A familiar idea runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that stretches back in time to the days of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul investing a fortune to throw the heroes into a monster-filled arena for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through abject destitution, while using AI forgeries and a well-honed smear campaign to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity quite that directly, but its villains enjoy obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, contrasts the tough inhabitants of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who live in extravagant sky-high mansions in the sky. Even, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, needless to say.
It is not particularly surprising in a series of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against tycoons, 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 updated the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is incompatible with core morality, and exalt the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Release That Alters Little
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never get around to eating the rich. Whenever elected officials react to a tragic gun violence event by faulting graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — certainly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. And yet the daily reports demonstrates regularly that a significant portion of Americans innately equate riches with smartness and value to society, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies promoting a contradictory message.
If anything, it seems like the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that impedes substantive reform. Provided with a steady diet of predominantly uplifting tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film content about justice being served. These stories 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 on their own merit.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more targeted, and observably more lethal. 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 oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail finale, possibly since it’s become so clear that rich people live by a separate justice system, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exclusions
A few stories differ, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
