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An age-old theme permeates many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion which extends back in time to the days of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro spending tens of millions to throw the heroes into a monster-filled arena for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.

A Tradition of Cinematic Class Warfare

Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through abject destitution, while using digital impersonations and a well-honed smear campaign to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division quite that directly, but its villains reside in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them into unemployment and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, pits the resourceful inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who live in extravagant sky-high mansions floating overhead. Interestingly, the lighthearted humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to bring about global armageddon — for his own profit, of course.

It is not particularly surprising in a string of movies presupposing that the affluent have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding desire for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept dates back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his chronically destitute 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 that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is contrary to core morality, and exalt the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.

The Release That Alters Little

Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never actually eating the rich. Every time lawmakers follow a public shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — surely American society would not continue to worship billionaires. But the headlines reveals constantly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively associate wealth with competence and value to society, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies communicating the opposite.

If anything, it looks as though the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that impedes substantive reform. Offered a steady diet of mostly uplifting fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater content about justice being served. These movies are like moral fairy tales, pretending that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any malicious actors among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.

A Sharper Message in 2025

But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more direct, and observably more violent. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people gain some humility in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).

"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that the wealthy function with a separate justice system, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."

The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.

Key Outliers

Some films diverge, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid