A familiar theme permeates a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept which extends far back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro investing a fortune to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a rich antagonist running a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through desperate poverty, while employing digital impersonations and a sophisticated propaganda machine to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division quite that directly, but its villains live in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, pits the resourceful inhabitants of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in opulent gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Interestingly, the zany farcical update of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to bring about planetary doom — to make money, needless to say.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a series of movies presupposing that rich people have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding hunger for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme goes back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised 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 incompatible with core morality, and exalt the defusing, routing, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Release That Changes Nothing
However, somehow, we never get around to eating the rich. Whenever lawmakers respond to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — surely American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. But the daily reports reveals regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively equate riches with competence and value to society, even after decades of history's most popular movies conveying the reverse.
If anything, it seems like the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that impedes real-world action. Provided with a frequent serving of largely happily-ever-after fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater content about right prevailing. These movies are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will root out any malicious actors among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they do follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more specific, and apparently more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, likely due to it’s become so obvious that rich people live by a separate justice system, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to die at the end of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Exclusions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
