An age-old theme permeates numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that goes all the way back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to smear Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending vast sums to throw the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through extreme hardship, while employing AI forgeries and a well-honed media apparatus to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity as overtly, but its antagonists reside in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them out of jobs and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, pits the scrappy residents of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in lavish gleaming towers above the clouds. Even, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to trigger global armageddon — for financial gain, of course.
It is not inherently notable in a series of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme dates back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his always poor iconic vagrant against fat cats, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is contrary to fundamental decency, and exalt the defusing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Every time politicians respond to a tragic gun violence event by faulting graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — surely American society would not persistently worship billionaires. And yet the news reveals regularly that a alarming number of Americans instinctively associate wealth with smartness and value to society, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies conveying the reverse.
In fact, it looks as though the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that impedes real-world action. Provided with a frequent serving of largely triumphant fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about right prevailing. These films are like cautionary fables, pretending that society is just, and that determined protagonists will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they do follow some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more specific, and seemingly more lethal. It’s rarely enough in the current era 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 exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, possibly since it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals function with their own legal rules, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to die at the end of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Outliers
Some films diverge, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
