to fill them. A series has time for the ordinary weeks — the standups, the politics, the slow attrition — which is where almost all of the actual job lives.
On the desk
Industry (2020– ). The most accurate thing on screen about grad-scheme culture, desk politics and the psychological cost of sell-side trading. It gets the jargon and the hierarchy right, which almost nothing else does, and it is honest that most of the pressure is social rather than mathematical.
On the buy side
Billions (2016–2023). Hedge fund against US Attorney, at length. More about power and ego than mechanics, but genuinely good on activist positions, the politics of a fund's investor base, and the grey edges of insider trading.
Adjacent, and worth it
Succession (2018–2023). Not finance exactly, and still essential on family-controlled conglomerates, M&A, and how a board actually gets worked. If you have ever sat in a governance meeting where the real decision happened somewhere else, it will feel familiar.
Watch all three for the culture rather than the mechanics. None of them will teach you to price anything, and that is not what they are for.