A recurring idea permeates a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that goes all the way back to the era of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro squandering tens of millions to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of On-Screen Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people suffering through desperate poverty, while employing digital impersonations and a sophisticated smear campaign to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity quite that directly, but its antagonists enjoy conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, contrasts the tough inhabitants of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in extravagant gleaming towers above the clouds. Remarkably, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, of course.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a series of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding hunger for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies contrasting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, industrialists, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is at odds with basic human values, and celebrate the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Release That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Whenever politicians react to a tragic gun violence 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 allow it to permeate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. Still the headlines makes it obvious constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with intelligence and value to society, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies conveying the opposite.
If anything, it appears that the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that hinders real-world action. Provided with a frequent serving of predominantly triumphant fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film content about right prevailing. These stories are like cautionary fables, pretending that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will root out any malicious actors among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they do follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more specific, and seemingly more lethal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people be taught a 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, greedy, hateful wealthy people were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car ending, likely due to it’s become so obvious that the wealthy function with different standards, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to die at the final act of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Outliers
A few stories differ, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
