A recurring motif runs through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that stretches back in time to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his immense fortune to defame Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro squandering a fortune to throw the heroes into a prehistoric death trap to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people enduring desperate poverty, while employing digital impersonations and a sophisticated media apparatus to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters enjoy conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, pits the tough people of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who live in lavish sky-high mansions above the clouds. Even, the agreeably goofy humorous remake of *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 series of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding desire for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, authority figures, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is incompatible with core morality, and applaud the defusing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
And yet, inexplicably, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Every time politicians respond to a public shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — surely American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. But the headlines demonstrates regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously link affluence to smartness and importance, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies promoting the reverse.
If anything, it appears that the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that hinders substantive reform. Provided with a frequent serving of mostly happily-ever-after fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about justice being served. These stories are like ethical parables, implying that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will identify any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A Sharper Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they indeed follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more targeted, and apparently more violent. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, likely due to it’s become so obvious that rich people operate under a separate justice system, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to die at the end of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exclusions
There are exceptions, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
