A recurring idea courses through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that stretches back in time to the days of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul squandering a fortune to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people living in extreme hardship, while using AI forgeries and a well-honed media apparatus to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists reside in clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them into unemployment and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, pits the scrappy inhabitants of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in opulent gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Even, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to bring about global armageddon — for his own profit, of course.
There is little especially new in a run of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept goes back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against fat cats, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting 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 whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is contrary to fundamental decency, and celebrate the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Fails to Transform
However, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. On each occasion politicians follow a public shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. Still the headlines reveals every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously equate riches with competence and social worth, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies promoting the opposite.
Actually, it looks as though the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that gets in the way of real-world action. Given a frequent serving of mostly happily-ever-after fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about right prevailing. These movies are like ethical parables, implying that society is just, and that plucky heroes will identify any bad apples among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more targeted, and seemingly more lethal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, 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 rich individuals were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car finale, likely due to it’s become so obvious that rich people operate under a separate justice system, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Outliers
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the digital realm, 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 wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
