Times where someone attempts to undercut, undermine and ruin the success of another in Live-Action Films.
- The Adventures of Baron Munchausen: The Rt. Ordinary Horatio Jackson is presented with a heroic soldier who singlehandedly destroyed six enemy cannons and rescued ten captive soldiers. Instead of awarding him a commendation for his bravery, he is ordered executed so as not to demoralize soldiers who are less brave and capable. He later snipes and fatally wounds the Baron while the town is celebrating his victory over the Sultan, partially because of this.
- The movie Blue State actually has a Canadian cite the tall poppy metaphor approvingly as part of introducing an American would-be expatriate to Canada.
- It's not explicitly stated as such, but the Joker in The Dark Knight does talk about how he "took Gotham's White Knight (Harvey Dent) and brought him down to our level." Harvey was a popular political figure, had a beautiful girlfriend-come-fiancée, and was poised to actually bring hope back to Gotham without dressing up like a bat and jumping off rooftops. The Joker tore him down and convinced him to do a Face–Heel Turn, destroying everything he used to stand for.
- A Fish Called Wanda portrays the worst aspects of British versus American culture this way. According to Archie, Brits are terrified of embarrassment and awkwardness, so they avoid putting themselves in precarious situations. Americans, by contrast, are bull-headedly obsessed with being "winners."
- Subverted in The Five Heartbeats; one of the titular characters' father says he'll never be a famous musician on the grounds that since he himself never amounted to anything, his son can never amount to anything either. However, as he explains to his wife, this is just a ruse; he wants to save his son the shame of failure by getting him to quit and pursuit a more viable career choice.
- Unique case in Good Will Hunting as it's self-inflicted, and inverted completely when Chuckie tells Will that he owes it to the rest of them to make something out of his life. As he explains, he and several others would kill to have his talent and opportunities and Will refusing to capitalize on it comes across as not just a waste, but an insult to the rest of them.
- Harrison Bergeron, the film adaptation of the Kurt Vonnegut short story, starring Sean Astin, is also about a brilliant young man in a society where everyone is forced to be mediocre. For example, a C grade is considered the best grade in school, and the title character gets in trouble for repeatedly getting A's.
- This is used to set up the plot in Hot Fuzz. The protagonist, London police officer Nicholas Angel, is reassigned to a small village in The West Country because his hypercompetence is making the entire rest of the Met look bad in comparison. Unfortunately, their figures go "a bit squiffy" (as in a 400% increase in London's crime rate) without him, forcing them to swallow their pride and ask him to return... only to be told he's come to like the village. Turns out that removing the best member of the group to stop him from making the rest look bad is still removing the single most skilled and competent member of the group.
- Land of the Blind: Referenced in the reeducation camp slogan of "The nail that sticks up gets hammered down" and explicit with the revolution's (claimed) egalitarian goals (though as with most such regimes they end up very unequal).
- Used as a threat in The Night We Called It A Day. Bob Hawke (portrayed by David Field) educated Frank Sinatra (Dennis Hopper) about Australian customs with the phrase "You are what we call a 'tall poppy'. We have a way of dealing with tall poppies in this country: we cut their heads off."
- The Purge: The reason why the Sandins will be killed by their neighbors, with them even invoking The Only One Allowed to Defeat You on the teenage Purgers, is because the Sandins make a lot of money from having sold security systems and have "flaunted it" by making additions to their house, breaking the standards of the neighborhood.
- In the DCOM Tower of Terror, this is ultimately revealed as the villain Abby's motivation: as the older, non-talented sister of child star Sally Shine, she felt neglected by both her parents and the world at large, and so used black magic to send Sally, as well as the four other people unlucky enough to be in an elevator with her, into the Twilight Zone, forced to live on as ghosts. Thankfully, a healthy dose of The Power of Love convinces Abby that Sally and her family really did care about her, which reverses the spell.
- In Transcendence, there are several discussions on the notion there will always be people who fear change and will violently fight to prevent it. RIFT's goal seems to be achieving this trope on a global scale, by ridding the world of technological advancements.
- Interesting inversion in Wristcutters: A Love Story in Kneller's tale of the crooked tree. While the proud, tall-standing trees do get cut down, the crooked tree survives because it is an exception to the otherwise tall trees.
- Invoked and subverted in The Wolf of Wall Street. Jordan is disdainful of the idea of FBI Agent Denham investigating Stratton-Oakmont's rise to Wall Street stardom, pointing out that Denham had tried and failed to get his broker's license and is now only taking out his frustrations by ruining the accomplishments of people who pulled it off. He even remarks "Every time someone rises up in this world, there's always gonna be some asshole trying to drag him down." But in actuality, this is only because Jordan is the narrator, and the film makes it clear he's a hedonistic, morally-bankrupt scumbag whose rise to power was accomplished by illegal means, so Denham, as an FBI Agent, is just doing his job and is justified in taking him down.
