A recurring idea courses through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that goes back in time to the time of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering vast sums to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Lineage of Cinematic Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people living in extreme hardship, while leveraging deepfakes and a sophisticated media apparatus to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality quite that directly, but its antagonists live in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, driving them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, contrasts the scrappy residents of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Even, the lighthearted farcical update of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to trigger planetary doom — for his own profit, needless to say.
There is little especially new in a string of movies taking it as a given that rich people have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding appetite for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept dates back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his always poor iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is at odds with basic human values, and applaud the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, somehow, we never actually eating the rich. Whenever lawmakers respond to a tragic gun violence event by blaming graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. But the daily reports reveals every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively link affluence to intelligence and social worth, even after decades of history's most popular movies communicating the opposite.
If anything, it seems like the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that hinders real-world action. Provided with a steady diet of predominantly uplifting tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater content about justice being served. These movies are like ethical parables, implying that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they do follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more targeted, and seemingly more fatal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, likely due to it’s become so obvious that rich people operate under different standards, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to perish at the final act of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Key Outliers
Some films diverge, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
