A recurring idea runs through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that stretches back in time to the days of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul spending a fortune to trap the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people living in abject destitution, while using deepfakes and a well-honed media apparatus to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division as overtly, but its evil characters reside in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, contrasts the resourceful residents of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit extravagant gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Even, the zany comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, of course.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a string of movies presupposing that the wealthy have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the early days of film, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, authority figures, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is incompatible with basic human values, and exalt the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Outlet That Changes Nothing
Nevertheless, for some reason, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Whenever politicians respond to a public shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that impressionable — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — surely American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. And yet the daily reports reveals regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously equate riches with smartness and social worth, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies communicating the reverse.
In fact, it appears that the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that impedes meaningful change. Offered a regular dose of mostly triumphant stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away feeling good about justice being served. These stories are like cautionary fables, implying that society is just, and that resourceful individuals will identify any bad apples among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they do follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more direct, and seemingly more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, possibly since it’s become so apparent that the wealthy live by a separate justice system, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exceptions
Some films diverge, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator 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 wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
