Summary

Academy Award-winning filmmaker Errol Morris (The Fog of War, The Thin Blue Line) turns his lens to an unlikely cast of upstarts who transformed the investment landscape in the documentary Tune Out the Noise. The film chronicles a group of academics at the University of Chicago in the 1960s whose groundbreaking research challenged Wall Street’s status quo and was used by firms like Dimensional Fund Advisors to disrupt traditional methods of investing, ultimately reshaping the way the world views markets. 

Many of the prominent academic and financial leaders featured in Tune Out the Noise were instrumental in developing and applying research that showed how rules-based, broadly diversified portfolios could lower barriers to entry and reduce costs for investors. This new approach, which stood in stark contrast to the stock-picking and performance-chasing tactics that predominated, led to the invention of index funds, the founding of Dimensional, and the evolution of client-focused advice. The result was a revolution in finance that helped usher in a new era for investors.

Shot in Morris’s iconic style, Tune Out the Noise unfolds through revealing interviews with Nobel Prize-winning economists who have long-standing ties to Dimensional, including Eugene Fama, Robert Merton, and Myron Scholes. The film also features Dartmouth professor Ken French, who has co-authored numerous research papers with Fama, along with Dimensional founders David Booth and Rex Sinquefield, indexing pioneer Mac McQuown, former US Senator Bill Bradley, IFA Founder Mark Hebner, and many others.