A Glean movie guide
Beyond the Basement
Eat the rich.
Masterful thrillers exploring class warfare, domestic deception, and social satire.
Handpicked for this guide
The movie list
- 01
Burning
A haunting South Korean mystery where class resentment simmers beneath a slow-burn psychological thriller.
'Burning' is a conversation between two young mothers brought together by strange and cruel social realities, at a funeral ghat in Varanasi
- 02
Shoplifters
A tender yet heartbreaking look at a makeshift family living on the margins of Japanese society.
In the outskirts of Tokyo, a poor but close-knit group living on the fringes of society survives through shoplifting and odd jobs. When Osamu and his son take in a neglected young girl, their already fragile existence begins to unravel. As the family grows attached to her, buried secrets surface, forcing them to confront the true meaning of love, belonging, and what makes a family.
- 03
The Handmaiden
An intricate South Korean thriller of domestic deception and shifting power dynamics within a wealthy estate.
1930s Korea, in the period of Japanese occupation, a new girl, Sookee, is hired as a handmaiden to a Japanese heiress, Hideko, who lives a secluded life on a large countryside estate with her domineering Uncle Kouzuki. But the maid has a secret. She is a pickpocket recruited by a swindler posing as a Japanese Count to help him seduce the Lady to steal her fortune.
- 04
Snowpiercer
Bong Joon-ho’s visceral sci-fi epic that turns a speeding train into a literal ladder of class warfare.
In a future where a failed global-warming experiment kills off most life on the planet, a class system evolves aboard the Snowpiercer; a train that travels around the globe via a perpetual-motion engine.
- 05
The Servant
A classic psychological drama where the lines between master and servant blur into a chilling power struggle.
Indolent aristocrat Tony employs competent Barrett as his manservant and all seems to be going well until Barrett persuades Tony to hire his sister as a live-in maid.
- 06
The Menu
A sharp, satirical thriller that pits the ultra-wealthy against the service workers they exploit.
A young couple travels to a remote island to eat at an exclusive restaurant where the chef has prepared a lavish menu, with some shocking surprises.
- 07
Saltburn
A stylish and unsettling look at a student who manipulates his way into an aristocratic family's inner circle.
Struggling to find his place at Oxford University, student Oliver Quick finds himself drawn into the world of the charming and aristocratic Felix Catton, who invites him to Saltburn, his eccentric family's sprawling estate, for a summer never to be forgotten.
- 08
Mother
Bong Joon-ho’s dark masterpiece about the terrifying lengths a mother will go to protect her son from the law.
Mother compiles clips of mother figures from classic Hollywood cinema and television dramas. The figures range from the Virgin Mary and Mother Courage, to characters from Maude (1972–78), Aliens (1986), Imitation of Life (1959), and American Gangster (2007). The characters play out scenes of care, loss, emotional manipulation, abandonment, and grief. The intense relationships between mothers and daughters are especially prominent.
- 09
The Platform
A brutal, high-concept allegory for social inequality set within a vertical prison’s feeding system.
A slab of food descends down a vertical facility. The residents above eat heartily, leaving those below starving and desperate. A rebellion is imminent.
- 10
La Cérémonie
A cold French thriller exploring the explosive intersection of class resentment and domestic service.
Sophie, a quiet and shy maid working for an upper-class French family, finds a friend in the energetic and uncompromising postmaster Jeanne, who encourages her to stand up against her bourgeois employers.
- 11
Get Out
A groundbreaking social thriller that uses horror to dissect the predatory nature of the privileged elite.
Chris and his girlfriend Rose go upstate to visit her parents for the weekend. At first, Chris reads the family's overly accommodating behavior as nervous attempts to deal with their daughter's interracial relationship, but as the weekend progresses, a series of increasingly disturbing discoveries lead him to a truth that he never could have imagined.
- 12
Triangle of Sadness
A wicked satire that strands the ultra-rich on an island where social hierarchies are violently upended.
A celebrity model couple are invited on a luxury cruise for the uber-rich, helmed by an unhinged, alcoholic captain. What first appears Instagrammable ends catastrophically, leaving the survivors stranded on a desert island in a struggle of hierarchy.