A familiar theme runs through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that goes far back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing tens of millions to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through abject destitution, while leveraging AI forgeries and a sophisticated propaganda machine to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize class division as overtly, but its evil characters reside in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them out of jobs and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, sets the tough residents of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit opulent gleaming towers above the clouds. Even, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, needless to say.
There’s nothing especially new in a string of movies assuming as fact that rich people have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled desire for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against fat cats, authority figures, 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 refreshed a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is incompatible with fundamental decency, and exalt the defusing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
However, inexplicably, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion lawmakers respond to a tragic gun violence event by faulting popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. And yet the daily reports reveals regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately equate riches with intelligence and value to society, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies conveying the reverse.
If anything, it looks as though the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that gets in the way of meaningful change. Offered a steady diet of largely happily-ever-after tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about right prevailing. These films are like ethical parables, implying that society is just, and that plucky heroes will identify any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they indeed follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more targeted, and apparently more violent. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people gain some humility 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 wealthy people were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail ending, possibly since it’s become so obvious that the wealthy function with their own legal rules, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to perish at the final act of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Outliers
A few stories differ, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
