A familiar theme runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that stretches back in time to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to defame Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro spending tens of millions to cast the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of On-Screen Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people living in extreme hardship, while employing AI forgeries and a well-honed media apparatus to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality quite that directly, but its villains enjoy conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, pits the scrappy inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit lavish gleaming towers floating overhead. Even, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to cause global armageddon — for his own profit, needless to say.
There is little particularly surprising in a string of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged desire for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his always poor iconic vagrant against tycoons, authority figures, 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 refreshed a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is incompatible with core morality, and exalt the defusing, routing, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
However, somehow, we never actually consuming the elite. Whenever elected officials respond to a public shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. Still the daily reports reveals regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously link affluence to competence and social worth, even after decades of history's most popular movies promoting the reverse.
If anything, it seems like the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that impedes meaningful change. Offered a regular dose of mostly triumphant tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about right prevailing. These movies are like ethical parables, pretending that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will root out any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they do follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more targeted, and apparently more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, likely due to it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals function with their own legal rules, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to perish at the end of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exclusions
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. 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 unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
