A familiar idea runs through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that goes all the way back to the era of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his vast wealth to defame Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro squandering a fortune to throw the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people living in extreme hardship, while using AI forgeries and a well-honed propaganda machine to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its villains live in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, pits the scrappy people of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit opulent gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Even, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, needless to say.
There is little inherently notable in a series of movies presupposing that the affluent have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme dates back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, industrialists, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is at odds with fundamental decency, and celebrate the defusing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
However, inexplicably, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Every time elected officials follow a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. And yet the headlines reveals constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately associate wealth with smartness and value to society, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies conveying the opposite.
If anything, it appears that the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that hinders real-world action. Given a steady diet of predominantly triumphant stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about justice being served. These movies are like ethical parables, pretending that the system works, and that plucky heroes will root out any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they do follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more targeted, and observably more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, 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 rich individuals were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, likely due to it’s become so clear that rich people live by a separate justice system, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" ending fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to perish at the end of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exceptions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly 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 frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
