A recurring theme permeates many of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that stretches all the way back to the time of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul spending vast sums to cast the heroes into a monster-filled arena for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through extreme hardship, while employing deepfakes and a powerful media apparatus to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters live in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them from their homes and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, pits the scrappy people of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who live in opulent sky-high mansions floating overhead. Interestingly, the lighthearted farcical update of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to trigger global armageddon — to make money, of course.
It is not inherently notable in a run of movies taking it as a given that rich people have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged desire for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme goes back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, authority figures, 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 revised the exact same bit 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 wealth is incompatible with basic human values, and celebrate the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Changes Nothing
However, inexplicably, we never actually consuming the elite. Whenever politicians respond to a public shooting event by blaming graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. But the news reveals every single day that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously link affluence to intelligence and value to society, even after a century of history's most popular movies communicating the reverse.
Actually, it appears that the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that impedes meaningful change. Offered a steady diet of predominantly triumphant stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away feeling good about good conquering evil. These movies are like moral fairy tales, pretending that the system works, and that plucky heroes will identify any malicious actors among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more direct, and apparently more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, 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, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail finale, possibly since it’s become so apparent that rich people function with a separate justice system, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to die at the end of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Outliers
Some films diverge, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
