A recurring theme permeates many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept that goes back in time to the time of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering tens of millions to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Lineage of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In the remake of *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through desperate poverty, while leveraging AI forgeries and a powerful media apparatus to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists live in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, sets the tough inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in lavish sky-high mansions in the sky. Even, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to bring about global armageddon — for financial gain, of course.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a series of movies taking it as a given that rich people have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding desire for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against fat cats, authority figures, and clueless rich men. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is incompatible with core morality, and applaud the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Fails to Transform
However, for some reason, we never get around to eating the rich. Whenever lawmakers follow a public shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. But the daily reports makes it obvious regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively associate wealth with intelligence and social worth, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies promoting the opposite.
Actually, it seems like the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that gets in the way of substantive reform. Given a frequent serving of predominantly triumphant tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away feeling good about justice being served. These stories are like ethical parables, pretending that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will identify any malicious actors among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
An Angrier Message in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more specific, and seemingly more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people gain some humility in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals operate under different standards, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to die at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exceptions
Some films diverge, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
