A familiar motif courses through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that goes all the way back to the days of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul investing 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 family of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people living in extreme hardship, while employing AI forgeries and a sophisticated media apparatus to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters enjoy obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, sets the resourceful inhabitants of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in lavish gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Interestingly, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to cause worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, of course.
It is not particularly surprising in a string of movies assuming as fact that rich people have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding hunger for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against fat cats, bosses, 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 refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is contrary to core morality, and celebrate the defusing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
However, somehow, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Whenever lawmakers react to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — certainly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. And yet the daily reports demonstrates constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with competence and importance, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies promoting the reverse.
In fact, it appears that the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that gets in the way of meaningful change. Given a frequent serving of largely happily-ever-after tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away content about justice being served. These films are like ethical parables, pretending that society is just, and that plucky heroes will weed out any malicious actors among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A Sharper Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more specific, and apparently more fatal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays 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 subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that the wealthy function with their own legal rules, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to perish at the final act of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exclusions
There are exceptions, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
