A recurring motif courses through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that stretches all the way back to the time of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to defame Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro squandering vast sums to cast the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and framed her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Film Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a rich antagonist operating a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people enduring desperate poverty, while employing digital impersonations and a well-honed propaganda machine to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity quite that directly, but its villains enjoy conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, sets the tough people of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in lavish sky-high mansions above the clouds. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy farcical update of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to bring about global armageddon — for his own profit, needless to say.
There is little especially new in a string of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled desire for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme dates back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies setting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, industrialists, 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 that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is at odds with fundamental decency, and celebrate the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
However, for some reason, we never get around to eating the rich. Whenever politicians follow a public shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — surely American society would not persistently worship billionaires. And yet the daily reports makes it obvious constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately link affluence to competence and importance, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies conveying the opposite.
In fact, it seems like the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that impedes meaningful change. Offered a frequent serving of predominantly happily-ever-after stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about right prevailing. These movies are like ethical parables, pretending that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will weed out any malicious actors among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they do follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more direct, and seemingly more lethal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed 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*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car ending, likely due to it’s become so clear that the wealthy function with different standards, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Outliers
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
