An age-old idea courses through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea which extends back in time to the era of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his enormous resources to defame Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul squandering vast sums to cast the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and framed her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a rich antagonist running a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people suffering through abject destitution, while using deepfakes and a well-honed media apparatus to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division as overtly, but its villains enjoy conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, pits the resourceful residents of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in opulent gleaming towers above the clouds. Remarkably, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to cause worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, needless to say.
It is not particularly surprising in a series of movies presupposing that the affluent have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme goes back to the birth of movies, with early comedies pitting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against tycoons, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is at odds with core morality, and applaud the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
Nevertheless, for some reason, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Whenever politicians follow a tragic gun violence event by faulting violent video games, 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 would not persistently idolize billionaires. And yet the news reveals constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously link affluence to intelligence and importance, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies communicating the reverse.
Actually, it looks as though the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that gets in the way of substantive reform. Offered a steady diet of largely happily-ever-after tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film feeling good about justice being served. These stories are like ethical parables, suggesting that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any corrupt individuals among the largely 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 regard, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more direct, and apparently more fatal. 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 oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car ending, possibly since it’s become so obvious that rich people live by their own legal rules, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to die at the end of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exclusions
Some films diverge, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the digital realm, a setup that obviously 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 revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
