A familiar idea courses through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept which extends far back to the time of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul squandering tens of millions to cast the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a rich antagonist operating a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people suffering through desperate poverty, while using AI forgeries and a well-honed smear campaign to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity as overtly, but its antagonists live in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them into unemployment and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, contrasts the tough residents of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who live in lavish sky-high mansions floating overhead. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to cause global armageddon — for financial gain, naturally.
There’s nothing especially new in a run of movies presupposing that the wealthy have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged desire for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the birth of movies, with early comedies contrasting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against fat cats, bosses, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is contrary to fundamental decency, and exalt the defusing, routing, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
Nevertheless, for some reason, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Whenever lawmakers follow a tragic gun violence event by blaming popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. But the news reveals constantly that a significant portion of Americans innately link affluence to smartness and social worth, even after decades of history's most popular movies conveying the opposite.
If anything, it appears that the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that hinders real-world action. Given a regular dose of predominantly triumphant tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater content about good conquering evil. These stories are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will root out any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they do follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more targeted, and apparently more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, likely due to it’s become so apparent that the wealthy operate under different standards, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to die at the end of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exceptions
Some films diverge, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the digital realm, 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 transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
