An age-old theme courses through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea which extends back in time to the days of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his immense fortune to defame Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul squandering tens of millions to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through desperate poverty, while using digital impersonations and a well-honed propaganda machine to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division as overtly, but its evil characters live in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, driving them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, contrasts the scrappy residents of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who live in lavish gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Even, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to trigger global armageddon — for financial gain, naturally.
There is little inherently notable in a series of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding hunger for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept dates back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his always poor iconic vagrant against fat cats, authority figures, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is at odds with core morality, and exalt the defusing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Release That Fails to Transform
However, for some reason, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion lawmakers follow a tragic gun violence event by faulting violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — surely American society would not persistently worship billionaires. But the daily reports demonstrates regularly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously link affluence to competence and importance, even after decades 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 provided us with a pressure release that hinders meaningful change. Provided with a steady diet of predominantly happily-ever-after tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film satisfied about justice being served. These stories are like ethical parables, implying that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they do follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more specific, and seemingly more violent. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the driven away in cuffs ending, possibly since it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals live by different standards, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Exclusions
Some films diverge, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
