A familiar idea permeates many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that stretches far back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to smear Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending a fortune to cast the heroes into a monster-filled arena for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Film Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through extreme hardship, while employing deepfakes and a sophisticated propaganda machine to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality quite that directly, but its antagonists live in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, pits the scrappy residents of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in lavish gleaming towers in the sky. Even, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to cause worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, needless to say.
There is little especially new in a string of movies presupposing that rich people have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged desire for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept goes back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, authority figures, 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 updated that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is incompatible with basic human values, and applaud the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Release That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, for some reason, we never actually taking down the wealthy. On each occasion politicians follow a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — certainly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. And yet the daily reports demonstrates regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively equate riches with competence and importance, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies promoting the opposite.
In fact, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that gets in the way of meaningful change. Provided with a steady diet of largely happily-ever-after fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away feeling good about right prevailing. These films are like ethical parables, suggesting that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will root out any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more direct, and apparently more fatal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were killed 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 executed directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail finale, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals live by their own legal rules, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to perish at the final act of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Outliers
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
