🔗 Share this article The Year's Top-Grossing Blockbusters Urged Us to Eat the Rich Yet Again. We Yet Aren't Listening. A recurring motif courses through numerous 2025's genre movies. It's an idea that goes all the way back to the time of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to defame Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering a fortune to trap the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain. A Lineage of Cinematic Class Warfare Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through abject destitution, while employing deepfakes and a sophisticated media apparatus to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division as overtly, but its villains reside in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them out of jobs and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, contrasts the scrappy inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in opulent sky-high mansions in the sky. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, of course. It is not inherently notable in a string of movies presupposing that rich people have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the birth of movies, with early comedies pitting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, 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 rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is at odds with fundamental decency, and celebrate the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people. The Outlet That Changes Nothing And yet, for some reason, we never actually eating the rich. Every time politicians react to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. Still the news demonstrates constantly that a alarming number of Americans innately associate wealth with intelligence and social worth, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies communicating a contradictory message. If anything, it seems like the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that impedes substantive reform. Offered a frequent serving of mostly uplifting fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about good conquering evil. These stories are like ethical parables, pretending that society is just, and that plucky heroes will identify any malicious actors among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort. An Angrier Tone in 2025 Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more direct, and apparently more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory these days 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 slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*). "Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, possibly since it’s become so apparent that the wealthy operate under a separate justice system, and are all too likely to buy their way out." The "off to face justice" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to die at the final act of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways. Significant Exceptions There are exceptions, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid