An age-old idea permeates a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that stretches all the way back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending tens of millions to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people enduring abject destitution, while leveraging deepfakes and a powerful propaganda machine to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division as overtly, but its evil characters enjoy conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them out of jobs and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, contrasts the scrappy people of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit lavish gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Even, the zany farcical update of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to cause global armageddon — for his own profit, of course.
It is not particularly surprising in a series of movies taking it as a given that rich people have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is incompatible with core morality, and celebrate the defusing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Fails to Transform
And yet, somehow, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Whenever politicians react to a new mass shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — surely American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. But the news makes it obvious regularly that a alarming number of Americans innately link affluence to smartness and importance, even after decades of history's most popular movies conveying a contradictory message.
Actually, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that hinders real-world action. Offered a regular dose of predominantly happily-ever-after fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away content about good conquering evil. These films are like ethical parables, implying that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they indeed follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more targeted, and observably more violent. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, possibly since it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals live by their own legal rules, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to die at the end of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exclusions
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
