This Year's Biggest Films Told Us to Eat the Rich Yet Again. We Continue to Refuse to Listen.
An age-old idea runs through many of 2025's genre movies. This concept that stretches all the way back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering vast sums to cast the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and framed her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of On-Screen Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a rich antagonist running a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people suffering through desperate poverty, while using digital impersonations and a powerful propaganda machine to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity quite that directly, but its antagonists live in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, contrasts the resourceful inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit opulent gleaming towers floating overhead. Even, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to bring about planetary doom — for financial gain, of course.
It is not inherently notable in a series of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against fat cats, bosses, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is contrary to core morality, and celebrate the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Outlet That Alters Little
However, inexplicably, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Every time lawmakers respond to a new mass shooting event by faulting graphic media, 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 public consciousness — surely American society would not persistently worship billionaires. But the daily reports demonstrates constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously equate riches with intelligence and importance, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies conveying the reverse.
If anything, it looks as though the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that gets in the way of meaningful change. Given a regular dose of mostly happily-ever-after stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about justice being served. These films are like ethical parables, suggesting that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will root out any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more targeted, and seemingly more violent. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were killed by legendary creatures (*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 point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car finale, likely due to it’s become so clear that the wealthy function with their own legal rules, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" ending fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exceptions
Some films diverge, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
