An age-old motif runs through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept which extends back in time to the time of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to defame Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro investing vast sums to trap the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people enduring desperate poverty, while employing deepfakes and a sophisticated smear campaign to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality quite that directly, but its antagonists reside in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them out of jobs and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, contrasts the tough people of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in extravagant gleaming towers in the sky. Even, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to trigger planetary doom — for financial gain, needless to say.
It is not especially new in a series of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies contrasting his always poor iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, industrialists, 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 updated a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is contrary to basic human values, and exalt the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
However, somehow, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Every time lawmakers react to a tragic gun violence event by blaming graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — certainly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. But the headlines demonstrates regularly that a alarming number of Americans instinctively equate riches with smartness and social worth, even after decades of history's most popular movies promoting the opposite.
In fact, it looks as though the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that hinders real-world action. Given a frequent serving of mostly uplifting fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away content about right prevailing. These stories are like cautionary fables, suggesting that society is just, and that determined protagonists will identify any malicious actors among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more targeted, and observably more fatal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so clear that rich people operate under different standards, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Outliers
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of 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
