A familiar idea courses through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that stretches far back to the time of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to smear Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro squandering a fortune to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through desperate poverty, while using AI forgeries and a powerful smear campaign to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division as overtly, but its antagonists enjoy clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them from their homes and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, pits the tough residents of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in opulent gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Interestingly, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to cause global armageddon — for his own profit, naturally.
It is not particularly surprising in a series of movies presupposing that rich people have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding appetite for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is at odds with core morality, and applaud the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
And yet, inexplicably, we never get around to consuming the elite. Whenever politicians follow a new mass shooting event by blaming violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — surely American society would not continue to worship billionaires. But the news demonstrates regularly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously equate riches with smartness and social worth, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies conveying the opposite.
If anything, it seems like the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that gets in the way of meaningful change. Provided with a steady diet of predominantly uplifting stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film content about right prevailing. These movies are like moral fairy tales, pretending that society is just, and that determined protagonists will identify any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more targeted, and seemingly more fatal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered 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 ending, possibly since it’s become so apparent that rich people function with different standards, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exceptions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined 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 transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
