An age-old theme permeates numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that goes back in time to the era of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to smear Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering tens of millions to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Film Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a wealthy villain operating a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people living in abject destitution, while using AI forgeries and a sophisticated smear campaign to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight wealth disparity quite that directly, but its villains reside in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top film, sets the tough inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit lavish gleaming towers in the sky. Remarkably, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to trigger planetary doom — to make money, needless to say.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a run of movies assuming as fact that rich people have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding desire for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his always poor beloved underdog against fat cats, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is at odds with basic human values, and celebrate the defusing, defeat, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Changes Nothing
However, somehow, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Whenever politicians respond to a public shooting event by blaming violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. And yet the news makes it obvious every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively associate wealth with intelligence and social worth, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies promoting the opposite.
In fact, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that gets in the way of meaningful change. Given a steady diet of largely happily-ever-after stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about right prevailing. These stories are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any corrupt individuals among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they do follow some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more targeted, and observably more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, 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 slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail finale, possibly since it’s become so clear that affluent individuals function with different standards, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to die at the end of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Key Exclusions
A few stories differ, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
