A familiar theme runs through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that stretches far back to the era of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to defame Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing tens of millions to trap the heroes into a prehistoric arena for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Legacy of Cinematic Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a wealthy villain running a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through extreme hardship, while employing deepfakes and a powerful propaganda machine to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity as overtly, but its antagonists enjoy obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, sets the scrappy people of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit opulent gleaming towers above the clouds. Remarkably, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to trigger global armageddon — for financial gain, of course.
There is little especially new in a series of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his always poor iconic vagrant against tycoons, industrialists, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is contrary to basic human values, and celebrate the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Alters Little
And yet, somehow, we never actually taking down the wealthy. On each occasion elected officials respond to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. But the headlines demonstrates constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously equate riches with smartness and social worth, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies conveying the opposite.
In fact, it appears that the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that gets in the way of meaningful change. Provided with a regular dose of predominantly triumphant tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away content about good conquering evil. These stories are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any bad apples among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they do follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more targeted, and apparently more violent. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people gain some humility 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 killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so clear that rich people operate under different standards, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Outliers
A few stories differ, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. 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 unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
