2025's Biggest Blockbusters Told Us to Eat the Rich Again. We Continue to Aren't Listening.
A recurring idea permeates a host of 2025's genre movies. This concept which extends back in time to the days of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul spending a fortune to throw the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a wealthy villain running a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through abject destitution, while using digital impersonations and a sophisticated media apparatus to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity quite that directly, but its villains reside in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, pits the resourceful inhabitants of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in opulent sky-high mansions above the clouds. Remarkably, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to cause planetary doom — to make money, of course.
There’s nothing especially new in a string of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the early days of film, with early comedies setting his always poor Little Tramp character against tycoons, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is at odds with core morality, and exalt the defusing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
However, inexplicably, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion elected officials respond to a new mass shooting event by faulting graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — surely American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. And yet the headlines reveals constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately link affluence to intelligence and importance, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies communicating a contradictory message.
If anything, it looks as though the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that hinders real-world action. Provided with a steady diet of predominantly happily-ever-after fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about good conquering evil. These films are like moral fairy tales, implying that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will identify any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they do follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more targeted, and seemingly more violent. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, likely due to it’s become so obvious that rich people live by a separate justice system, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to perish at the final act of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exceptions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
