An age-old theme courses through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that stretches all the way back to the era of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his enormous resources to smear Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro squandering a fortune to throw the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and set her up for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people living in desperate poverty, while using AI forgeries and a powerful smear campaign to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters live in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them out of jobs and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, contrasts the scrappy inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in extravagant gleaming towers floating overhead. Remarkably, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to cause global armageddon — for financial gain, of course.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a string of movies presupposing that the wealthy have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against tycoons, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s 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 take it for granted that riches is incompatible with core morality, and exalt the defusing, routing, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
However, for some reason, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Every time politicians follow a new mass shooting event by faulting violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — certainly American society would not continue to idolize billionaires. And yet the daily reports reveals constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately equate riches with intelligence and value to society, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies promoting the opposite.
Actually, it seems like the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that gets in the way of meaningful change. Offered a regular dose of predominantly triumphant fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away satisfied about good conquering evil. These stories are like cautionary fables, suggesting that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will root out any corrupt individuals among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they do follow some modern developments among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more targeted, and observably more fatal. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car ending, perhaps because it’s become so clear that the wealthy function with a separate justice system, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exclusions
A few stories differ, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
