An age-old theme permeates a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion which extends all the way back to the time of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to smear Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro investing vast sums to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Film Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people suffering through extreme hardship, while using deepfakes and a sophisticated propaganda machine to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality as overtly, but its evil characters live in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, pits the tough people of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in opulent gleaming towers floating overhead. Remarkably, the zany farcical update of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, naturally.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a string of movies presupposing that the wealthy have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding desire for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, bosses, and clueless rich men. Starting with 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 rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is incompatible with fundamental decency, and exalt the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
However, inexplicably, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion elected officials follow a public shooting event by faulting violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — certainly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. Still the news demonstrates regularly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously link affluence to smartness and social worth, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies promoting the reverse.
In fact, it seems like the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that gets in the way of substantive reform. Given a steady diet of largely triumphant fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film feeling good about justice being served. These films are like moral fairy tales, implying that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more targeted, and apparently more violent. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, 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 affluent villains were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, possibly since it’s become so clear that the wealthy function with a separate justice system, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exclusions
Some films diverge, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
