A familiar idea courses through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea which extends far back to the era of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his enormous resources to smear Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul investing vast sums to throw the heroes into a monster-filled arena to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Cinematic Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people living in desperate poverty, while leveraging digital impersonations and a well-honed smear campaign to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality as overtly, but its antagonists live in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them into unemployment and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, contrasts the tough inhabitants of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who live in opulent sky-high mansions in the sky. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to trigger planetary doom — for financial gain, of course.
There’s nothing especially new in a series of movies presupposing that the wealthy have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding desire for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the early days of film, with early comedies contrasting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against tycoons, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is at odds with basic human values, and celebrate the defusing, routing, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Alters Little
Nevertheless, somehow, we never get around to consuming the elite. Whenever lawmakers respond to a public shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — surely American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. But the daily reports reveals constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately link affluence to competence and importance, even after decades of history's most popular movies communicating the opposite.
If anything, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that impedes real-world action. Provided with a regular dose of mostly uplifting tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like ethical parables, pretending that the system works, and that plucky heroes will root out any malicious actors among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more specific, and observably more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, likely due to it’s become so apparent that the wealthy live by a separate justice system, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Outliers
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
