A recurring motif runs through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This notion that goes far back to the time of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to smear Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro squandering tens of millions to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Film Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people living in extreme hardship, while employing digital impersonations and a sophisticated propaganda machine to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists enjoy obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, driving them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, pits the tough people of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit lavish gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Remarkably, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to cause global armageddon — for financial gain, of course.
There is little inherently notable in a series of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept goes back to the birth of movies, with early comedies contrasting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against fat cats, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with 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 greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is incompatible with basic human values, and exalt the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
And yet, somehow, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. Every time lawmakers react to a public shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that susceptible — if repeated viewing 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 innately associate wealth with smartness and importance, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies conveying the reverse.
Actually, it looks as though the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that gets in the way of meaningful change. Given a frequent serving of mostly triumphant fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about justice being served. These movies are like moral fairy tales, pretending that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will weed out any malicious actors among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they do follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more direct, and apparently more violent. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car ending, possibly since it’s become so obvious that rich people function with their own legal rules, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Exclusions
Some films diverge, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
