An age-old motif runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that goes all the way back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to defame Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul squandering a fortune to cast the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and set her up for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people suffering through extreme hardship, while employing AI forgeries and a powerful propaganda machine to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about class division in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists enjoy conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, sets the tough inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in extravagant sky-high mansions above the clouds. Remarkably, the lighthearted humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to cause global armageddon — to make money, of course.
It is not especially new in a string of movies presupposing that the wealthy have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding appetite for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the early days of film, with early comedies pitting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against corporate bosses, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is at odds with core morality, and applaud the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never get around to eating the rich. On each occasion politicians respond to a new mass shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — surely American society would not continue to worship billionaires. But the news demonstrates regularly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively associate wealth with smartness and importance, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies conveying a contradictory message.
If anything, it seems like the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that impedes meaningful change. Given a regular dose of largely uplifting stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater content about justice being served. These stories are like ethical parables, suggesting that the system works, and that plucky heroes will weed out any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
An Angrier Message 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 angrier, sharper, more direct, and observably more violent. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people 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 executed at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, possibly since it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals function with a separate justice system, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to die at the final act of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exclusions
There are exceptions, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
