A recurring motif permeates a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept which extends back in time to the days of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to smear Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul squandering tens of millions to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a rich antagonist running a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through extreme hardship, while leveraging AI forgeries and a sophisticated smear campaign to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division as overtly, but its antagonists reside in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, contrasts the resourceful inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit lavish sky-high mansions in the sky. Interestingly, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, needless to say.
There is little particularly surprising in a series of movies presupposing that rich people have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding hunger for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the early days of film, with early comedies setting his always poor Little Tramp character against fat cats, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is contrary to fundamental decency, and applaud the defusing, routing, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
And yet, somehow, we never actually eating the rich. On each occasion lawmakers follow a new mass shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — certainly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. And yet the headlines makes it obvious every single day that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with competence and social worth, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies conveying a contradictory message.
In fact, it seems like the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that gets in the way of substantive reform. Offered a regular dose of largely uplifting tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film feeling good about justice being served. These films are like ethical parables, implying that the system works, and that plucky heroes will root out any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more targeted, and apparently more violent. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, likely due to it’s become so clear that the wealthy operate under a separate justice system, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to die at the final act of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exclusions
Some films diverge, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
