A recurring idea permeates many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that stretches back in time to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering tens of millions to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Film Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people enduring desperate poverty, while using digital impersonations and a sophisticated smear campaign to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about class division quite that directly, but its villains live in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, contrasts the tough residents of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit extravagant gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to cause worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, of course.
There’s nothing especially new in a string of movies assuming as fact that rich people have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding appetite for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant 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 a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is incompatible with fundamental decency, and exalt the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
However, for some reason, we never actually taking down the wealthy. On each occasion elected officials react to a tragic gun violence event by blaming violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. Still the daily reports demonstrates regularly that a alarming number of Americans instinctively equate riches with competence and social worth, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies promoting a contradictory message.
If anything, it appears that the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that gets in the way of substantive reform. Given a steady diet of largely happily-ever-after tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about good conquering evil. These movies are like moral fairy tales, pretending that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will root out any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they do follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more direct, and seemingly more fatal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range 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 extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, likely due to it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals operate under their own legal rules, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to die at the end of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Exceptions
There are exceptions, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished 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 reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
