An age-old theme runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that stretches back in time to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his vast wealth to smear Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering tens of millions to cast the heroes into a prehistoric death trap to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Tradition of Film Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through abject destitution, while leveraging digital impersonations and a powerful smear campaign to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists live in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them out of jobs and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, sets the scrappy inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in extravagant gleaming towers in the sky. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to bring about planetary doom — for his own profit, needless to say.
There is little particularly surprising in a series of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against corporate bosses, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is contrary to core morality, and exalt the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, somehow, we never get around to consuming the elite. Every time politicians follow a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — surely American society would not continue to worship billionaires. Still the daily reports makes it obvious every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively link affluence to smartness and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies conveying the opposite.
In fact, it appears that the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that impedes real-world action. Provided with a frequent serving of mostly triumphant stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like cautionary fables, pretending that the system works, and that determined protagonists will weed out any malicious actors among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more direct, and observably more violent. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, possibly since it’s become so obvious that the wealthy function with different standards, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to die at the final act of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exceptions
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the virtual grid, 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 transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
