A familiar theme runs through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept which extends far back to the days of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his enormous resources to defame Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending a fortune to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Film Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people suffering through abject destitution, while using AI forgeries and a sophisticated smear campaign to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity as overtly, but its antagonists enjoy clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them from their homes and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, sets the resourceful people of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Even, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to cause global armageddon — for financial gain, naturally.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a string of movies assuming as fact that rich people have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled desire for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his always poor Little Tramp character against fat cats, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is at odds with core morality, and exalt the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Whenever elected officials follow a public shooting event by faulting graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — surely American society would not continue to worship billionaires. Still the headlines reveals regularly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously equate riches with competence and social worth, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies communicating a contradictory message.
Actually, it looks as though the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that hinders real-world action. Offered a steady diet of largely uplifting stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater content about right prevailing. These stories are like ethical parables, pretending that society is just, and that plucky heroes will weed out any malicious actors among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they do follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more specific, and observably more violent. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson 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 killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals function with different standards, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to perish at the end of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exclusions
Some films diverge, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
