A recurring motif courses through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that goes back in time to the days of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his immense fortune to smear Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul squandering tens of millions to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Film Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through desperate poverty, while leveraging AI forgeries and a powerful propaganda machine to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity as overtly, but its villains live in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, contrasts the resourceful people of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in extravagant gleaming towers floating overhead. Remarkably, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to bring about global armageddon — for his own profit, needless to say.
There is little especially new in a series of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme goes back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his always poor Little Tramp character against tycoons, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is incompatible with fundamental decency, and exalt the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Release That Fails to Transform
However, for some reason, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Every time elected officials react to a tragic gun violence event by faulting popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — certainly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. And yet the daily reports reveals every single day that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously link affluence to intelligence and social worth, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies promoting the opposite.
If anything, it looks as though the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that impedes meaningful change. Provided with a steady diet of largely triumphant tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about good conquering evil. These stories are like ethical parables, suggesting that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will identify any malicious actors among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more targeted, and apparently more fatal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed 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 stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail ending, possibly since it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals live by different standards, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exceptions
Some films diverge, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits 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
