A recurring motif courses through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that goes far back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul squandering vast sums to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people living in desperate poverty, while employing digital impersonations and a sophisticated smear campaign to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity as overtly, but its antagonists live in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, sets the tough inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit lavish gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Even, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to bring about global armageddon — for financial gain, of course.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a string of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his always poor Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, bosses, 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 refreshed a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is at odds with core morality, and exalt the defusing, defeat, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Changes Nothing
And yet, somehow, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Whenever elected officials react to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — certainly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. But the news makes it obvious every single day that a significant portion of Americans instinctively equate riches with competence and importance, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies conveying a contradictory message.
In fact, it looks as though the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that impedes meaningful change. Offered a frequent serving of predominantly happily-ever-after fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away feeling good about justice being served. These films are like cautionary fables, pretending that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will root out any corrupt individuals among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they do follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more direct, and seemingly more violent. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car finale, possibly since it’s become so apparent that rich people function with their own legal rules, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Exceptions
A few stories differ, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
