An age-old motif courses through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea which extends far back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul spending vast sums to throw the heroes into a prehistoric arena for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a wealthy villain running a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people enduring abject destitution, while employing digital impersonations and a well-honed propaganda machine to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity quite that directly, but its evil characters live in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, contrasts the tough people of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit extravagant sky-high mansions in the sky. Remarkably, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, naturally.
It is not inherently notable in a string of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding appetite for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept goes back to the early days of film, with early comedies contrasting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is at odds with fundamental decency, and celebrate the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, for some reason, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion politicians react to a public shooting event by faulting violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — certainly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. And yet the news reveals constantly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively equate riches with intelligence and importance, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies communicating the reverse.
In fact, it seems like the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that impedes substantive reform. Given a regular dose of mostly triumphant fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about good conquering evil. These movies are like cautionary fables, suggesting that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will identify any bad apples among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
An Angrier Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they do follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more direct, and apparently more lethal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so clear that rich people function with a separate justice system, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to perish at the final act of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exceptions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
