A familiar theme runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that goes far back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his immense fortune to smear Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro spending tens of millions to trap the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and framed her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Film Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a wealthy villain operating a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people suffering through extreme hardship, while leveraging digital impersonations and a well-honed smear campaign to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity quite that directly, but its evil characters reside in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, pits the tough people of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in lavish gleaming towers floating overhead. Even, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to cause planetary doom — to make money, naturally.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a string of movies presupposing that the affluent have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled desire for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against fat cats, industrialists, 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 complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is at odds with fundamental decency, and applaud the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Alters Little
Nevertheless, somehow, we never actually eating the rich. On each occasion politicians respond to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. Still the news makes it obvious constantly that a alarming number of Americans innately link affluence to competence and social worth, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies communicating a contradictory message.
In fact, it seems like the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that gets in the way of substantive reform. Offered a frequent serving of predominantly happily-ever-after fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away satisfied about justice being served. These movies are like moral fairy tales, pretending that the system works, and that determined protagonists will weed out any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
An Angrier Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they do follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more targeted, and observably more lethal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, likely due to it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals operate under their own legal rules, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Outliers
There are exceptions, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the digital realm, where he’s clearly 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 unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
