An age-old theme permeates a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that stretches all the way back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to defame Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering a fortune to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a wealthy villain running a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people enduring desperate poverty, while using AI forgeries and a well-honed smear campaign to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize class division as overtly, but its villains reside in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, sets the resourceful people of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in lavish sky-high mansions floating overhead. Interestingly, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plot to bring about global armageddon — for financial gain, needless to say.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a string of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding hunger for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme goes back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies pitting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against tycoons, authority figures, 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 refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is contrary to fundamental decency, and celebrate the defusing, downfall, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
And yet, for some reason, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Whenever lawmakers react to a tragic gun violence event by faulting graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people really 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 daily reports makes it obvious constantly that a alarming number of Americans innately equate riches with intelligence and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies promoting the reverse.
Actually, it seems like the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that hinders substantive reform. Given a steady diet of predominantly happily-ever-after tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater content about right prevailing. These movies are like cautionary fables, implying that society is just, and that plucky heroes will root out any malicious actors among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A Sharper Message in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they do follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more specific, and apparently more violent. It’s rarely enough these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly 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 extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail ending, perhaps because it’s become so clear that rich people operate under their own legal rules, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "behind bars" ending fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exclusions
Some films diverge, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
