A familiar theme runs through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept which extends all the way back to the days of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his vast wealth to smear Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul squandering tens of millions to cast the heroes into a prehistoric arena for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Cinematic Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people enduring desperate poverty, while employing AI forgeries and a sophisticated smear campaign to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity quite that directly, but its evil characters live in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, pits the tough people of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Remarkably, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to trigger global armageddon — for his own profit, of course.
There’s nothing especially new in a string of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his always poor beloved underdog against corporate bosses, industrialists, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is at odds with basic human values, and celebrate the defusing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Changes Nothing
And yet, for some reason, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Whenever elected officials follow a tragic gun violence event by blaming popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. But the daily reports demonstrates constantly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively associate wealth with competence and importance, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies promoting the reverse.
Actually, it looks as though the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that hinders substantive reform. Offered a regular dose of predominantly triumphant stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away satisfied about right prevailing. These films are like moral fairy tales, pretending that the system works, and that plucky heroes will identify any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they indeed follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more direct, and apparently more fatal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in humility, 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, greedy, hateful wealthy people were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that rich people function with different standards, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to perish at the end of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exceptions
Some films diverge, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
