An age-old theme courses through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea which extends back in time to the days of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul investing a fortune to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Film Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people suffering through extreme hardship, while using digital impersonations and a sophisticated smear campaign to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division as overtly, but its evil characters live in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, sets the tough people of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit extravagant sky-high mansions above the clouds. Interestingly, the zany humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, of course.
There’s nothing especially new in a run of movies taking it as a given that rich people have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled desire for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme goes back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against tycoons, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is incompatible with fundamental decency, and exalt the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
And yet, somehow, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Whenever politicians follow a tragic gun violence event by faulting violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — certainly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. Still the headlines makes it obvious constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively equate riches with competence and value to society, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies communicating a contradictory message.
Actually, it looks as though the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that hinders meaningful change. Given a steady diet of mostly uplifting tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about good conquering evil. These films are like moral fairy tales, implying that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will weed out any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they do follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more direct, and seemingly more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail finale, possibly since it’s become so clear that the wealthy function with different standards, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Outliers
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the computer world, 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
