A recurring theme permeates many of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that stretches back in time to the days of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his immense fortune to defame Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul spending vast sums to cast the heroes into a monster-filled arena for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people living in abject destitution, while using digital impersonations and a sophisticated smear campaign to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its villains enjoy obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them from their homes and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, sets the tough inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in opulent gleaming towers above the clouds. Interestingly, the zany farcical update of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to cause planetary doom — for financial gain, needless to say.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a string of movies presupposing that the affluent have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding desire for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies pitting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against corporate bosses, bosses, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is at odds with core morality, and celebrate the defusing, defeat, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Alters Little
Nevertheless, for some reason, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Whenever politicians react to a new mass shooting event by faulting graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — certainly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. Still the news demonstrates every single day that a alarming number of Americans instinctively equate riches with competence and importance, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies communicating the opposite.
In fact, it seems like the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that impedes meaningful change. Offered a steady diet of predominantly triumphant stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about justice being served. These movies are like moral fairy tales, implying that the system works, and that plucky heroes will identify any bad apples among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they do follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more targeted, and observably more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, possibly since it’s become so clear that the wealthy function with their own legal rules, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Outliers
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the digital realm, 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 wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
