Money is intoxicating. It makes people do crazy things to get it, to keep it, to control it, and there are always some who will go beyond the boundaries of decency, morality and legality to get their hands on it.

Sharper, a new film from The Crown and Sherlock director Benjamin Caron, follows a group of ruthless New York City strivers who compete for wealth, riches and power – and who don't care who they have to con and climb over to get to the top.

The Big Lebowski and Boogie Nights' Julianne Moore stars alongside Sebastian Stan, Justice Smith, Briana Middleton and John Lithgow, forming a motley crew from across the social classes who all have one thing in common: a lust for wealth and power.

“As we were developing this, I talked a lot about the exploration of wealth and why money has become such an important thing in our culture,” says Moore, 62, who also produced the film.

“I feel like when I was growing up, education was like the most important thing, and then once the banks were deregulated, suddenly it was like: why would you bother with that when you can make so much money doing this?

“So this really is a movie about how people value money more than anything else.”

The film opens with a definition of the word “sharper”, meaning “one who lives by their wits”, giving a glimpse of the types of people the characters are.

We're presented with five seemingly unconnected individuals, who transform themselves in different situations to ensure they are best served by the interaction.

The first characters we meet are Tom, a charming but shy bookstore owner played by Detective Pikachu star Justice Smith, and Sandra, a young woman with a difficult past who's trying to turn her life around, played by Briana Middleton, who recently had a role in George Clooney's The Tender Bar.

Moore plays the intelligent and manipulative Madeline, who is “addicted to winning and obsessively seeks power”, as Caron explains, and Sebastian Stan is Max, an audacious, unpredictable and inventive con artist who takes Sandra under his wing when she's down and out.

Finally, there's Richard, a ruthless hedge fund billionaire played by decorated actor John Lithgow.

Thus we have five disparate individuals whose lives collide as the story progresses, and who are all connected by one major trait: they all covet cold, hard cash, and they'll manipulate whoever and whatever it takes to get it.

“I'm interested in the way people present themselves in conversation and what they reveal, and what they don't reveal, in the exchanges that they have with other people,” says Moore.

“This is an ensemble film, and it's about how we react to one another, how we build things with each other.

“I think that people have many facets to them – I think that we're not always the same people.

“I mean, depending on who you're talking to, you could be different with your partner, or a friend or with your boss, or with your children, or socially at a party. We're multifaceted.

“And this is a movie that kind of explores the possibility of that, of people making different choices, or presenting different versions of themselves.

“It was fascinating from a character point of view, and from an emotional point of view as well.”

“The characters were so rich and mysterious in their intentions,” adds Gossip Girl and Marvel star Stan, 40.

“It's a journey, it's a ride – this movie is a ride and it keeps you guessing, it keeps you surprised until really at the very end.”

The intricacy of the script, which entwines themes of class, race and gender in a story that's never short of thrilling, pays homage to the noir classics that Caron loves, like the 1971 film Klute.

Sharper was shot on 35mm film, a decision made both to create stylised cinematography and to set a certain mood on set. This, along with the way Caron curated the scenes to drip-feed information to the audience, was a great inspiration for Stan as he bedded into the role of Max.

“Tonally, just being able to shoot it on film, and the way he captures these scenes with saying why first, for a lot of it sometimes… it affects the way you listen as an audience, and you're paying attention in a different way,” Stan says.

“I think this was a really selective, sort of curated, framing to the movie, to tell you the story. A lot of that is subliminal, I don't think you pick it up right away, and then you kind of go: ‘Oh, I'm affected by that, because of all these other things'.”

New York is the playground of Sharper's devious protagonists – fitting as the East Coast city is a microcosm of society at large and a place where dreams are made and destroyed.

“New York encompasses so much,” says Moore.

“The wealthiest people in the world live in that city, and it also has all these neighbourhoods of people who are just getting by. The fact that there's that kind of socioeconomic strata there is very much important in this story.

“And the fact that it welcomes everyone – people come from all over the world, and you're a New Yorker, and you also can have a sense of anonymity there too, and possibility.

“To me, it felt like a particularly New York story, just this idea of possibility. And I was really adamant that we shoot it in New York. I live there, too, which is helpful!”

“The city operates at the sharp end of the American dream,” adds British director Caron, 46, on the film's setting.

“It is a transactional place that in a few short decades became the heart of free market capitalism, hostile takeovers, deregulation and bull markets, and insane wealth. The evidence of the chasm between rich and poor is everywhere.

“It's also a city that attracts hustlers, chancers and grifters.

“Our characters could only exist there.”

Sharper is released on Apple TV+ on Friday February 17.