History Film / TheThinning

* HollywoodHacking: Averted. Kellan has the ability to access the school's camera system whenever he wants through his cell phone, but only because his father is the IT guy and Kellan stole his login credentials. When Laina needs to get Mason's password, she just has him call up video of Mason entering it.

* PopulationControl: To conserve resources, every country in the world must reduced their population by 5% every year.

* ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney: The rich/talented kids have an uncanny ability to pass despite their seemingly lacking intelligence, which is suggested to be the result of their parents having enough money to buy their freedom.

* AirVentEscape: Blake and Laina escape into the air vents to evade capture. This backfires at one point when the vent collapses under Blake's weight, though he happens to be above the school pool at the time.

A year later, Laina's mother has died, leaving her to look after her two younger siblings. Her sister, Corrine, is in first grade this year, meaning she will be taking her first test. Laina escorts Corrine to her test before going to her own. Blake records a video of himself stating his intent to deliberately fail the test and force his father to change things, and drops it in the mail. One of his father's employees spots him doing this and retrieves the video, bringing it to his father to watch. His father contacts the administrator of the test to arrange for Blake to pass regardless. Laina fails despite being one of the best students in school who knows she didn't fail the test. When Blake cuts the power to the room where the Thinning takes place, Laina manages to escape, and together the two join forces to get to the bottom of things.

* CPRCleanPrettyReliable: Laina does this after Blake falls in the pool. He spits up some water and then is totally fine.

* AdultFear: ''First graders'' are subject to the Thinning. Imagine being a parent and learning your six year old child has been taken to killed for failing their test.

* AdultFear: '"First graders'' are subject to the Thinning. Imagine being a parent and learning your six year old child has been taken to killed for failing their test.

* AbusiveParents: Blake's father is implied to have fixed things so Ellie was targeted for The Thinning (since she passed). And of course, when his options are give up power or let his son go to the Thinning, he lets his son go. (The movie is unclear on whether he knows about the [[spoiler: not actually killing them]] thing.)

The Thinning is a 2016 film distributed by Youtube Red. It is set in a {{dystopia}}n future in which the UN has ordered all countries to reduce their population by 5% each year, and America has chosen to comply with this directive by administering a high-stakes test every year from 1st grade to 12th. The lowest percentile in each grade is then executed in the titular "thinning." We follow two students, Laina and Blake, through their last two years with the Thinning: Laina is making and selling "study guides"-- contact lenses with embedded computers that provide test answers-- in order to pay for her mother's treatments. (For what is never specified, but it's implied to be cancer.) Blake is the governor's son. He attempts to procure one of Laina's study guides, but she has none left. Blake's girlfriend Ellie fails the test and is killed. Blake tries to get his father to spare Ellie, but the governor tells him the law applies to everyone.

A year later, Laina's mother has died, leaving her to look after her two younger siblings. Her sister, Corrine, is in first grade this year, meaning she will be taking her first test. Laina escorts Corrine to her test before going to her own. Blake records a video of himself stating his intent to deliberately fail the test and force his father to change things, and drops it in the mail. One of his father's employees spots him doing this and retrieves the video, bringing it to his father to watch. His father contacts the administrator of the test to arrange for Blake to pass regardless. Laina fails despite being one of the best students in school who knows she didn't fail the test. When Blake cuts the power to the room where the thinning takes place, Laina manages to escape, and together the two join forces to get to the bottom of things.

* HotScoop: So much so that Kellan sends her tips he hacks out of computers largely on the basis of how hot she is.

* TheEndingChangesEverything: [[spoiler:The kids who fail the Thinning are killed, but instead shipped to a factory owned by the company which manufactures the test tablets, implicitly as forced labor in their construction. Ellie's among those on the assembly line.]]

* AchievementTestOfDestiny: One where they kill you if you do badly on it. [[spoiler:Or will it?]]

* AchievementTestOfDestiny: One where they kill you if you do badly on it.

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: Laina is alive, free from the test forever, and reunited with Corrine, but Blake has gone to the Thinning and some mysterious forced-labor camp, the governor has used this to cover up his involvement in the scandal so his presidential bid still has legs, and the system is still in place-- kids are still going to the Thinning again next year.]]

* CorruptPolitician: The governor.

* TheEndingChangesEverything: [[spoiler: They don't kill the kids who fail the Thinning, they just knock them out and bring them to a clean-room type factory. Also Ellie's still alive!]]
* EvilTeacher: The male teacher is discovered to be sleeping with female students and offering them an automatic pass on the test in return. It's not a promise he has the power to fulfil.
* FacelessGoons: The guys who work for the testing authority all wear identical black bodysuits with helmets that cover their faces. This comes back to bite them later.
* HollywoodHacking: Surprisingly averted. We know Kellan is hacking into stuff with his cell phone, but we generally just see the results of the hacking and him staring intently at his phone, and Laina states early on that much of the hacking is just that Kellan stole is father's login credentials.
* HeadsUpDisplay: the contact-lens "study guides" that Laina sells to people who don't think they can pass on their own.

* PlayfulHacker: Kellan.
* RuleofPool: Blake manages to fall through the bottom of an air vent and into the pool. Laina jumps in after him.

The Thinning is a 2016 film distributed by Youtube Red. It is set in a {{dystopia}}n future in which the UN has ordered all countries to reduce their population by 5% each year, and America has chosen to comply with this directive by administering a high-stakes test every year from 1st grade to 12th. The lowest percentile in each grade is then executed [[spoiler:or so they claim, anyway]], in the titular "thinning." We follow two students, Laina and Blake, through their last two years with the Thinning: Laina is making and selling "study guides"-- contact lenses with embedded computers that provide test answers-- in order to pay for her mother's treatments. (For what is never specified, but it's implied to be cancer.) Blake is the governor's son. He attempts to procure one of Laina's study guides, but she has none left. Blake's girlfriend Ellie fails the test and is killed. Blake tries to get his father to spare Ellie, but the governor tells him the law applies to everyone.

* Bittersweet Ending: [[spoiler: Laina is alive, free from the test forever, and reunited with Corrine, but Blake has gone to the Thinning and some mysterious forced-labor camp, the governor has used this to cover up his involvement in the scandal so his presidential bid still has legs, and the system is still in place-- kids are still going to the Thinning again next year.]]

* CPRCleanPrettyReliable: Laina does this after BLake falls in the pool. He spits up some water and then is totally fine.