A familiar motif runs through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that goes back in time to the era of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to defame Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing vast sums to throw the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and set her up for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Cinematic Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people living in extreme hardship, while leveraging deepfakes and a well-honed media apparatus to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division as overtly, but its antagonists reside in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them into unemployment and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, pits the tough residents of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in extravagant sky-high mansions above the clouds. Remarkably, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to cause global armageddon — for his own profit, naturally.
There is little inherently notable in a string of movies taking it as a given that rich people have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies setting his always poor beloved underdog against corporate bosses, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is contrary to fundamental decency, and exalt the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Alters Little
However, somehow, we never get around to consuming the elite. On each occasion politicians follow a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — certainly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. And yet the news reveals constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately link affluence to intelligence and importance, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies promoting the opposite.
In fact, it appears that the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that gets in the way of real-world action. Given a frequent serving of largely triumphant stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away feeling good about good conquering evil. These stories are like ethical parables, pretending that society is just, and that determined protagonists will root out any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they do follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more targeted, and apparently more lethal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that the wealthy live by a separate justice system, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exceptions
There are exceptions, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
