A recurring theme permeates a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that stretches back in time to the days of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his enormous resources to smear Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro squandering tens of millions to trap the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of On-Screen Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people enduring desperate poverty, while leveraging digital impersonations and a powerful smear campaign to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity quite that directly, but its antagonists live in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them from their homes and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, sets the tough residents of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Interestingly, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to cause global armageddon — for his own profit, naturally.
There is little especially new in a run of movies taking it as a given that rich people have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his always poor Little Tramp character against fat cats, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is at odds with fundamental decency, and applaud the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
And yet, inexplicably, we never actually eating the rich. Whenever elected officials follow a new mass shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — certainly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. Still the daily reports reveals regularly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively equate riches with smartness and social worth, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies promoting the opposite.
In fact, it seems like the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that gets in the way of real-world action. Provided with a frequent serving of largely uplifting tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like ethical parables, pretending that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will identify any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A Sharper Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they do follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more targeted, and apparently more lethal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*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 stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail finale, possibly since it’s become so apparent that the wealthy live by their own legal rules, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to die at the final act of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exclusions
A few stories differ, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
