A recurring theme runs through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that stretches far back to the days of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to smear Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro investing tens of millions to trap the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and framed her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Film Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people enduring desperate poverty, while employing digital impersonations and a sophisticated media apparatus to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight class division quite that directly, but its antagonists live in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them from their homes and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, pits the resourceful residents of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit lavish gleaming towers above the clouds. Remarkably, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, needless to say.
There is little especially new in a run of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged desire for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept goes back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against fat cats, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is at odds with core morality, and exalt the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
However, inexplicably, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Whenever lawmakers follow a new mass shooting event by blaming graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. But the headlines reveals constantly that a significant portion of Americans innately associate wealth with smartness and importance, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies communicating the opposite.
If anything, it looks as though the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that gets in the way of real-world action. Given a steady diet of largely triumphant fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film content about right prevailing. These films are like moral fairy tales, implying that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they do follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more specific, and apparently more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, likely due to it’s become so apparent that the wealthy live by different standards, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Key Exclusions
Some films diverge, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the virtual grid, 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 antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
