This Year's Top-Grossing Movies Instructed Us to Eat the Rich Again. We Continue to Aren't Listening.

A familiar theme courses through a host of 2025's genre movies. This concept that stretches back in time to the days of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to smear Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul squandering tens of millions to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.

A Tradition of On-Screen Elite Villainy

In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people enduring desperate poverty, while employing digital impersonations and a sophisticated smear campaign to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality as overtly, but its evil characters enjoy obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, sets the resourceful inhabitants of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit opulent sky-high mansions floating overhead. Even, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to bring about planetary doom — to make money, needless to say.

There’s nothing particularly surprising in a run of movies assuming as fact that the affluent 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 plot device goes back to the early days of film, with early comedies setting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against corporate bosses, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is contrary to core morality, and applaud the defusing, routing, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.

The Catharsis That Alters Little

And yet, for some reason, we consistently fail to eating the rich. On each occasion elected officials follow a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — surely American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. But the daily reports demonstrates constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously equate riches with smartness and social worth, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies communicating a contradictory message.

Actually, it looks as though the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that hinders meaningful change. Given a frequent serving of largely triumphant tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away content about right prevailing. These films are like cautionary fables, suggesting that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will weed out any malicious actors among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.

A More Pointed Tone in 2025

Although 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more specific, and seemingly more lethal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were eliminated by legendary creatures (*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 national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).

"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail finale, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that rich people live by a separate justice system, and are all too likely to buy their way out."

The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.

Notable Exclusions

Some films diverge, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled 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 revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid