A familiar idea courses through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that goes back in time to the era of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro squandering tens of millions to throw the heroes into a prehistoric death trap to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Lineage of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people suffering through extreme hardship, while using deepfakes and a sophisticated propaganda machine to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity as overtly, but its antagonists enjoy obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, sets the tough residents of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in extravagant gleaming towers floating overhead. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to trigger planetary doom — to make money, naturally.
It is not especially new in a series of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme dates back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies pitting his always poor beloved underdog against tycoons, industrialists, and clueless rich men. 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 greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is incompatible with basic human values, and celebrate the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
And yet, inexplicably, we never actually consuming the elite. Every time elected officials follow a tragic gun violence event by blaming violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — certainly American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. But the daily reports makes it obvious constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively link affluence to smartness and importance, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies promoting the opposite.
Actually, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that impedes meaningful change. Provided with a frequent serving of largely triumphant tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film content about right prevailing. These movies are like cautionary fables, implying that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any malicious actors among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that respect, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more targeted, and observably more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so clear that rich people function with a separate justice system, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to perish at the end of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Outliers
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
