An age-old motif courses through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that stretches far back to the time of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to smear Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul squandering tens of millions to trap the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and framed her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Film Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people enduring desperate poverty, while leveraging deepfakes and a powerful propaganda machine to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality as overtly, but its villains enjoy obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, pits the tough inhabitants of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit opulent gleaming towers floating overhead. Even, the zany humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to trigger planetary doom — for financial gain, of course.
It is not particularly surprising in a series of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding appetite for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies setting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against tycoons, authority figures, 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 refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is contrary to core morality, and applaud the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
Nevertheless, somehow, we never get around to eating the rich. Every time politicians respond to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — certainly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. Still the headlines demonstrates regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately link affluence to smartness and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies promoting the opposite.
If anything, it seems like the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that impedes substantive reform. Given a regular dose of predominantly happily-ever-after stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about good conquering evil. These films are like ethical parables, pretending that the system works, and that plucky heroes will root out any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they indeed follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more specific, and seemingly more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, 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 rich individuals were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, likely due to it’s become so clear that the wealthy function with different standards, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exclusions
There are exceptions, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled 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 reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
