An age-old motif permeates many of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea which extends all the way back to the days of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul squandering a fortune to throw the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a rich antagonist running a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people living in abject destitution, while using AI forgeries and a powerful media apparatus to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters enjoy clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, contrasts the scrappy inhabitants of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who inhabit opulent gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Remarkably, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to cause worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, naturally.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a series of movies presupposing that rich people have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his always poor Little Tramp character against fat cats, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is contrary to core morality, and applaud the defusing, routing, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Alters Little
However, somehow, we never get around to consuming the elite. On each occasion elected officials react to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — surely American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. But the headlines demonstrates regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately equate riches with smartness and importance, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies conveying the reverse.
Actually, it seems like the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that gets in the way of meaningful change. Provided with a steady diet of predominantly happily-ever-after fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about justice being served. These films are like ethical parables, pretending that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will weed out any malicious actors among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more targeted, and seemingly more violent. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car ending, likely due to it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals live by a separate justice system, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exceptions
Some films diverge, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
