A familiar idea courses through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that goes back in time to the era of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to defame Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul investing tens of millions to trap the heroes into a monster-filled arena to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people enduring abject destitution, while leveraging digital impersonations and a powerful propaganda machine to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters live in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, sets the tough residents of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in extravagant gleaming towers in the sky. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to cause planetary doom — to make money, needless to say.
There’s nothing especially new in a series of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding appetite for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the early days of film, with early comedies pitting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against tycoons, bosses, and clueless rich men. 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 tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is at odds with basic human values, and applaud the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Changes Nothing
However, inexplicably, we never get around to consuming the elite. On each occasion elected officials follow a tragic gun violence event by faulting violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — surely American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. Still the daily reports makes it obvious regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with smartness and importance, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies communicating a contradictory message.
If anything, it appears that the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that impedes real-world action. Given a regular dose of mostly uplifting fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about good conquering evil. These stories are like cautionary fables, implying that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will weed out any malicious actors among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more direct, and observably more violent. It is no longer satisfactory these days 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 oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail finale, likely due to it’s become so obvious that rich people live by different standards, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to perish at the final act of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Outliers
Some films diverge, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the digital realm, where he’s clearly 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 wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
