A recurring theme runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea which extends back in time to the time of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending a fortune to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and set her up for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Film Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people living in abject destitution, while employing AI forgeries and a well-honed propaganda machine to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its villains live in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, sets the tough residents of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who live in lavish sky-high mansions above the clouds. Even, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, naturally.
There’s nothing especially new in a string of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies setting his always poor beloved underdog against tycoons, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is contrary to core morality, and celebrate the defusing, routing, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
And yet, for some reason, we never get around to eating the rich. Every time politicians follow a tragic gun violence event by blaming graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — surely American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. Still the news makes it obvious every single day that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously link affluence to smartness and social worth, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies communicating the reverse.
If anything, it appears that the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that impedes real-world action. Provided with a steady diet of mostly uplifting fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about right prevailing. These films are like cautionary fables, suggesting that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any bad apples among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more direct, and seemingly more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, 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, avaricious, malicious rich individuals 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 distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car finale, likely due to it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals function with different standards, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Exceptions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
