The Fear Index

A financial algorithm designed to exploit fear begins to make its creator afraid. The Fear Index places Josh Hartnett's Alex Hoffmann inside a thriller where professional success and personal control start coming apart together.

The appeal is less the detail of trading than the uncertainty surrounding the man who built the system. His colleagues see a business; he increasingly sees events he cannot account for. The polished surroundings make that loss of control more unsettling, particularly when ordinary safeguards stop feeling dependable.

Adapted from Robert Harris's novel, it is a compact choice for viewers interested in technology turning an apparently rational environment unstable. Some of the thriller mechanics require generosity. The underlying question is a good one, though: how much authority do people hand over to a system simply because it has been making them money?