A familiar idea permeates many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that stretches far back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul investing tens of millions to throw the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people enduring extreme hardship, while using deepfakes and a powerful smear campaign to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity as overtly, but its evil characters reside in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them from their homes and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, pits the tough people of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit opulent gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Remarkably, the zany farcical update of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, naturally.
It is not inherently notable in a run of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding appetite for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme dates back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is contrary to core morality, and exalt the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Alters Little
And yet, for some reason, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Every time politicians follow a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — certainly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. Still the news makes it obvious every single day that a alarming number of Americans innately equate riches with competence and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies promoting the reverse.
In fact, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that gets in the way of meaningful change. Provided with a steady diet of largely triumphant tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will identify any malicious actors among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Although 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 pointed, more specific, and seemingly more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, 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, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car finale, perhaps because it’s become so clear that rich people operate under different standards, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Outliers
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the digital realm, 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 Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
