A familiar motif runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that stretches back in time to the days of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul investing vast sums to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and set her up for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Legacy of Film Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through abject destitution, while employing deepfakes and a sophisticated media apparatus to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality quite that directly, but its antagonists reside in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, sets the resourceful people of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who live in lavish gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to cause global armageddon — for his own profit, needless to say.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a string of movies presupposing that rich people have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is incompatible with fundamental decency, and applaud the defusing, defeat, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, for some reason, we never get around to eating the rich. On each occasion lawmakers follow a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — certainly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. But the headlines demonstrates constantly that a alarming number of Americans instinctively link affluence to competence and value to society, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies promoting the reverse.
Actually, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that hinders real-world action. Given a steady diet of mostly triumphant tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about justice being served. These movies are like cautionary fables, implying that society is just, and that plucky heroes will weed out any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they indeed follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more specific, and observably more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people gain some humility in humility, 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 legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range 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, perhaps because it’s become so clear that affluent individuals live by their own legal rules, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exclusions
There are exceptions, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
