Season 1
Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room is an Oscar-nominated 2005 documentary which unravels the story behind the infamous Enron collapse.
Based on the best-selling book of the same name by Fortune reporters Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, 'Enron' is a multi-dimensional study of one of the biggest business scandals in American history.
The chronicle takes a look at one of the greatest corporate disasters in history, in which top executives from the 7th largest company in America walked away with over one billion dollars, leaving investors and employees with nothing.
The film features insider accounts and rare corporate audio and video tapes that reveal colossal personal excesses of the Enron hierarchy and the utter moral vacuum that posed as corporate philosophy.
The human drama that unfolds within Enron's walls resembles a Greek tragedy and produces a domino effect that could shape the face of our economy and ethical code for years to come.
A decade ago Jeffrey Skilling and Kenneth Lay were the media darlings of the business world. They founded the energy company Enron, which bought up and supplied energy to thousands of homes and employed thousands of people.
Their stock reports looked great, shares in the business were soaring and they were looking at more money than they ever thought possible.
But it was all a scam.
They'd cooked the books and recorded predicted profits in place of actual profits. The end result was the share price rocketed and people were clambering to get in on the action.
The truth was that by 2001 the company would collapse and Skilling and Lay would walk away with millions of dollars, while the 20 thousand or so workers would lose everything - their jobs, their medical insurance and their pensions.
It was and still is (as far as anyone knows) the single biggest corporate fraud in the history of the United States.
This documentary looks at the rise and fall of this energy giant and the fate of the two men who would eventually find themselves in the courts fighting for their freedom.
Director Alex Gibney takes you on a journey into corruption at its highest levels and examines the links between Ken Lay and George W. Bush's family.
Tagline: It's just business.