An age-old theme permeates a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that stretches far back to the time of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to defame Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul spending a fortune to throw the heroes into a monster-filled arena for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Cinematic Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people suffering through abject destitution, while employing deepfakes and a well-honed media apparatus to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division quite that directly, but its antagonists reside in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, pits the scrappy residents of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in opulent gleaming towers in the sky. Remarkably, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to bring about worldwide catastrophe — to make money, naturally.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a string of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against tycoons, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is incompatible with core morality, and celebrate the defusing, routing, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
And yet, for some reason, we never get around to eating the rich. Every time lawmakers react to a tragic gun violence event by faulting graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — surely American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. But the daily reports demonstrates regularly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with smartness and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies conveying the opposite.
Actually, it looks as though the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that gets in the way of real-world action. Given a frequent serving of predominantly happily-ever-after fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away satisfied about justice being served. These movies are like cautionary fables, suggesting that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will root out any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A Sharper Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more specific, and observably more violent. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that rich people live by their own legal rules, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Exceptions
Some films diverge, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
