An age-old idea permeates numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion which extends far back to the time of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a greedy, heartless 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 investing vast sums to cast the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Film Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people living in extreme hardship, while using deepfakes and a sophisticated smear campaign to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity as overtly, but its evil characters reside in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, pits the resourceful residents of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit lavish gleaming towers above the clouds. Remarkably, the zany humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to trigger global armageddon — for his own profit, of course.
There’s nothing especially new in a series of movies assuming as fact that rich people have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against fat cats, industrialists, and clueless rich men. From 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 greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is contrary to core morality, and applaud the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
And yet, somehow, we never get around to consuming the elite. Every time lawmakers react to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — surely American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. And yet the headlines makes it obvious constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately associate wealth with competence and social worth, even after decades of history's most popular movies communicating the reverse.
If anything, it looks as though the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that impedes meaningful change. Given a regular dose of largely uplifting stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about right prevailing. These movies are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will identify any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they do follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more specific, and apparently more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, possibly since it’s become so apparent that the wealthy function with their own legal rules, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to perish at the final act of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Exceptions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
