🔗 Share this article The Year's Biggest Blockbusters Told Us to Eat the Rich Yet Again. We Continue to Aren't Listening. An age-old theme permeates many of 2025's popular films. This concept that goes back in time to the time of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his enormous resources to smear Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro squandering tens of millions to throw the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and set her up for murder, all for their dynasty's gain. A Tradition of Cinematic Wealth Disparity In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a wealthy villain operating a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through abject destitution, while using digital impersonations and a well-honed media apparatus to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about wealth disparity as overtly, but its antagonists live in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them from their homes and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, pits the tough inhabitants of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in opulent gleaming towers floating overhead. Remarkably, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to cause global armageddon — for his own profit, naturally. There is little especially new in a string of movies presupposing that the wealthy have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept goes back to the early days of film, with early comedies contrasting his always poor beloved underdog against tycoons, authority figures, and clueless rich men. 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 entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is contrary to core morality, and celebrate the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes elimination of elite figures. The Outlet That Alters Little Nevertheless, for some reason, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Whenever politicians react to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at graphic media, 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 public consciousness — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. And yet the news demonstrates regularly that a alarming number of Americans innately link affluence to smartness and importance, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies conveying the opposite. If anything, it appears that the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that impedes real-world action. Offered a regular dose of largely uplifting fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film feeling good about justice being served. These stories are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will root out any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort. A Sharper Tone in 2025 Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they do follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more direct, and observably more lethal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, 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 rich individuals were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*). "Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car finale, likely due to it’s become so apparent that the wealthy function with their own legal rules, and are all too likely to negotiate their release." The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to die at the end of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways. Significant Exceptions Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid