An age-old idea runs through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that goes all the way back to the era of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to smear Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul squandering a fortune to trap the heroes into a monster-filled death trap to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people enduring desperate poverty, while using deepfakes and a well-honed media apparatus to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight wealth disparity quite that directly, but its villains live in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them into unemployment and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, contrasts the resourceful inhabitants of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in lavish gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Interestingly, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to bring about planetary doom — for his own profit, of course.
There is little particularly surprising in a string of movies presupposing that the affluent have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding desire for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept goes back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with 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 rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is incompatible with fundamental decency, and applaud the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Release That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we consistently fail to eating the rich. On each occasion lawmakers follow a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — surely American society would not continue to revere billionaires. But the news makes it obvious regularly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively equate riches with smartness and social worth, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies communicating the opposite.
If anything, it appears that the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that hinders substantive reform. Given a frequent serving of predominantly happily-ever-after tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film content about right prevailing. These films are like ethical parables, implying that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will root out any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more targeted, and observably more lethal. It is seldom sufficient these days 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 wealthy people were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, possibly since it’s become so obvious that rich people live by different standards, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Exclusions
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. 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 thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
