You’ve probably seen the thumbnail on YouTube or stumbled across a grainy snippet on a conspiracy forum. It’s long. It’s dense. It’s called Everything Is a Rich Man’s Trick—or more formally, JFK to 9/11: Everything Is a Rich Man's Trick.
Released in 2014 by researcher and filmmaker Sean Hross (though often attributed to the narrator, Francis Richard Conolly), this three-and-a-half-hour behemoth isn't just a movie. It’s a marathon. It’s an assault on the "official" version of 20th-century history that has managed to rack up millions of views despite being shadowbanned, deleted, and re-uploaded more times than anyone can count.
Honestly, it’s a bit of a trip.
One minute you’re looking at black-and-white photos of 1930s industrialist families, and the next, you’re hearing a detailed breakdown of how many shooters were supposedly in Dealey Plaza. It doesn't follow the slick, fast-paced editing of modern Netflix true crime. It feels like a late-night lecture from a very intense uncle who has spent way too much time in a basement with a microfilm machine. But that’s exactly why it sticks. In an era of bite-sized content, this film demands your entire afternoon.
The Core Thesis: Money as the Ultimate Puppet Master
The central argument of Everything Is a Rich Man’s Trick is exactly what the title suggests. It posits that the major geopolitical events of the last century—World Wars, assassinations, and economic collapses—weren't random accidents or the result of simple political friction. Instead, they were orchestrated by a tiny, interconnected elite.
Conolly focuses heavily on the concept of "The New World Order," but he grounds it in the names of real-world dynasties. We aren't just talking about vague "lizard people" here. He names names: the Rockefellers, the Morgans, the Warburgs, and the Rothschilds. He spends a massive chunk of the first hour tracing the money trail from American industrialists to the rise of the Third Reich.
He argues that war is the most profitable business on Earth.
If you can fund both sides, you win no matter who loses. It’s a cynical view. It’s also one that resonates with people who feel the modern economy is rigged. When Conolly talks about the "military-industrial complex," he isn't just quoting Eisenhower’s farewell address; he’s trying to show you the blueprints of the factory.
The JFK Obsession
A huge portion of the runtime is dedicated to the assassination of John F. Kennedy. For Conolly, this is the "trick" that changed everything. Most JFK documentaries pick a side: Oswald acted alone, or it was the CIA. Conolly goes for the "all of the above" approach, but with a twist.
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He suggests there were as many as eight shooters.
He walks the viewer through the physics of the "magic bullet" theory with a level of granular detail that is either deeply impressive or completely exhausting, depending on your patience for ballistics. He points to the Dallas police department, the Secret Service, and even LBJ as complicit actors.
Why? Because JFK wanted to stop the Vietnam War and dismantle the CIA. In the world of Everything Is a Rich Man’s Trick, that’s a death sentence. The film argues that Kennedy was an outsider trying to break the "trick," and the "rich men" simply wouldn't allow it.
The narrative doesn't stop in 1963. It treats the JFK assassination as the moment the United States officially became a "corporatocracy."
Why the Film Still Ranks and Trends
You might wonder why a film from 2014—one that looks like it was edited on a laptop from 2005—still gets talked about in 2026. The answer lies in the growing distrust of institutional narratives.
People feel like they're being lied to.
Whether it's the 2008 financial crisis where no bankers went to jail, or the shifting explanations for foreign interventions, the public is primed for a "Grand Unified Theory" of why things feel so broken. Everything Is a Rich Man’s Trick provides that. It offers a single, coherent (if complex) explanation for a century of chaos.
It’s also a masterclass in the "Apophenia" effect—the human tendency to perceive meaningful connections between unrelated things. Conolly is an expert at weaving disparate facts into a tight tapestry. You start with a fact about the Federal Reserve, jump to a quote from a Nazi general, and end with a photo of a modern politician. By the time he’s finished, your brain is itching to connect the dots yourself.
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Separating Fact from Fever Dream
To be an informed viewer, you have to approach this film with a massive grain of salt. While Conolly uses real historical documents and genuine footage, his interpretations are often highly speculative.
For example, the film leans heavily on the work of researchers like Antony Sutton and Fletcher Prouty. Sutton was a real Hoover Institution fellow who wrote extensively about Western technology transfers to the Soviet Union and the Nazis. Those books exist. They are footnoted. However, Conolly takes Sutton’s academic findings and pushes them into the realm of a coordinated, globalist "master plan."
There are also factual leaps that mainstream historians find... problematic.
- The "8 Shooters" Theory: Most forensic experts, even those who believe in a conspiracy, find the idea of eight separate shooters in Dealey Plaza to be a logistical impossibility that would have been impossible to cover up.
- The Lineage of Power: The film implies a level of perfect, multi-generational cooperation between elite families that defies everything we know about human ego and business competition.
- The Audio-Visual Quality: Some of the claims about "who is who" in blurry 1960s photographs are based on visual identification that wouldn't hold up in a court of law or a peer-reviewed journal.
It’s a mix of verifiable history and "what if" scenarios presented as absolute truth.
The Cultural Impact: A Gateway Drug for Scepticism
Regardless of whether you believe every word, Everything Is a Rich Man’s Trick has become a cultural touchstone. It’s the "gateway drug" to deep-state skepticism.
It has influenced a whole generation of "alternative media" creators. You can see its DNA in modern video essays on TikTok and YouTube. It changed the aesthetic of the "truth seeker" genre from guys in tin-foil hats to something that looks like a scholarly (if fringe) investigation.
The film's longevity is also due to its length. In a world of 15-second reels, a three-hour film feels like "real research" to a certain type of viewer. It’s a badge of honor to finish it.
Actionable Insights for the Curious Viewer
If you’re going to watch Everything Is a Rich Man’s Trick, or if you’ve already seen it and feel your world has been tilted on its axis, here is how to handle the information responsibly.
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Verify the "Anchor" Facts first. Don't take the film's word for it. When Conolly mentions the "Business Plot" of 1933 (an alleged coup attempt against FDR), go look it up. You’ll find that it actually happened—the McCormack-Dickstein Committee investigated it. When he mentions the "Operation Northwoods" documents, go to the National Security Archive and read the declassified memos yourself.
Watch for the "Logical Leap." Practice spotting the moment a speaker goes from a proven fact (Company A sold oil to the Nazis) to a massive assumption (therefore, Company A’s CEO planned the entire war). This is where the "trick" usually happens in documentaries like this.
Diversify Your Sources. If you find the film's take on JFK compelling, read Case Closed by Gerald Posner for the lone-gunman perspective and JFK and the Unspeakable by James Douglass for the conspiracy perspective. The truth is rarely found in a single YouTube video.
Understand the Context of Production. Remember that this was a low-budget project. It lacks the rigorous fact-checking and legal review of a major network documentary. It’s an editorial—an incredibly long, passionate, and detailed editorial.
The most important thing to remember is that "Everything Is a Rich Man’s Trick" is a lens. It’s one way of looking at the world that prioritizes class interest and covert power over everything else. While it may not provide a perfect map of history, it certainly highlights the parts of the map that the official historians sometimes prefer to leave blank.
Check for Shadow Bans. Because the film is frequently flagged or removed for various policy violations, finding the "full" version can be a hunt. Always check the upload date and the comments to see if sections have been edited out or if you’re watching a "clean" version.
To really understand the impact of this documentary, you have to look past the grainy footage and the intense narration. You have to look at why people need it to be true. It’s a story about the loss of agency. In a world that feels increasingly out of control, the idea that someone is at least in charge—even if they are "rich men" with bad intentions—is strangely more comforting to some than the idea that history is just a series of random, chaotic accidents.