An age-old theme courses through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that goes all the way back to the time of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his enormous resources to smear Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending tens of millions to cast the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and set her up for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Film Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a wealthy villain running a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people living in desperate poverty, while employing AI forgeries and a powerful smear campaign to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity as overtly, but its villains enjoy clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them out of jobs and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, contrasts the tough inhabitants of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit extravagant sky-high mansions floating overhead. Even, the zany farcical update of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to bring about planetary doom — for his own profit, of course.
There is little inherently notable in a series of movies presupposing that the wealthy have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding desire for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the early days of film, with early comedies setting his always poor beloved underdog against corporate bosses, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is contrary to basic human values, and applaud the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, for some reason, we never actually taking down the wealthy. Whenever lawmakers respond to a public shooting event by blaming violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. But the daily reports makes it obvious constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously equate riches with smartness and importance, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies communicating the reverse.
If anything, it seems like the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that impedes real-world action. Offered a frequent serving of mostly uplifting stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away feeling good about justice being served. These stories are like cautionary fables, suggesting that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will weed out any malicious actors among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they do follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more targeted, and apparently more fatal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail finale, possibly since it’s become so clear that affluent individuals operate under their own legal rules, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Key Exceptions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
