An age-old motif runs through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that stretches all the way back to the days of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul investing a fortune to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of On-Screen Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people enduring desperate poverty, while using digital impersonations and a well-honed media apparatus to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division quite that directly, but its evil characters enjoy obvious luxury 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 box-office hit, sets the resourceful residents of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit lavish gleaming towers in the sky. Remarkably, the zany comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to cause worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, of course.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a run of movies presupposing that the affluent have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme dates back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against tycoons, authority figures, 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 updated that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is at odds with core morality, and exalt the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
And yet, for some reason, we never actually consuming the elite. Every time elected officials respond to a tragic gun violence event by faulting graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — certainly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. And yet the daily reports demonstrates regularly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with intelligence and importance, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies conveying the opposite.
If anything, it looks as though the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that gets in the way of real-world action. Given a regular dose of predominantly happily-ever-after stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about right prevailing. These movies are like cautionary fables, implying that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any malicious actors among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they do follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more targeted, and observably more violent. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car finale, likely due to it’s become so clear that affluent individuals operate under a separate justice system, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exceptions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
