An age-old idea courses through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion which extends all the way back to the era of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his immense fortune to smear Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending a fortune to throw the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Film Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people enduring abject destitution, while leveraging AI forgeries and a powerful media apparatus to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters live in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, pits the tough inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in opulent gleaming towers in the sky. Even, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to bring about planetary doom — to make money, of course.
There’s nothing especially new in a run of movies presupposing that the wealthy have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the early days of film, with early comedies contrasting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against tycoons, industrialists, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed 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 fundamental decency, and celebrate the defusing, routing, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
However, inexplicably, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion lawmakers react to a tragic gun violence event by faulting violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — certainly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. Still the news makes it obvious every single day that a significant portion of Americans innately equate riches with smartness and value to society, 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 eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that impedes substantive reform. Given a frequent serving of largely triumphant tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about justice being served. These films are like cautionary fables, pretending that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will identify any corrupt individuals among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A Sharper Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they indeed follow some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more specific, and apparently more violent. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, possibly since it’s become so obvious that the wealthy operate under their own legal rules, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to perish at the end of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exceptions
A few stories differ, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
