An age-old theme courses through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea which extends far back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro spending a fortune to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people living in abject destitution, while leveraging AI forgeries and a powerful propaganda machine to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality quite that directly, but its villains reside in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, contrasts the tough inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in opulent sky-high mansions in the sky. Interestingly, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to cause worldwide catastrophe — to make money, naturally.
It is not especially new in a string of movies taking it as a given that rich people have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme dates back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against tycoons, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is contrary to basic human values, and applaud the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
However, inexplicably, we never get around to consuming the elite. Whenever lawmakers react to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — certainly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. And yet the headlines makes it obvious regularly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously equate riches with intelligence and social worth, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies communicating a contradictory message.
In fact, it looks as though the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that impedes real-world action. Offered a frequent serving of largely triumphant stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about good conquering evil. These films are like ethical parables, pretending that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they do follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more specific, and apparently more lethal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car finale, possibly since it’s become so clear that affluent individuals live by their own legal rules, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to perish at the end of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Outliers
A few stories differ, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
