An age-old theme permeates numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea which extends back in time to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to smear Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro squandering tens of millions to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and framed her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people suffering through abject destitution, while employing digital impersonations and a sophisticated propaganda machine to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division in such a blunt manner, but its villains enjoy conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, contrasts the scrappy people of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in extravagant sky-high mansions in the sky. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to trigger planetary doom — for his own profit, of course.
There is little particularly surprising in a series of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept dates back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, bosses, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is contrary to core morality, and applaud the defusing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never get around to consuming the elite. Whenever elected officials respond to a tragic gun violence event by faulting violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. And yet the news reveals regularly that a alarming number of Americans instinctively associate wealth with smartness and social worth, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies promoting the opposite.
In fact, it seems like the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that impedes meaningful change. Offered a frequent serving of mostly triumphant tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film satisfied about right prevailing. These stories are like cautionary fables, implying that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will root out any malicious actors among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they do follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more specific, and observably more fatal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people gain some humility in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car finale, possibly since it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals live by different standards, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to perish at the final act of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Key Exceptions
There are exceptions, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
