a group of experimental subjects that work with their project leader, who is also in charge of monitoring their nutritional requirements and setting up their meals among other things, on something or other, and said project leader really doesn't like one of them, so they quietly but drastically drop the nutritional content of their meals. the portion sizes are the same, so that they don't realize what's going on, but the parts that are the most nourishing and filling are replaced with filler substance that doesn't last long or give them much of anything, so they're hungry barely half an hour later and then have to wait the usual several hours for another meal that doesn't fill them up either.
maybe they have a meeting with the leader and the other subjects that lasts most of the day, and everyone eats at the beginning and they can see that they're getting the same amount of food as everyone else, and when their stomach is inevitably growling loudly in front of everyone barely an hour after the meal due to the lack of nourishment and they're clearly falling behind and having trouble focusing, the project leader humiliates them by chiding them for being so weak and inefficient compared to the others. (maybe one of the others is friends with them and notices something wrong, though, so they might get at least some help and comfort, if they're not too prideful to accept it)
I feel like Pacific Rim, Mad Max: Fury Road, and Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves are kind of a perfect trifecta of action movies. They’re not necessarily Oscar material but they’re all great at being the kind of thing they are trying to be, they’re all entertaining but not afraid of being genuinely emotional, and they’re all generally not hampered by dumb sexist action movie nonsense because their main female characters have their own arcs, are not designed for the male gaze, and the main M/F relationships are platonic.
More things like this please!!