A recurring idea runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that stretches far back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to smear Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro investing a fortune to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Lineage of Film Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a wealthy villain running a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people suffering through abject destitution, while employing deepfakes and a sophisticated propaganda machine to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists enjoy clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, sets the scrappy people of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit extravagant sky-high mansions floating overhead. Even, the zany humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to cause planetary doom — for his own profit, of course.
There is little particularly surprising in a series of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding appetite for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept dates back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting 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 revised a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is contrary to basic human values, and applaud the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion politicians follow a new mass shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — certainly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. Still the headlines makes it obvious constantly that a alarming number of Americans innately link affluence to competence and social worth, even after decades of history's most popular movies communicating the reverse.
In fact, it looks as though the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that gets in the way of real-world action. Offered a steady diet of predominantly uplifting tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about justice being served. These stories are like cautionary fables, suggesting that society is just, and that determined protagonists will identify any corrupt individuals among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more direct, and seemingly 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 lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car ending, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that the wealthy live by a separate justice system, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Outliers
There are exceptions, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the computer world, 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 redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
