A recurring idea runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that stretches back in time to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to defame Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul spending vast sums to throw the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people living in extreme hardship, while using digital impersonations and a powerful propaganda machine to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity quite that directly, but its evil characters live in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, pits the scrappy people of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in lavish gleaming towers above the clouds. Even, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to trigger planetary doom — for his own profit, needless to say.
It is not especially new in a run of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding hunger for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his always poor iconic vagrant against fat cats, industrialists, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is contrary to basic human values, and applaud the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, somehow, we never actually consuming the elite. On each occasion lawmakers respond to a tragic gun violence event by faulting graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — certainly American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. But the daily reports reveals regularly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously link affluence to intelligence and value to society, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies communicating the opposite.
Actually, it appears that the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that impedes substantive reform. Offered a frequent serving of mostly triumphant fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film content about good conquering evil. These movies are like cautionary fables, suggesting that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they do follow some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more targeted, and seemingly more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory 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 exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail finale, likely due to it’s become so clear that affluent individuals live by a separate justice system, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to perish at the end of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exclusions
Some films diverge, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
