An age-old theme runs through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that goes all the way back to the days of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to defame Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro spending vast sums to cast the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a rich antagonist running a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people enduring abject destitution, while leveraging deepfakes and a sophisticated propaganda machine to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity quite that directly, but its antagonists reside in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, pits the resourceful residents of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit lavish gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Even, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to bring about planetary doom — for financial gain, naturally.
There’s nothing especially new in a string of movies presupposing that rich people have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged desire for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his always poor beloved underdog against fat cats, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is contrary to fundamental decency, and exalt the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never get around to consuming the elite. Every time elected officials react to a public shooting event by faulting graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people truly 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 continue to revere billionaires. Still the headlines reveals constantly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with competence and importance, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies promoting a contradictory message.
If anything, it looks as though the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that impedes meaningful change. Offered a steady diet of predominantly happily-ever-after fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about justice being served. These stories are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that society is just, and that determined protagonists will root out any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
But while 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 incisive, more targeted, and observably more violent. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money 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 devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals function with different standards, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exclusions
Some films diverge, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits 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
