A recurring theme permeates many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that goes all the way back to the time of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his vast wealth to defame Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro investing tens of millions to cast the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and pinned the blame on her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Film Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people suffering through abject destitution, while leveraging digital impersonations and a well-honed propaganda machine to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about economic inequality as overtly, but its villains reside in conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, sets the resourceful people of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Remarkably, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to bring about planetary doom — for his own profit, naturally.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a run of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged desire for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme goes back to the birth of movies, with early comedies setting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against corporate bosses, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting 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 exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is incompatible with fundamental decency, and applaud the defusing, defeat, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Release That Alters Little
And yet, inexplicably, we consistently fail to consuming the elite. Whenever politicians react to a tragic gun violence event by blaming violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — certainly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. But the headlines makes it obvious constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately equate riches with intelligence and importance, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies communicating the opposite.
Actually, it seems like the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that gets in the way of substantive reform. Offered a steady diet of mostly triumphant stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater feeling good about good conquering evil. These stories are like ethical parables, implying that society is just, and that plucky heroes will weed out any corrupt individuals among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more targeted, and observably more violent. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, likely due to it’s become so obvious that rich people live by different standards, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to die at the final act of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exclusions
A few stories differ, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
