A recurring motif runs through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion which extends far back to the time of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to defame Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro investing vast sums to trap the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and set her up for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Tradition of Film Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people enduring abject destitution, while leveraging digital impersonations and a sophisticated media apparatus to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its villains enjoy clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them from their homes and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, contrasts the scrappy people of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit lavish gleaming towers above the clouds. Even, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to trigger global armageddon — for his own profit, naturally.
There’s nothing especially new in a run of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding desire for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against fat cats, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is contrary to fundamental decency, and celebrate the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
And yet, inexplicably, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Every time politicians react to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — surely American society would not continue to worship billionaires. And yet the headlines reveals every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans innately associate wealth with smartness and value to society, even after decades of history's most popular movies promoting the opposite.
Actually, it seems like the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that gets in the way of substantive reform. Given a frequent serving of mostly uplifting fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away feeling good about good conquering evil. These stories are like cautionary fables, suggesting that society is just, and that plucky heroes will weed out any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they indeed follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more targeted, and observably more fatal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people gain some humility in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals function with different standards, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Outliers
Some films diverge, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the computer world, 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 redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
