A recurring theme runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion which extends far back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering vast sums to cast the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Cinematic Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a affluent bad guy running a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people enduring desperate poverty, while leveraging AI forgeries and a well-honed smear campaign to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division as overtly, but its antagonists live in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them into unemployment and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, contrasts the scrappy inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in opulent gleaming towers in the sky. Even, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, naturally.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a series of movies assuming as fact that rich people have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding appetite for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his always poor beloved underdog against corporate bosses, authority figures, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is incompatible with core morality, and applaud the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
However, somehow, we never get around to consuming the elite. Whenever lawmakers respond to a public shooting event by faulting graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — surely American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. But the daily reports reveals every single day that a alarming number of Americans innately link affluence to smartness and importance, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies conveying the reverse.
In fact, it appears that the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that gets in the way of meaningful change. Offered a steady diet of largely triumphant fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about good conquering evil. These movies are like cautionary fables, pretending that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will weed out any bad apples among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they do follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more targeted, and seemingly more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, 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 rich individuals were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail ending, possibly since it’s become so clear that the wealthy operate under a separate justice system, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" ending fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to die at the end of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Outliers
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. 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 exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
