An age-old motif 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 antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to defame Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro spending tens of millions to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena to boost his wealth. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, all for their own profit.
A Lineage of Film Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a rich antagonist operating a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through desperate poverty, while using deepfakes and a powerful propaganda machine to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about economic inequality quite that directly, but its villains enjoy clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them into unemployment and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, sets the resourceful inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who live in opulent gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Interestingly, the zany humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to cause worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, of course.
There is little particularly surprising in a run of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme goes back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies pitting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is contrary to basic human values, and exalt the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Outlet That Fails to Transform
And yet, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Whenever lawmakers react to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — surely American society would not continue to revere billionaires. But the news demonstrates every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with smartness and value to society, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies conveying the opposite.
If anything, it appears that the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that hinders real-world action. Given a regular dose of mostly triumphant fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away satisfied about justice being served. These stories are like moral fairy tales, pretending that society is just, and that determined protagonists will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more direct, and apparently more lethal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, likely due to it’s become so apparent that the wealthy function with different standards, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending fails to deliver anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Exceptions
Some films diverge, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the computer world, teasing that he is 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 wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
