2025's Biggest Movies Urged Us to Eat the Rich Again. We Continue to Aren't Listening.
A recurring motif permeates numerous 2025's popular films. This concept which extends all the way back to the days of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul investing vast sums to trap the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Film Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people living in desperate poverty, while leveraging AI forgeries and a powerful media apparatus to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters enjoy conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them into unemployment and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, contrasts the resourceful residents of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit extravagant gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Remarkably, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to bring about worldwide catastrophe — to make money, needless to say.
There is little particularly surprising in a series of movies assuming as fact that rich people have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding appetite for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his always poor beloved underdog against fat cats, bosses, 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 revised the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is contrary to core morality, and celebrate the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Release That Changes Nothing
However, for some reason, we never actually consuming the elite. Every time politicians respond to a tragic gun violence event by faulting popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — certainly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. But the news reveals regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively associate wealth with competence and value to society, even after a century of history's most popular movies communicating a contradictory message.
Actually, it looks as though the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that hinders meaningful change. Given a regular dose of predominantly happily-ever-after fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like ethical parables, implying that society is just, and that plucky heroes will root out any corrupt individuals among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more direct, and apparently more lethal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in humility, 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 eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail finale, likely due to it’s become so clear that the wealthy operate under a separate justice system, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exclusions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
