An age-old theme courses through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that goes all the way back to the era of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his enormous resources to defame Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing tens of millions to cast the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Film Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a rich antagonist running a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through desperate poverty, while leveraging digital impersonations and a powerful smear campaign to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters enjoy clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them from their homes and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, sets the resourceful people of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who live in extravagant gleaming towers above the clouds. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, needless to say.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a run of movies presupposing that rich people have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding appetite for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting 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" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is at odds with core morality, and celebrate the defusing, routing, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
Nevertheless, for some reason, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Whenever lawmakers react to a public shooting event by blaming graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — surely American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. And yet the daily reports demonstrates regularly that a significant portion of Americans innately link affluence to smartness and social worth, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies communicating the reverse.
Actually, it appears that the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that gets in the way of meaningful change. Provided with a frequent serving of predominantly uplifting tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about right prevailing. These stories are like cautionary fables, suggesting that the system works, and that plucky heroes will root out any bad apples among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they indeed follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more specific, and seemingly more fatal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so clear that affluent individuals function with different standards, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exceptions
A few stories differ, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
