A familiar theme runs through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that stretches all the way back to the days of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his immense fortune to smear Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro spending tens of millions to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Legacy of Film Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people enduring extreme hardship, while leveraging AI forgeries and a powerful media apparatus to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality as overtly, but its villains enjoy clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them from their homes and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, contrasts the scrappy inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who live in lavish gleaming towers floating overhead. Even, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to cause worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, needless to say.
It is not inherently notable in a run of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding hunger for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against fat cats, bosses, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is incompatible with basic human values, and celebrate the defusing, routing, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Alters Little
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Whenever elected officials respond to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly 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 persistently revere billionaires. Still the headlines makes it obvious every single day that a alarming number of Americans instinctively associate wealth with intelligence and importance, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies promoting a contradictory message.
Actually, it looks as though the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that impedes substantive reform. Provided with a frequent serving of predominantly happily-ever-after stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film satisfied about right prevailing. These films are like cautionary fables, implying that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will identify any malicious actors among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more direct, and observably more lethal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, likely due to it’s become so obvious that rich people function with a separate justice system, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exclusions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. 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 unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
