A familiar theme courses through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that goes all the way back to the days of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro spending vast sums to throw the heroes into a monster-filled death trap to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people enduring abject destitution, while employing deepfakes and a well-honed propaganda machine to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity as overtly, but its antagonists live in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, sets the resourceful residents of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in opulent gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Even, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to trigger planetary doom — for his own profit, naturally.
It is not inherently notable in a run of movies presupposing that the affluent have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding appetite for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme dates back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, industrialists, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is at odds with core morality, and exalt the defusing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
And yet, somehow, we never actually taking down the wealthy. On each occasion politicians follow a new mass shooting event by blaming graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — certainly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. But the daily reports makes it obvious regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with competence and value to society, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies promoting the opposite.
Actually, it appears that the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that hinders real-world action. Offered a regular dose of largely triumphant stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like ethical parables, suggesting that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will root out any malicious actors among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they do follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more direct, and observably more lethal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, likely due to it’s become so clear that affluent individuals operate under different standards, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Exceptions
Some films diverge, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
