Are you ready to learn about crypto?
The Altruists, an eight-episode limited series about Sam Bankman-Fried and Caroline Ellison — aka Gen Z’s Bonnie and Clyde — is heading to Netflix on Nov. 19.
Starring Julia Garner (Ozark, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, Inventing Anna) as Ellison and Anthony Boyle (House of Guinness, Say Nothing, Masters of the Air) as Bankman-Fried, the series unpacks how two hyper-smart, ambitious young idealists tried to remake the global financial system before they were accused of stealing $8 billion.
“From the very beginning, I was so fascinated by both Sam’s and Caroline’s real stories,” co-showrunner Graham Moore (The Imitation Game, The Outfit) tells Tudum. “Those are both characters 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.”
The duo’s high-stakes journey, which became a “daily obsession” for Moore, goes beyond the many headlines. “One thing we could do in telling this story that, say, a newspaper might not be able to do is we could try to create not just the moments that happened on camera, but the ones that happened off camera — the intimate moments,” the writer explains.
Together with co-showrunner and co-writer Jacqueline Hoyt (The Underground Railroad, Dietland, The Leftovers), Moore worked to tell a much more “fascinating, personal, deeply heartbreaking” tale about the much-discussed former couple.
For Hoyt, the experience of bringing the story to the screen was incredibly illuminating. “Like most people, I was aware of the FTX scandal through news headlines, but I didn’t know anything about the motives and relationships between the real people,” she says. “After reading Graham’s incredible pilot, I was immediately drawn in and knew I wanted to be a part of bringing the complicated, dynamic relationship between Sam Bankman-Fried and Caroline Ellison to audiences. 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.”
Scroll down to see more about the upcoming drama, from first-look photos to a full cast list.
In 2024, US District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan declared that Caroline Ellison and Sam Bankman-Fried might have committed the “greatest financial fraud ever perpetrated in this country.” Their wild story will be chronicled in The Altruists, which follows the rise and fall of FTX, a global cryptocurrency exchange, and the two star-crossed lovers who ended the empire.
“One of our goals from the very beginning was to show both Sam and Caroline as very real people, as real 28-year-olds,” Moore explains. “When a lot of the story takes place, Sam and Caroline are 26, 28 years old, and they’re suddenly thrust into this position where there are billions and billions of dollars riding on their every decision.”
Adds the writer, “I don’t know about you, but I feel awfully lucky that I was not under such pressure at that age in my life.”
Additional series regulars joining Garner and Boyle in the limited series include:
And cast members joining in a recurring role include:
Yes! Check out Garner and Boyle embodying crypto’s most notorious couple above.
Moore and Hoyt are co-showrunners, co-writers, and executive producers, and executive producer and director James Ponsoldt (The Spectacular Now, Daisy Jones & The Six, Shrinking, Running Point) directed the first episode. Vinnie Malhotra and Jessie Dicovitsky also serve as executive producers for Higher Ground Productions, alongside Scoop Wasserstein for New York Magazine/Vox Media Studios, Tonia Davis, Lauren Morelli, and Garner. The Altruists is inspired by New York Magazine reporting.
The Altruists is the latest project out of Higher Ground’s successful creative partnership with Netflix. Additional Netflix projects with Higher Ground include Air Force Elite: Thunderbirds, Starting 5, Bodkin, Leave the World Behind, American Symphony, Working: What We Do All Day, Rustin, and the upcoming All the Sinners Bleed.
All eight episodes of the series will stream on Netflix starting Nov. 19.
