A familiar theme permeates numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that goes back in time to the era of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing vast sums to trap the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Film Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a wealthy villain running a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people enduring abject destitution, while employing digital impersonations and a well-honed smear campaign to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division as overtly, but its evil characters enjoy obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them from their homes and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, sets the scrappy residents of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit opulent gleaming towers above the clouds. Even, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to trigger global armageddon — for his own profit, needless to say.
There is little inherently notable in a run of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding desire for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies pitting his always poor Little Tramp character against fat cats, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning 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 rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is at odds with fundamental decency, and celebrate the defusing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Alters Little
Nevertheless, for some reason, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Every time lawmakers follow a new mass shooting event by blaming graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — surely American society would not persistently worship billionaires. And yet the news demonstrates regularly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively equate riches with competence and importance, even after a century of history's most popular movies promoting the reverse.
If anything, it appears that the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that impedes substantive reform. Given a regular dose of predominantly triumphant tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away feeling good about justice being served. These stories are like ethical parables, suggesting that the system works, and that determined protagonists will identify any malicious actors among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more targeted, and seemingly 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 lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*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 beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail ending, possibly since it’s become so apparent that rich people live by different standards, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exceptions
Some films diverge, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. 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 exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
