A familiar theme runs through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that goes far back to the era of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his vast wealth to smear Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing vast sums to throw the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people living in abject destitution, while using digital impersonations and a powerful media apparatus to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists reside in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, sets the scrappy inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who live in opulent gleaming towers above the clouds. Even, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to bring about global armageddon — to make money, needless to say.
There is little particularly surprising in a string of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against fat cats, bosses, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is incompatible with basic human values, and celebrate the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never actually eating the rich. Whenever elected officials follow a tragic gun violence event by faulting popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. And yet the news demonstrates every single day that a significant portion of Americans innately equate riches with smartness and social worth, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies promoting a contradictory message.
Actually, it looks as though the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that impedes meaningful change. Provided with a regular dose of mostly happily-ever-after tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away content about right prevailing. These movies are like ethical parables, suggesting that the system works, and that determined protagonists will root out any corrupt individuals among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they indeed follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more targeted, and apparently more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people gain some humility in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, possibly since it’s become so obvious that the wealthy live by their own legal rules, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Outliers
Some films diverge, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
