A recurring idea courses through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that stretches far back to the days of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to smear Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering tens of millions to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Cinematic Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people living in extreme hardship, while leveraging deepfakes and a powerful propaganda machine to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its villains live in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, pits the resourceful people of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in opulent gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, of course.
There is little especially new in a run of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled desire for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept dates back to the early days of film, with early comedies pitting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against fat cats, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is contrary to basic human values, and exalt the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
And yet, for some reason, we never get around to consuming the elite. Every time lawmakers follow a tragic gun violence event by blaming graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. But the headlines demonstrates constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously link affluence to intelligence and social worth, even after decades of history's most popular movies promoting the opposite.
If anything, it seems like the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that hinders meaningful change. Offered a frequent serving of mostly triumphant stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film content about good conquering evil. These films are like cautionary fables, implying that society is just, and that plucky heroes will identify any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more specific, and apparently more violent. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, possibly since it’s become so clear that rich people operate under different standards, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exclusions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. 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 unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
