A recurring motif permeates many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept which extends all the way back to the time of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro spending a fortune to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Lineage of Film Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people enduring desperate poverty, while using digital impersonations and a well-honed media apparatus to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists enjoy clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them out of jobs and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, contrasts the resourceful residents of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit lavish gleaming towers floating overhead. Remarkably, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to cause worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, needless to say.
It is not particularly surprising in a string of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding appetite for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the early days of film, with early comedies pitting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against fat cats, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is contrary to fundamental decency, and celebrate the defusing, routing, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Release That Changes Nothing
And yet, inexplicably, we never actually eating the rich. Whenever politicians follow a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — surely American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. Still the daily reports makes it obvious constantly that a alarming number of Americans innately link affluence to intelligence and value to society, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies conveying the reverse.
Actually, it seems like the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that hinders meaningful change. Offered a steady diet of largely triumphant fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about right prevailing. These movies are like moral fairy tales, pretending that the system works, and that determined protagonists will identify any corrupt individuals among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more specific, and seemingly more fatal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned 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 obvious that the wealthy operate under different standards, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Key Outliers
There are exceptions, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
