A recurring idea runs through a host of 2025's blockbuster hits. It's an idea that stretches back in time to the era of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire using his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul squandering vast sums to cast the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people enduring extreme hardship, while employing digital impersonations and a well-honed smear campaign to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize wealth disparity quite that directly, but its villains reside in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, sets the resourceful residents of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who live in opulent gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Interestingly, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to trigger global armageddon — to make money, naturally.
It is not inherently notable in a series of movies presupposing that the affluent have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged desire for increased fortune. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme dates back to the birth of movies, with early comedies contrasting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is at odds with core morality, and applaud the overthrowing, defeat, and sometimes destruction of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
Nevertheless, for some reason, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Whenever politicians respond to a public shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. Still the daily reports demonstrates every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively link affluence to intelligence and value to society, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies promoting the reverse.
If anything, it appears that the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that gets in the way of meaningful change. Provided with a frequent serving of largely uplifting tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about good conquering evil. These stories are like moral fairy tales, pretending that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will weed out any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, sharper, more specific, and observably more fatal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail ending, possibly since it’s become so clear that rich people function with a separate justice system, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to die at the end of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exceptions
A few stories differ, of course. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the computer world, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
