A familiar motif permeates many of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea which extends all the way back to the days of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his vast wealth to smear Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering tens of millions to throw the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and set her up for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through abject destitution, while using digital impersonations and a sophisticated propaganda machine to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists reside in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them into unemployment and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, pits the scrappy residents of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who live in lavish gleaming towers above the clouds. Remarkably, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, naturally.
There’s nothing especially new in a run of movies presupposing that the wealthy have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme dates back to the birth of movies, with early comedies contrasting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against fat cats, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is at odds with basic human values, and applaud the defusing, routing, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Every time politicians follow a public shooting event by blaming graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — surely American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. But the headlines reveals regularly that a significant portion of Americans innately link affluence to intelligence and importance, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies promoting the reverse.
If anything, it seems like the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that hinders substantive reform. Provided with a regular dose of predominantly happily-ever-after stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about good conquering evil. These stories are like ethical parables, suggesting that society is just, and that plucky heroes will identify any corrupt individuals among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they do follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more targeted, and apparently more fatal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car finale, likely due to it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals function with different standards, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Key Outliers
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. 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 unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
