A familiar theme permeates numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that goes far back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his immense fortune to defame Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro investing a fortune to throw the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people living in desperate poverty, while leveraging deepfakes and a powerful propaganda machine to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division quite that directly, but its villains enjoy conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, contrasts the scrappy residents of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit lavish gleaming towers in the sky. Even, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to bring about planetary doom — for financial gain, needless to say.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a series of movies taking it as a given that rich people have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against fat cats, bosses, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is incompatible with core morality, and exalt the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Changes Nothing
And yet, for some reason, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Whenever lawmakers follow a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — surely American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. And yet the news makes it obvious constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately equate riches with competence and importance, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies conveying the opposite.
If anything, it seems like the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that impedes substantive reform. Provided with a steady diet of mostly uplifting fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away feeling good about right prevailing. These films are like ethical parables, pretending that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will weed out any malicious actors among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they indeed follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more specific, and observably more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail ending, likely due to it’s become so obvious that the wealthy function with different standards, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Outliers
Some films diverge, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished 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 antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
