A recurring idea permeates numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that stretches all the way back to the era of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his enormous resources to smear Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul squandering a fortune to trap the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Cinematic Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a wealthy villain running a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people enduring abject destitution, while using AI forgeries and a powerful propaganda machine to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity quite that directly, but its evil characters enjoy clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, pits the resourceful residents of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in extravagant sky-high mansions floating overhead. Even, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to bring about worldwide catastrophe — to make money, of course.
It is not particularly surprising in a string of movies presupposing that the affluent have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled desire for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, authority figures, 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 updated that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is at odds with basic human values, and celebrate the defusing, downfall, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Outlet That Alters Little
However, inexplicably, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Whenever politicians follow a new mass shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — surely American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. But the headlines makes it obvious every single day that a alarming number of Americans innately associate wealth with intelligence and value to society, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies promoting the opposite.
In fact, it looks as though the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that hinders meaningful change. Provided with a frequent serving of predominantly happily-ever-after fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away content about right prevailing. These films are like cautionary fables, suggesting that the system works, and that determined protagonists will weed out any bad apples among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more direct, and apparently more lethal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car finale, likely due to it’s become so obvious that rich people function with their own legal rules, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exclusions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
