Jamie Lee Curtis, Don Johnson, Toni Collette, Michael Shannon, Riki Lindhome, Jaeden Martell, and Katherine Langford in Knives Out.Image via Lionsgate
By
Luc Haasbroek
Published 45 minutes ago
Luc Haasbroek is a writer and videographer from Durban, South Africa. He has been writing professionally about pop culture for eight years. Luc's areas of interest are broad: he's just as passionate about psychology and history as he is about movies and TV. He's especially drawn to the places where these topics overlap.
Luc is also an avid producer of video essays and looks forward to expanding his writing career. When not writing, he can be found hiking, playing Dungeons & Dragons, hanging out with his cats, and doing deep dives on whatever topic happens to have captured his interest that week.
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It seems there's a growing trend of "eat the rich" movies. These are stories where economic anxiety and class antagonisms are front and center, and where the wealthy characters are frequently portrayed as villains. The popularity of these films suggests that there's a lot of frustration and bitterness building in society (though the question of who exactly constitutes "the rich" is largely a matter of perspective).
With this in mind, this list looks at the best movies in this rather new but increasingly popular (and topical) subgenre. The titles below range from apocalyptic thrillers and social satire to black comedies, wild true stories, and surreal psychodramas. However, they're all insightful, engaging, and biting, ensuring the eat the rich genre will be here for far longer than anyone would've anticipated.
10 ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ (2018)
Michelle Yeoh with her arms crossed in 'Crazy Rich Asians'.Image via Warner Bros. Pictures
"All Americans think about is their own happiness." At its simplest, the story follows Rachel (Constance Wu), a brilliant NYU economics professor who travels to Singapore with her boyfriend Nick (Henry Golding), only to discover he’s heir to an empire of old-money elites. Suddenly, Rachel must navigate a gilded battlefield of gossip, manipulation, and silent judgment. It's a rom-com with a side of class warfare. Beneath the modern-fairy tale sparkle, the movie is a pretty sharp statement on tribalism and cultural gatekeeping.
It never goes full-on "revolution" or whips out the pitchforks, yet its message lands anyway. It clearly connected with audiences: Crazy Rich Asians was a runaway success, grossing a whopping $239m. It helps that the stars are charismatic and the performances are solid across the board, particularly the always-brilliant Michelle Yeoh as Nick's domineering mom. The costumes and cinematography are also sumptuous, a real visual treat.
9 ‘Bodies Bodies Bodies’ (2022)
Four wounded friends stand shocked and wear glow sticks around their necks in Bodies Bodies Bodies.Image via A24
"You’re always gaslighting me." A group of wealthy friends retreats to a lavish mansion for a hurricane party and decides to play a murder-mystery game, only to panic when someone actually turns up dead. From here, the movie quickly unravels into paranoia and accusation, all filtered through a decidedly Gen Z lens. The chaos is almost slapstick: friendships weaponized, buzzwords misfired, and trust undone by suspicion.
Bodies Bodies Bodies draws heavily on the work of Agatha Christie, but transplants familiar plot points into a world of Wi-Fi, social media, progressive politics, activist lingo, and ubiquitous cellphones. The director also borrows ideas from the likes of Heathers and Don's Plum. Despite those eclectic influences, the script is pretty mediocre in a lot of ways, but it's elevated considerably by the talented stars, including Maria Bakalova, Rachel Sennott, and Pete Davidson (watching him accidentally chop himself with a blade is pretty fun).
8 ‘The Bling Ring’ (2013)
Taissa Farmiga, Israel Broussard, Emma Watson, Katie Chang, and Claire Julien in The Bling Ring (2013)Image via A24
"Let’s go to Paris Hilton’s." While it opened to a mixed reception, The Bling Ring is better than its harshest critics make out. Based on a true story, the plot centers on a group of California teens who learn the addresses of celebrities, break in while they’re away, and loot luxury goods like they’re browsing a high-end boutique. There’s no elaborate heist planning, no noble motive; just pure, vacant consumption. Sofia Coppola lets the absurdity unfold almost clinically: designer shoes and borrowed Bentleys as teenage rites of passage.
The characters' crimes reveal the deathly shallowness of the culture around them, where fame and status and designer brands are the most important things. The slightly meta casting amplifies the themes, particularly having Emma Watson play a petty criminal. She's the strongest part of the ensemble, turning in a performance that's radically different from Hermione Granger. She's frequently funny yet never a caricature.
7 ‘Triangle of Sadness’ (2022)
"The success of a luxury yacht charter is due to teamwork." While not quite as sharp as Force Majeure, Ruben Östlund's Triangle of Sadness still delivered the barbed satire fans expected. It's split into three acts: a fraught modeling relationship, a luxury yacht spiraling into chaos, and a desert-island survival scenario that flips every social role on its head. When the storms hit (literal and metaphorical), the wealthy passengers crumble under the weight of their uselessness. The influencer couple can sell an illusion, but they can’t light a fire or catch a fish. Status counts for little when you're fighting to survive.
The film's cruelty is intentional and cathartic, reveling in humiliation without ever losing sight of the human comedy beneath. In the end, the rich fall not because they're monsters, but because they've been insulated from reality so long that they can no longer handle it head-on.
6 ‘The Menu’ (2022)
Ralph Fiennes as Chef Julian Slowik and Anya Taylor-Joy as Margot stare at each other in The Menu.Image via Searchlight Pictures
"You will eat less than you desire, but more than you deserve." On a date, Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy) and Tyler (Nicholas Hoult) head to an exclusive island restaurant run by legendary chef Julian Slowik (Ralph Fiennes). Every course reveals a new layer of the chef’s contempt for his elite clientele, each plate a psychological trap. As the diners realize they’re prisoners, alliances fracture and pretenses fall away. Margot, an outsider to the luxury world, becomes the stand-in for the audience, her skepticism cutting through the veneer of culinary worship.
The tale that follows is deliciously wicked, skewering foodie elitism and cultural commodification. While the premise is simple, the execution is exceptional. Director Mark Mylod had previously helmed episodes of Game of Thrones and Succession, and his mastery shows. The visuals and music are finely calibrated. That said, the highlight is undoubtedly Ralph Fiennes as the twisted chef, a character who makes Voldemort look practically chummy.
5 ‘Knives Out’ (2019)
The cast of Knives Out sitting in the drawing roomImage via Lionsgate
"My house, my rules, my coffee." Knives Out begins with the mysterious death of wealthy novelist Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer) and the arrival of celebrated detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig, being as un-James Bond-like as possible). Each family member insists on their innocence while revealing insecurity, entitlement, and entitlement disguised as merit. Harlan’s nurse, Marta (Ana de Armas), becomes the unlikely protagonist caught between loyalty and survival as layers of deception peel back like old wallpaper.
Here, Rian Johnson resurrects the whodunnit and coats it in class venom. The Thrombey clan is a gallery of entitlement, all spoiled and delusional. Because they're so loathsome, we enjoy watching Marta outmaneuver them through decency and cleverness. The sequels would offer diminishing returns, but this movie is highly enjoyable. Johnson's script is killer, packed with strong punchlines and fun details, and the ensemble cast more than rises to the occasion.
4 ‘Snowpiercer’ (2013)
Chris Evans and John Hurt in a crowd looking ahead and feeling anxious in Snowpiercer.Image via Radius TWC
"Know your place. Keep your place." One of the more action-packed entries in this subgenre. Snowpiercer unfolds on a perpetually moving train carrying Earth’s last survivors, divided into brutal class tiers, from tail-section poverty to engine-room aristocracy. Outside, the world is a frozen wasteland. In this bleak future, Curtis (Chris Evans), a reluctant revolutionary, leads a revolt by literally fighting his way toward the front, each carriage revealing new absurdities and horrors of wealth.
Along the way, the image of a train forever circling a dead world becomes an allegory for real-world inequality and climate destruction. While the themes are clear and heavy, Bong Joon Ho keeps the plot entertaining and brisk, serving up a steady stream of colorful characters (Tilda Swinton in particular) and well-choreographed action setpieces. The result is a post-apocalyptic thriller that's simultaneously smart, grim, and incredibly fun, a tricky balancing act to pull off.
3 ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ (2013)
Leonardo DiCaprio as Jordan Belfort holding a bill while looking at a camera in The Wolf of Wall Street.Image via Paramount Pictures
"Let me tell you something. There is no nobility in poverty." One of Martin Scorsese's many masterpieces, The Wolf of Wall Street tracks Jordan Belfort’s (Leonardo DiCaprio) meteoric rise from ambitious stockbroker to millionaire fraudster, manipulating investors and drowning in greed before reality (and law enforcement) finally closes in. Few films have so gleefully flaunted depravity. It's a cavalcade of cash, drugs, sex, helicopters, and chest-beating. Scorsese doesn't condemn Belfort; instead, he lets him incriminate himself through sheer excess.
Some critics disliked this approach, accusing the movie of glorifying Belfort and his soulless, dishonest lifestyle, not holding the character sufficiently to account, but that's precisely the point. In classic movies like Wall Street, the lying financier eventually pays the price for his crimes. In The Wolf of Wall Street, Belfort gets off with a slap on the wrist. Scorsese wants us to understand that that's the reality for people like him.
2 ‘The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie’ (1972)
Image via 20th Century Studios
"We came to eat, not to drink tea." The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie is one of the defining films by Luis Buñuel, cinema's greatest master of the surreal. The plot (if one can call it that) focuses on a group of upper-class friends perpetually trying and failing to sit down for dinner. Each attempt is interrupted by dreams, illusions, or bizarre social misfires. Reality breaks repeatedly, transforming the movie into a kind of existential farce. In the plot’s looping structure lies the joke: money buys every comfort except meaning.
Here, Buñuel portrays the wealthy as wandering ghosts, forever seeking dinner, forever spiritually starving. It’s surrealism as social vivisection, slicing through etiquette, hypocrisy, and the grotesque boredom of privilege. There's dark humor aplenty, along with lots of unsettling images, including ghosts, priests, soldiers, terrorists, poison, clockwork animals, and shotguns. It's a decent starting point for those curious about Buñuel's filmography.
1 ‘Parasite’ (2019)
Image via Neon
"Rich people are naive. No resentments. No creases on them." Parasite engages with some of the same themes as Snowpiercer, but in a much more sophisticated way. The main characters here are the impoverished Kim family, who infiltrate the wealthy Park household by posing as unrelated tutors and staff. Their scheme unfolds like a heist comedy at first, all smooth cons, clever manipulation, and giddy success, until an unexpected secret beneath the home triggers a spiral into violence and tragedy.
Every revelation tightens the class metaphor, and the house becomes a map of social hierarchy. Refreshingly, Parasite never moralizes or gets preachy. It simply shows the pressure cooker and waits for it to burst. It also paints all of its characters in shades of gray, never dividing them simply into villains and heroes, which makes it considerably better than most movies that play in this territory.
Parasite
R
Comedy
Thriller
Drama
Release Date
May 30, 2019
Cast
Song Kang-ho, Lee Sun-kyun, Cho Yeo-jeong, Choi Woo-shik, Park So-dam, Lee Jung-eun, Jang Hye-jin, Park Myung-hoon, Jung Ji-so, Jung Hyeon-jun, Park Keun-rok, Jung Yi-seo, Cho Jae-myung, Jeong Ik-han, Kim Kyu-baek, Ahn Seong-bong, Yoon Young-woo, Park Jae-wook, Lee Dong-yong, Jeon Eun-mi, Kim Geon, Lee Joo-hyung, Lee Ji-hye, Kim Bo-ryeong, Park Hye-sook
Runtime
133 minutes
Director
Bong Joon Ho
Writers
Han Jin-won, Bong Joon Ho
Genres
Comedy, Thriller, Drama
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