A familiar motif runs through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that stretches all the way back to the days of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his vast wealth to smear Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul squandering tens of millions to cast the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Tradition of Film Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a rich antagonist operating a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through abject destitution, while employing digital impersonations and a powerful propaganda machine to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its villains reside in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them into unemployment and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, sets the resourceful people of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit lavish gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to cause global armageddon — to make money, naturally.
There’s nothing especially new in a string of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding desire for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the early days of film, with early comedies contrasting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against fat cats, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is contrary to basic human values, and celebrate the defusing, downfall, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Release That Alters Little
And yet, somehow, we never get around to consuming the elite. On each occasion lawmakers follow a tragic gun violence event by faulting violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. But the daily reports demonstrates every single day that a alarming number of Americans innately equate riches with smartness and social worth, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies promoting the opposite.
If anything, it seems like the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that gets in the way of meaningful change. Provided with a steady diet of largely happily-ever-after stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about right prevailing. These movies are like ethical parables, suggesting that society is just, and that determined protagonists will weed out any malicious actors among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
An Angrier Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more direct, and apparently more violent. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, possibly since it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals function with their own legal rules, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to perish at the end of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Outliers
Some films diverge, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
