A recurring motif runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that goes all the way back to the days of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to smear Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul investing vast sums to throw the heroes into a prehistoric arena for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a affluent bad guy running a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through extreme hardship, while employing digital impersonations and a well-honed smear campaign to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters enjoy clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, sets the resourceful residents of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in opulent gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Remarkably, the zany humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to cause planetary doom — for financial gain, needless to say.
There is little inherently notable in a string of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding desire for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against tycoons, bosses, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is incompatible with basic human values, and exalt the defusing, downfall, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Alters Little
And yet, for some reason, we never get around to eating the rich. Whenever politicians react to a tragic gun violence event by blaming violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — certainly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. And yet the news makes it obvious regularly that a significant portion of Americans innately associate wealth with intelligence and importance, even after a century of history's most popular movies promoting the opposite.
If anything, it appears that the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that impedes meaningful change. Provided with a steady diet of mostly happily-ever-after fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about justice being served. These stories are like cautionary fables, pretending that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will root out any malicious actors among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
A Sharper Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they indeed follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more targeted, and observably more fatal. It’s rarely enough these days 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 exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail finale, likely due to it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals operate under different standards, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exceptions
A few stories differ, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
