An age-old idea runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that stretches all the way back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro investing a fortune to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people living in desperate poverty, while employing AI forgeries and a sophisticated smear campaign to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its villains live in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, pits the tough residents of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in opulent gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Interestingly, the lighthearted comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, naturally.
There is little particularly surprising in a series of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged desire for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept dates back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, authority figures, 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 updated the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is incompatible with basic human values, and celebrate the defusing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
And yet, for some reason, we never get around to consuming the elite. Whenever elected officials follow a public shooting event by faulting graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — certainly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. But the headlines demonstrates constantly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with intelligence and importance, even after decades of history's most popular movies promoting a contradictory message.
Actually, it looks as though the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that hinders real-world action. Offered a regular dose of predominantly happily-ever-after stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about justice being served. These movies are like cautionary fables, pretending that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will root out any malicious actors among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more specific, and seemingly more violent. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so clear that the wealthy operate under their own legal rules, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exclusions
There are exceptions, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
