This Year's Most Popular Movies Instructed Us to Eat the Rich Yet Again. We Yet Aren't Listening.
An age-old motif permeates many of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea which extends back in time to the days of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his vast wealth to smear Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering a fortune to trap the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people living in extreme hardship, while employing digital impersonations and a sophisticated propaganda machine to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists live in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, sets the tough residents of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit opulent gleaming towers floating overhead. Even, the agreeably goofy humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to trigger global armageddon — to make money, needless to say.
It is not particularly surprising in a string of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against tycoons, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is at odds with core morality, and exalt the defusing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, somehow, we never actually eating the rich. Whenever elected officials react to a tragic gun violence event by faulting graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — certainly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. Still the daily reports makes it obvious regularly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with intelligence and importance, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies conveying the reverse.
If anything, it seems like the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that gets in the way of substantive reform. Given a steady diet of largely happily-ever-after tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film feeling good about justice being served. These stories are like cautionary fables, suggesting that the system works, and that determined protagonists will weed out any malicious actors among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they indeed follow some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more specific, and observably more lethal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, 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 killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, likely due to it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals operate under different standards, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Key Exclusions
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the virtual grid, 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 reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
