An age-old motif courses through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that stretches back in time to the time of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his immense fortune to smear Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul squandering tens of millions to throw the heroes into a monster-filled arena for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Film Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people living in extreme hardship, while leveraging deepfakes and a sophisticated propaganda machine to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its villains live in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them from their homes and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, pits the resourceful residents of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Remarkably, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to cause worldwide catastrophe — to make money, of course.
It is not inherently notable in a series of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept dates back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his always poor beloved underdog against tycoons, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting 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 entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is incompatible with core morality, and exalt the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
However, for some reason, we never actually eating the rich. Every time elected officials follow a public shooting event by faulting violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — certainly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. Still the headlines reveals every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously equate riches with intelligence and social worth, even after a century of history's most popular movies conveying a contradictory message.
If anything, it seems like the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that gets in the way of substantive reform. Given a steady diet of predominantly uplifting fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away satisfied about right prevailing. These movies are like cautionary fables, implying that society is just, and that plucky heroes will weed out any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they indeed follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more targeted, and apparently more violent. 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 lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail ending, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that the wealthy function with their own legal rules, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to die at the final act of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Outliers
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
