A familiar theme courses through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that stretches all the way back to the days of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his enormous resources to smear Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing tens of millions to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people suffering through abject destitution, while employing deepfakes and a well-honed smear campaign to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists live in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, pits the tough inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit lavish sky-high mansions floating overhead. Remarkably, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to bring about global armageddon — for his own profit, needless to say.
It is not especially new in a run of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding appetite for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the birth of movies, with early comedies pitting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against fat cats, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is contrary to basic human values, and exalt the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Alters Little
Nevertheless, somehow, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Every time politicians react to a tragic gun violence event by faulting popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — surely American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. And yet the daily reports demonstrates constantly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively equate riches with intelligence and importance, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies communicating the reverse.
If anything, it seems like the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that impedes meaningful change. Offered a frequent serving of largely triumphant fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away content about justice being served. These films are like cautionary fables, pretending that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will root out any malicious actors among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they indeed follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more targeted, and seemingly more fatal. It’s rarely enough in the current era 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, selfish, cruel affluent villains were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car finale, likely due to it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals live by their own legal rules, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exceptions
There are exceptions, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished 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 redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
