Film

Coup!

A con artist crashes an isolated 1918 seaside estate, impersonating a chef. When the Spanish Flu arrives, he seizes the chaos to orchestrate a staff revolt that turns the mansion upside down. It's a nimble farce—playful, anarchic, occasionally dark—that delights in watching comfortable hierarchies crumble. For anyone who loves scheming underdogs and period settings that feel alive rather than stuffy.

TMDb rating3.2

If you liked this

Knives Out2019

A mystery where the pleasure is watching a brilliant outsider dismantle a corrupt family's pretence. Intricate plotting, genuine surprises, and a cast clearly having enormous fun with their own deceptions.

But The twists are ambitious enough that if you guess them early, the second half can feel slight. Some find the tone shifts jarring.

Knives Out poster

The Menu2022

A chef holds his wealthy guests hostage, dismantling their entitlement course by course. Stylish, tense, with real venom beneath its formal surface.

But The class anger is uncompromising and the ending divisive. Some feel it tips into sledgehammer moralising.

The Menu poster

In Fabric2018

A surreal, darkly funny film about a cursed dress that destroys lives. Genuinely original, visually strange, unafraid to be weird.

But The narrative is deliberately fragmented and obscure. If you need coherent plot, this will frustrate you.

In Fabric poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Coup!

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Servant1963

Both explore how the supposedly powerless accumulate agency through proximity and infiltration, turning service into subversion.

A butler's slow psychological domination of his young employer. Brilliantly acted and shot, darkly funny, it invented the language of servant-power-play that Coup! riffs on.

But It moves at its own pace and the horror is glacial rather than kinetic. Some find it glacially paced.

The Servant poster
More like this (5)

The Disaster Artist2017

A film about misfits and ambition, how absurdity and sincerity coexist, told with genuine affection for its subjects.

But If you haven't seen The Room, much of the humour lands differently. The reverence for failure won't appeal to everyone.

The Disaster Artist poster

Eating Raoul1982

A couple murders swingers for money during a sexual revolution. Pitch-black comedy that doesn't flinch from its premise. A true cult classic.

But The humour is transgressive and dated in specific ways. The film moves slowly and has a very particular sensibility.

Eating Raoul poster

Improper Channels1981

A wry Canadian film about bureaucratic absurdity and working-class frustration. Funny without being showy, genuinely smart about systems.

But It's quiet and deliberately unglamorous. If you want spectacle, this offers the opposite.

Improper Channels poster

La Bête Humaine1938

Both use period settings and class conflict to explore how ordinary circumstances can suddenly tip into revolt and chaos.

A brutal 1938 Renoir film about working-class rage, desire, and violence during industrial unrest. Genuinely unsettling and gorgeously shot.

But The gender politics are of its era and difficult. It's violent and emotionally exhausting.

La Bête Humaine poster

Plebs2013

Both use period comedy to explore hierarchies from the bottom up, finding agency and humour in the spaces the powerful ignore.

A British comedy about three working-class slaves navigating imperial Rome. Absurdist, clever, surprisingly touching, and actually funny about power.

But It's a television comedy, so it settles into rhythms rather than building dramatically. Some episodes are better than others.

Plebs poster

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