A recurring 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 James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his vast wealth to defame Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering tens of millions to trap the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Film Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a affluent bad guy running a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people enduring desperate poverty, while employing digital impersonations and a well-honed propaganda machine to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about class division as overtly, but its evil characters live in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, pits the scrappy residents of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in opulent gleaming towers above the clouds. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy farcical update of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to trigger worldwide catastrophe — to make money, naturally.
It is not especially new in a series of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his always poor Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is incompatible with basic human values, and celebrate the defusing, defeat, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Fails to Transform
And yet, somehow, we never get around to consuming the elite. On each occasion politicians follow a new mass shooting event by blaming violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — surely American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. But the daily reports makes it obvious regularly that a significant portion of Americans innately associate wealth with intelligence and social worth, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies promoting the reverse.
If anything, it looks as though the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that impedes real-world action. Offered a frequent serving of predominantly uplifting stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about good conquering evil. These movies are like moral fairy tales, pretending that society is just, and that determined protagonists will identify any malicious actors among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they do follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more targeted, and observably more violent. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that rich people function with their own legal rules, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exclusions
Some films diverge, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. 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 unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
