An age-old motif permeates numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that goes far back to the days of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to smear Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro squandering tens of millions to throw the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people enduring abject destitution, while leveraging AI forgeries and a sophisticated media apparatus to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality as overtly, but its villains reside in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, contrasts the tough people of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit extravagant gleaming towers floating overhead. Interestingly, the lighthearted humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to cause global armageddon — for financial gain, naturally.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a series of movies presupposing that the wealthy have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding appetite for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his always poor beloved underdog against tycoons, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is at odds with basic human values, and exalt the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Fails to Transform
However, somehow, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Whenever politicians react to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. Still the daily reports reveals regularly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously link affluence to competence and importance, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies communicating a contradictory message.
If anything, it seems like the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that impedes real-world action. Provided with a regular dose of mostly uplifting tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away feeling good about good conquering evil. These movies are like moral fairy tales, implying that society is just, and that plucky heroes will root out any malicious actors among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they indeed follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more targeted, and seemingly more fatal. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson 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 wealthy people were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, possibly since it’s become so clear that rich people live by their own legal rules, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Outliers
A few stories differ, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled 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 transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
