‘The Altruists’ Trailer Drops: Julia Garner and Anthony Boyle Go All In as Crypto’s Bonnie and Clyde

Hollywood has never been shy about turning financial scandals into prestige television. The genre has produced everything from con-artist sagas to corporate collapse dramas, and audiences have shown they’ll happily binge a story where the money, the egos and the lies all spiral out of control. The FTX collapse was practically written for that treatment.

It had a pair of young prodigies, a promise to do good with enormous wealth and a very public implosion. Add a romantic relationship at the center of it all, and the drama almost writes itself. Netflix has now been building toward its own take for more than a year.

That wait is nearly over. Netflix has released the first trailer for ‘The Altruists‘, the limited series starring Julia Garner as Caroline Ellison and Anthony Boyle as Sam Bankman-Fried, with Hudson Williams among the cast. The eight-episode series arrives November 19, and the trailer runs a little over 2 minutes, teasing the rise and fall of the couple’s financial empire.

The footage opens with Bankman-Fried meeting Ellison and posing her a brain teaser about betting a percentage of your chips. After she learns the game is about analyzing risk, Caroline decides to go all in, arguing that doing so every time is the mathematically optimal strategy. It’s an early signal of the competitive streak that pulls both of them further into trouble.

First trailer for ‘THE ALTRUISTS’ starring Julia Garner, Anthony Boyle & Hudson Williams. 🎥 It follows Bankman-Fried & Ellison who tried to remake the global financial system in the blink of an eye before they were accused of stealing $8 billion. On Netflix November 19. https://t.co/1Fl69OfTS2

— Film Crave (@_filmcrave) October 8, 2026

The trailer follows the pair as they dream of changing the financial world and as their plans start to unravel. Boyle is almost unrecognizable as the bushy-haired Bankman-Fried, while Garner plays the sharp-minded Ellison. The official logline describes them as two hyper-smart, ambitious idealists who tried to remake the global financial system in the blink of an eye before they were accused of stealing $8 billion.

Around the two leads is a deep ensemble. Alex Lawther plays Sam Trabucco, Karan Soni plays Nishad Singh, Naomi Okada plays Claire Watanabe, Madison Hu plays Constance Wang, Matt Rife plays Ryan Salame and Eugene Young plays Gary Wang. Hudson Williams, known to many viewers from ‘Heated Rivalry’, plays Duncan Rheingans-Yoo.

Other cast members include Paul Reiser as Joe Bankman, Robin Weigert as Barbara Fried, Jennifer Grey as Sara Fisher Ellison and Terry Chen as CZ. Maddie Hasson, Marianna Phung, William Mapother and Jack Greenlees round out a long list of supporting players.

Graham Moore, known for ‘The Imitation Game’ and ‘The Outfit’, created the series and serves as co-showrunner with Jacqueline Hoyt. Directors include James Ponsoldt, Kyle Patrick Alvarez, Mairzee Almas and Silver Tree, with Moore directing one episode himself. The production comes from Barack and Michelle Obama’s Higher Ground Productions and Vox Media Studios.

The story is inspired by New York Magazine articles written by Kevin T. Dugan and Jen Wieczner. Moore said in an interview with Tudum that “for nearly three years now, Sam and Caroline’s story has been my daily obsession.” Hoyt has said the series focuses on the morally conflicted motives of the pair so viewers can understand why they acted as they did.

The series is rooted in a very real scandal. Bankman-Fried founded Alameda Research in 2017 and created the FTX exchange two years later, and the business collapsed in 2022. He was found guilty in 2023 of an $8 billion fraud and sentenced to 25 years in prison, while Ellison, the former CEO of Alameda Research, testified against him and received two years.

Moore has described the relationship as a central part of the story, noting that it was not just the story of Bankman-Fried but of his on-and-off girlfriend, Caroline. The format also lets the production move past the headlines to tell something more personal. Garner reportedly had only two recordings of Ellison to study, while Boyle had a wealth of video, audio and TikToks to work from, and Moore said he became emotional the first time he saw the two actors together.

Several recent shows have tackled stories of idealists turned fraudsters, but this one has a distinct angle. By framing the central pair as true believers in changing the world before they became accused criminals, ‘The Altruists’ sets up a story about ambition and self-deception rather than greed alone. The Bonnie and Clyde comparison in its marketing makes the romantic side just as important as the financial one.

With a strong cast, a respected writer and a story audiences already know in outline, the series has the ingredients of a major November release. The question is whether it can make a familiar scandal feel fresh.

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