A familiar theme runs through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion which extends all the way back to the time of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his enormous resources to defame Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering vast sums to throw the heroes into a monster-filled arena to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and set her up for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a wealthy villain running a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people living in desperate poverty, while employing deepfakes and a sophisticated propaganda machine to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight class division as overtly, but its antagonists enjoy obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, contrasts the resourceful people of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in opulent sky-high mansions above the clouds. Even, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, needless to say.
There’s nothing especially new in a series of movies assuming as fact that rich people have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept dates back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his always poor iconic vagrant against tycoons, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is contrary to core morality, and celebrate the defusing, downfall, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, somehow, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Every time lawmakers respond to a tragic gun violence event by blaming popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. Still the news reveals constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with competence and value to society, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies conveying a contradictory message.
Actually, it seems like the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that hinders real-world action. Given a steady diet of largely uplifting fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film content about justice being served. These stories are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that the system works, and that plucky heroes will root out any bad apples among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they indeed follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more targeted, and apparently more fatal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, likely due to it’s become so clear that the wealthy live by a separate justice system, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" ending fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to perish at the final act of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Outliers
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator 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 transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
