A recurring motif runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion which extends back in time to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his immense fortune to smear Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro squandering a fortune to throw the heroes into a prehistoric arena for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people enduring abject destitution, while using AI forgeries and a powerful smear campaign to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its villains live in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them from their homes and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, pits the resourceful people of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in opulent sky-high mansions in the sky. Even, the agreeably goofy humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, needless to say.
It is not inherently notable in a run of movies presupposing that the wealthy have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding appetite for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the early days of film, with early comedies contrasting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against fat cats, bosses, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is at odds with basic human values, and celebrate the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Release That Changes Nothing
However, for some reason, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Whenever elected officials follow a public shooting event by blaming graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that susceptible — 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 worship billionaires. But the daily reports makes it obvious every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with intelligence and value to society, even after a century of history's most popular movies conveying the opposite.
In fact, it looks as though the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that impedes meaningful change. Provided with a steady diet of predominantly triumphant stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film content about justice being served. These stories are like moral fairy tales, pretending that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will root out any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they do follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more targeted, and observably more lethal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car finale, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals live by different standards, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to die at the final act of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Key Exclusions
There are exceptions, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up 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 reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
