2025's Most Popular Films Told Us to Eat the Rich Once More. We Continue to Aren't Listening.
A recurring idea runs through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion which extends far back to the time of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro squandering vast sums to trap the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Film Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a affluent bad guy running a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people living in desperate poverty, while leveraging digital impersonations and a sophisticated propaganda machine to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight class division in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists enjoy obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, pits the resourceful inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in extravagant sky-high mansions in the sky. Even, the lighthearted farcical update of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to cause global armageddon — to make money, of course.
It is not especially new in a string of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled desire for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept dates back to the birth of movies, with early comedies contrasting his always poor beloved underdog against tycoons, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is at odds with basic human values, and celebrate the defusing, defeat, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Outlet That Alters Little
However, for some reason, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Whenever lawmakers react to a new mass shooting event by blaming violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — surely American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. But the news reveals constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously link affluence to smartness and value to society, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies promoting the opposite.
Actually, it appears that the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that impedes substantive reform. Offered a frequent serving of predominantly uplifting fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film satisfied about right prevailing. These films are like ethical parables, pretending that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will root out any bad apples among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they indeed follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more specific, and apparently more violent. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, likely due to it’s become so clear that affluent individuals function with different standards, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exclusions
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
