The Year's Most Popular Blockbusters Told Us to Eat the Rich Once More. We Still Ignore the Message.
A familiar idea permeates numerous 2025's popular films. It's an idea that stretches back in time to the time of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his vast wealth to defame Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro spending a fortune to trap the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through desperate poverty, while using digital impersonations and a sophisticated smear campaign to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity as overtly, but its evil characters live in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, sets the tough people of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit opulent sky-high mansions floating overhead. Interestingly, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to cause global armageddon — to make money, needless to say.
There is little inherently notable in a series of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding desire for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the birth of movies, with early comedies setting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, industrialists, and clueless rich men. 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 greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is at odds with basic human values, and celebrate the defusing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Every time elected officials react to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — surely American society would not persistently revere billionaires. But the daily reports makes it obvious constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately link affluence to smartness and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies promoting a contradictory message.
Actually, it seems like the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that impedes substantive reform. Offered a regular dose of largely happily-ever-after tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about justice being served. These films are like moral fairy tales, pretending that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will identify any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more direct, and seemingly more violent. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people learn a useful 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, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car finale, likely due to it’s become so clear that the wealthy live by different standards, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exceptions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. 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 unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
