A familiar motif permeates a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that goes back in time to the days of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his enormous resources to smear Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro squandering tens of millions to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Film Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people living in abject destitution, while using deepfakes and a sophisticated smear campaign to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality quite that directly, but its villains enjoy clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, contrasts the resourceful people of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit extravagant gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Interestingly, the lighthearted farcical update of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to bring about global armageddon — to make money, of course.
There is little inherently notable in a series of movies presupposing that the wealthy have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding appetite for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the birth of movies, with early comedies contrasting his always poor iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is contrary to basic human values, and celebrate the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, for some reason, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion politicians respond to a new mass shooting event by faulting popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. But the news reveals regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately link affluence to intelligence and social worth, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies conveying the reverse.
Actually, it seems like the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that impedes meaningful change. Given a steady diet of predominantly triumphant fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about justice being served. These films are like ethical parables, pretending that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will weed out any malicious actors among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more specific, and seemingly more fatal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail finale, likely due to it’s become so obvious that rich people operate under a separate justice system, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exceptions
There are exceptions, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid