A familiar idea courses through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept which extends back in time to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to smear Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul spending vast sums to trap the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people living in desperate poverty, while using AI forgeries and a sophisticated media apparatus to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division as overtly, but its antagonists reside in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them into unemployment and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, pits the resourceful inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit lavish gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Even, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to trigger planetary doom — for financial gain, of course.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a series of movies taking it as a given that rich people have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme dates back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against fat cats, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is at odds with fundamental decency, and exalt the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, somehow, we never actually eating the rich. Whenever elected officials react to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — certainly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. Still the news demonstrates constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively equate riches with competence and importance, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies conveying the opposite.
Actually, it looks as though the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that impedes substantive reform. Provided with a steady diet of mostly happily-ever-after tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away feeling good about right prevailing. These films are like cautionary fables, pretending that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will identify any malicious actors among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they do follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more targeted, and apparently more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory these days 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 oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, likely due to it’s become so apparent that rich people live by a separate justice system, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exceptions
Some films diverge, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly 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 exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
