A familiar motif permeates many of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea which extends back in time to the days of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul spending a fortune to throw the heroes into a monster-filled death trap to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Legacy of Cinematic Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through abject destitution, while using AI forgeries and a sophisticated smear campaign to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists enjoy obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, pits the scrappy people of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit opulent gleaming towers above the clouds. Even, the lighthearted comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to bring about planetary doom — to make money, of course.
It is not particularly surprising in a run of movies taking it as a given that rich people have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding desire for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme dates back to the early days of film, with early comedies setting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against corporate bosses, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is contrary to basic human values, and celebrate the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
And yet, for some reason, we consistently fail to eating the rich. On each occasion elected officials respond to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — certainly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. And yet the news makes it obvious constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately link affluence to smartness and social worth, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies conveying the reverse.
If anything, it seems like the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that impedes meaningful change. Provided with a regular dose of mostly triumphant tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about good conquering evil. These stories are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that society is just, and that determined protagonists will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more specific, and apparently more fatal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed 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 bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, likely due to it’s become so obvious that rich people operate under their own legal rules, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Outliers
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
