An age-old theme runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that stretches all the way back to the time of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to smear Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul investing vast sums to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a rich antagonist running a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people enduring extreme hardship, while using AI forgeries and a sophisticated media apparatus to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality quite that directly, but its evil characters enjoy conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, pits the tough inhabitants of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in extravagant sky-high mansions above the clouds. Even, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to cause global armageddon — to make money, needless to say.
There is little inherently notable in a string of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding appetite for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his always poor beloved underdog against fat cats, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. 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 take it for granted that riches is at odds with fundamental decency, and celebrate the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Changes Nothing
However, for some reason, we never actually consuming the elite. On each occasion politicians react to a new mass shooting event by blaming violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. And yet the headlines demonstrates constantly that a alarming number of Americans instinctively link affluence to competence and social worth, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies conveying a contradictory message.
In fact, it appears that the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that impedes meaningful change. Provided with a frequent serving of largely triumphant stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about right prevailing. These stories are like cautionary fables, pretending that society is just, and that plucky heroes will identify any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more direct, and observably more fatal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that the wealthy function with their own legal rules, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Outliers
A few stories differ, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
