An age-old theme runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that stretches back in time to the era of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro squandering vast sums to cast the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and framed her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Lineage of Film Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through desperate poverty, while employing deepfakes and a sophisticated propaganda machine to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity quite that directly, but its villains enjoy conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them from their homes and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, sets the tough inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Even, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to cause planetary doom — for his own profit, of course.
There’s nothing especially new in a string of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept dates back to the early days of film, with early comedies contrasting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against corporate bosses, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is at odds with basic human values, and applaud the defusing, routing, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Alters Little
Nevertheless, for some reason, we never actually eating the rich. Every time elected officials follow a tragic gun violence event by blaming violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. But the daily reports reveals every single day that a significant portion of Americans innately equate riches with intelligence and importance, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies conveying the opposite.
In fact, it seems like the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that hinders real-world action. Provided with a frequent serving of mostly uplifting stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film satisfied about justice being served. These movies are like moral fairy tales, implying that society is just, and that determined protagonists will root out any malicious actors among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Edge 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 more enraged, more pointed, more targeted, and apparently more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail finale, possibly since it’s become so apparent that rich people operate under different standards, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Key Exclusions
There are exceptions, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
