An age-old theme courses through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept which extends all the way back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro investing vast sums to trap the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and set her up for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Cinematic Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a affluent bad guy running a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people living in abject destitution, while using deepfakes and a well-honed smear campaign to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity quite that directly, but its antagonists reside in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, sets the tough people of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who live in lavish gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to bring about global armageddon — for his own profit, of course.
It is not particularly surprising in a string of movies presupposing that rich people have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept dates back to the birth of movies, with early comedies pitting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant 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 updated that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is at odds with basic human values, and applaud the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Alters Little
Nevertheless, somehow, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Every time lawmakers react to a new mass shooting event by faulting graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — surely American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. But the headlines reveals constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately associate wealth with competence and importance, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies conveying a contradictory message.
In fact, it appears that the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that hinders substantive reform. Given a regular dose of largely uplifting fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away content about justice being served. These films are like cautionary fables, implying that society is just, and that determined protagonists will root out any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they do follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more specific, and apparently more lethal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals function with their own legal rules, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Exclusions
A few stories differ, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
