An age-old motif permeates numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that stretches far back to the era of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul spending a fortune to throw the heroes into a prehistoric arena to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a rich antagonist running a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people living in desperate poverty, while using deepfakes and a powerful smear campaign to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize class division as overtly, but its villains live in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, contrasts the resourceful inhabitants of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who live in opulent gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to trigger planetary doom — for his own profit, naturally.
It is not particularly surprising in a string of movies presupposing that the wealthy have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding appetite for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against tycoons, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is at odds with fundamental decency, and exalt the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
However, somehow, we never actually consuming the elite. Whenever lawmakers follow a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. But the headlines makes it obvious regularly that a alarming number of Americans innately link affluence to smartness and social worth, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies conveying the reverse.
If anything, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that hinders real-world action. Offered a frequent serving of largely happily-ever-after stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater content about good conquering evil. These films are like moral fairy tales, pretending that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will weed out any bad apples among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more targeted, and seemingly more violent. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people gain some humility in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, likely due to it’s become so clear that rich people live by a separate justice system, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to perish at the final act of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exclusions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the digital realm, 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 antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
