A recurring theme permeates a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that goes back in time to the era of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to defame Earth's greatest hero while controlling 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 danger zone to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a rich antagonist running a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people suffering through extreme hardship, while employing deepfakes and a sophisticated smear campaign to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight wealth disparity quite that directly, but its villains reside in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, pits the scrappy residents of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in lavish gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Even, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to trigger planetary doom — for financial gain, needless to say.
There is little especially new in a string of movies assuming as fact that rich people have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding appetite for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept goes back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against tycoons, industrialists, 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 a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is contrary to core morality, and celebrate the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Alters Little
However, inexplicably, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion elected officials follow a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. And yet the daily reports makes it obvious every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with smartness and importance, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies conveying the reverse.
In fact, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that impedes meaningful change. Provided with a regular dose of mostly happily-ever-after fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away satisfied about justice being served. These stories are like cautionary fables, suggesting that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any malicious actors among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they indeed follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more direct, and observably more fatal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, likely due to it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals operate under a separate justice system, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Outliers
There are exceptions, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
