An age-old motif permeates numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea which extends all the way back to the time of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing vast sums to trap the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Film Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people enduring abject destitution, while leveraging AI forgeries and a powerful smear campaign to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity as overtly, but its villains enjoy conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them out of jobs and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, contrasts the resourceful people of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in extravagant sky-high mansions in the sky. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, needless to say.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a series of movies presupposing that rich people have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged desire for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept goes back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against tycoons, 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 a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is incompatible with core morality, and applaud the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
And yet, somehow, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Whenever lawmakers follow a tragic gun violence event by blaming graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. And yet the daily reports reveals constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively link affluence to smartness and value to society, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies conveying the opposite.
If anything, it looks as though the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that hinders meaningful change. Provided with a steady diet of largely uplifting stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film content about good conquering evil. These films are like ethical parables, pretending that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will identify any malicious actors among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they do follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more direct, and observably more lethal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so clear that rich people operate under their own legal rules, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to perish at the end of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exclusions
Some films diverge, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
