A recurring motif courses through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion which extends far back to the time of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro squandering tens of millions to cast the heroes into a prehistoric arena for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a wealthy villain running a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through abject destitution, while employing digital impersonations and a sophisticated smear campaign to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division quite that directly, but its antagonists reside in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them into unemployment and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, pits the tough inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit opulent sky-high mansions in the sky. Remarkably, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to cause planetary doom — for his own profit, of course.
It is not inherently notable in a run of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged desire for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the birth of movies, with early comedies setting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against corporate bosses, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. 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 rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is contrary to basic human values, and applaud the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never actually taking down the wealthy. On each occasion elected officials react to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — surely American society would not continue to revere billionaires. Still the headlines demonstrates every single day that a significant portion of Americans innately associate wealth with intelligence and social worth, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies communicating a contradictory message.
Actually, it appears that the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that hinders real-world action. Given a frequent serving of predominantly uplifting tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about right prevailing. These films are like moral fairy tales, pretending that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will weed out any malicious actors among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they indeed follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more specific, and observably more lethal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth 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 consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car finale, possibly since it’s become so clear that rich people live by their own legal rules, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Outliers
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
