2025's Top-Grossing Movies Urged Us to Eat the Rich Again. We Yet Aren't Listening.

A familiar theme runs through a host of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that stretches all the way back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to defame Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul squandering vast sums to trap the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and set her up for murder, solely for their own profit.

A Lineage of On-Screen Elite Villainy

In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a rich antagonist running a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people living in desperate poverty, while using AI forgeries and a well-honed smear campaign to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity quite that directly, but its antagonists live in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, contrasts the tough inhabitants of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in lavish gleaming towers above the clouds. Even, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to cause worldwide catastrophe — to make money, needless to say.

There is little especially new in a series of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept goes back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his always poor Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is incompatible with fundamental decency, and celebrate the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.

The Catharsis That Changes Nothing

However, for some reason, we never actually consuming the elite. On each occasion lawmakers follow a new mass shooting event by faulting violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — surely American society would not persistently worship billionaires. Still the news demonstrates regularly that a significant portion of Americans innately associate wealth with competence and importance, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies promoting the opposite.

Actually, it seems like the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that hinders real-world action. Offered a frequent serving of predominantly uplifting tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about justice being served. These stories are like ethical parables, pretending that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any bad apples among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.

An Angrier Edge in 2025

But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more specific, and apparently more violent. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*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*).

"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail finale, perhaps because it’s become so clear that the wealthy operate under different standards, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."

The "behind bars" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to die at the end of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.

Notable Exceptions

A few stories differ, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. 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 unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid