An age-old motif courses through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept which extends all the way back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his immense fortune to defame Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro investing vast sums to trap the heroes into a prehistoric arena for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Cinematic Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people enduring extreme hardship, while using AI forgeries and a sophisticated propaganda machine to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists reside in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them into unemployment and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, contrasts the resourceful people of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit lavish gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Remarkably, the zany farcical update of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to trigger global armageddon — to make money, needless to say.
It is not inherently notable in a string of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding hunger for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme dates back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies pitting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against corporate bosses, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is contrary to core morality, and applaud the defusing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Alters Little
And yet, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. On each occasion lawmakers follow a new mass shooting event by faulting graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — certainly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. Still the news reveals every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans innately equate riches with competence and social worth, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies conveying the opposite.
If anything, it looks as though the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that hinders meaningful change. Given a steady diet of predominantly uplifting fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater content about justice being served. These stories are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any malicious actors among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more direct, and seemingly more fatal. It’s rarely enough nowadays 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, greedy, hateful rich individuals were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, likely due to it’s become so apparent that the wealthy function with different standards, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exclusions
A few stories differ, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
