This Year's Top-Grossing Films Told Us to Eat the Rich Again. We Yet Aren't Listening.
A recurring theme courses through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept which extends far back to the time of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his enormous resources to smear Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro spending vast sums to throw the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Tradition of Film Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a wealthy villain running a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through abject destitution, while leveraging digital impersonations and a powerful propaganda machine to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its villains live in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them out of jobs and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, contrasts the resourceful inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in opulent gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Interestingly, the zany humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, naturally.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a series of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding hunger for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against corporate bosses, authority figures, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is incompatible with fundamental decency, and celebrate the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Alters Little
However, inexplicably, we never get around to eating the rich. On each occasion elected officials react to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at 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 allow it to permeate the public consciousness — surely American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. Still the daily reports makes it obvious regularly that a alarming number of Americans innately equate riches with competence and value to society, even after decades of history's most popular movies promoting the reverse.
If anything, it appears that the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that hinders real-world action. Offered a steady diet of mostly uplifting tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about good conquering evil. These films are like ethical parables, suggesting that the system works, and that determined protagonists will identify any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they indeed follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more specific, and observably more lethal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people learn a useful 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, selfish, cruel affluent villains were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, possibly since it’s become so clear that the wealthy live by their own legal rules, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Outliers
Some films diverge, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
