A Glean movie guide
Beyond the Basement: Social Thrillers Like Parasite
Eat the rich.
Masterful stories of class warfare, domestic infiltration, and dark, genre-bending satire.
Handpicked for this guide
The movie list
- 01
Snowpiercer
A high-concept sci-fi epic that literalizes class warfare on a non-stop train.
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.
- 02
The Handmaiden
An intricate, visually stunning Korean thriller where class dynamics and deception collide.
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.
- 03
Burning
A haunting, slow-burn mystery that captures the simmering tension between the working class and the elite.
'Burning' is a conversation between two young mothers brought together by strange and cruel social realities, at a funeral ghat in Varanasi
- 04
Shoplifters
A tender yet heartbreaking look at a family of outcasts surviving on the fringes of 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.
- 05
The Menu
A razor-sharp dark comedy that turns a fine-dining experience into a battleground of social status.
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.
- 06
Get Out
A groundbreaking social thriller that uses horror to expose deep-seated racial and class anxieties.
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.
- 07
Triangle of Sadness
A wicked satire that gleefully dismantles social hierarchies during a luxury cruise gone wrong.
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.
- 08
Saltburn
A stylish and provocative drama about an outsider infiltrating a world of extreme wealth and privilege.
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.
- 09
Memories of Murder
Bong Joon-ho’s atmospheric masterpiece blending dark humor with a gripping police procedural.
A sadistic serial rapist and murderer of young women terrorizes a small province in 1980s South Korea. To prevent further crimes, three increasingly desperate detectives with conflicting methods race against time to unravel the violent mind of the killer in a futile effort to solve the case.
- 10
The Servant
A classic psychological drama exploring the shifting power dynamics between an aristocrat and his valet.
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.
- 11
The Platform
A visceral, high-concept allegory for wealth distribution set in a vertical prison.
A slab of food descends down a vertical facility. The residents above eat heartily, leaving those below starving and desperate. A rebellion is imminent.
- 12
High and Low
Kurosawa’s essential crime drama exploring the moral and physical divide between the rich and the poor.
A Yokohama shoe executive faces a wrenching choice when kidnappers mistakenly seize his chauffeur’s son but demand the ransom anyway.