Before Rex Sinquefield—the St. Louis native, retired financier, and chess-loving philanthropist—spent millions on free-market and conservative political causes in Missouri, he had to earn those millions first. Now a newly released commercial documentary by the Oscar-winning director Errol Morris sheds light on how he did it.
The film, Tune Out the Noise, dropped on YouTube for free several weeks ago. A spokesperson for Dimensional Fund Advisors, the firm that Sinquefield co-founded, said that Dimensional funded the movie but Morris “had creative license and made all decisions on the final cut.” And indeed, the doc has the hallmarks of Morris’ style, including subjects speaking straight into the camera. (Morris won the Academy Award in 2003 for The Fog of War, a film about the late former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara.) Ben Cohen at the Wall Street Journal recently called Tune Out the Noise “nerdy and genuinely engrossing.”
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Dimensional’s spokesperson did not say whether there had been any kind of theatrical run, but the free-market think tank Show Me Institute, which Sinquefield has funded, held a private screening at St. Louis’ Chase Park Plaza Cinemas in August.
Tune Out the Noise is a Michael-Lewis-esque tale of unorthodox thinkers beating the system—in this case Sinquefield, his Dimensional co-founder David Booth, and others at the University of Chicago in the 60s and 70s. Using market data, they quietly revolutionized personal finance by creating index funds, which allow ordinary people to make widely diversified investments that don’t require active money managers.
Their concept has certainly spread: In 2023, passive investment assets eclipsed active ones on a global scale for the first time. It has also made Sinquefield a fortune, though he doesn’t make a habit of quantifying it. (He retired from Dimensional in 2005 and did not respond to interview requests for this story.)
Describing his life for the camera, Sinquefield covers ground he has discussed publicly before, such as his father’s death and his childhood at a St. Louis orphanage run by German nuns. But it’s nonetheless intriguing to hear Sinquefield, who doesn’t always speak to the press, recount these events in his own words. Even more colorful is his wife, Jeanne Sinquefield, who also had a leadership role at Dimensional. She confirms to Morris that she’s a “data freak,” adding: “Other people did crossword puzzles. I do statistics.” At one point she describes how she and her husband met in a judo club. Asks Morris: “Did you ever beat him at judo?” “Oh yeah,” she replies. “I was just better than he was.”
Why It Matters: Sinquefield’s invention has changed the world—and shows little sign of fading, especially now that President Donald Trump’s market-rattling tariffs have sent individual investors searching for the kind of relative safety that index funds can offer (even as some people in or near retirement have decamped from there to Treasury funds).
What’s Next: Sinquefield has been one of the biggest political donors in Missouri history, though he’s scaled back his spending lately after cutting ties with his former chief strategist. Time will tell how Sinquefield reacts to a looming political battle: The fight to change Missouri’s initiative petition process. For years, Republicans have wanted to make it harder for voters to directly approve laws through that mechanism, and Gov. Mike Kehoe reportedly considers such changes a priority. But Sinquefield himself has used that mechanism to, for example, successfully push for one law obliging St. Louis voters to re-approve the city’s earnings tax every five years and another giving control of its police department to the mayor. The latter law was just reversed by GOP leaders in Jefferson City, including Kehoe—who, ironically, has also received donations from Sinquefield.
