A familiar motif runs through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea which extends back in time to the time of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his immense fortune to defame Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering a fortune to cast the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and framed her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Legacy of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a rich antagonist running a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people suffering through extreme hardship, while employing digital impersonations and a sophisticated propaganda machine to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize class division in such a blunt manner, but its villains reside in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, contrasts the scrappy residents of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in opulent sky-high mansions floating overhead. Even, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to bring about worldwide catastrophe — to make money, naturally.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a run of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged desire for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the birth of movies, with early comedies setting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. From 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 greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is contrary to fundamental decency, and applaud the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Alters Little
However, somehow, we never get around to consuming the elite. On each occasion lawmakers respond to a public shooting event by blaming graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — surely American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. And yet the daily reports demonstrates constantly that a significant portion of Americans innately associate wealth with competence and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies promoting the opposite.
If anything, it looks as though the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that hinders substantive reform. Provided with a steady diet of predominantly happily-ever-after tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away satisfied about justice being served. These movies are like cautionary fables, suggesting that the system works, and that determined protagonists will root out any malicious actors among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they do follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more specific, and observably more fatal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious 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 live by a separate justice system, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exceptions
A few stories differ, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the digital realm, 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 unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
