An age-old idea runs through many of 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept which extends far back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to smear Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul investing vast sums to cast the heroes into a prehistoric arena for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Cinematic Elite Villainy
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a wealthy villain running a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through extreme hardship, while using deepfakes and a powerful smear campaign to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division as overtly, but its villains reside in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them into unemployment and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, contrasts the tough people of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit opulent sky-high mansions in the sky. Remarkably, the lighthearted humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to bring about planetary doom — for his own profit, needless to say.
There’s nothing especially new in a run of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding desire for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept dates back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against corporate bosses, industrialists, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is at odds with basic human values, and exalt the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Outlet That Alters Little
Nevertheless, somehow, we never get around to eating the rich. On each occasion lawmakers follow a public shooting event by blaming violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — surely American society would not persistently worship billionaires. But the headlines reveals every single day that a significant portion of Americans instinctively associate wealth with smartness and value to society, even after a century of cinema's biggest movies promoting the opposite.
Actually, it appears that the never-ending cycle of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that gets in the way of substantive reform. Provided with a steady diet of largely happily-ever-after stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like moral fairy tales, implying that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will identify any bad apples among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they do follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more direct, and seemingly more violent. It’s rarely enough nowadays 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 rich individuals were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, possibly since it’s become so apparent that rich people live by a separate justice system, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to die at the final act of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exceptions
Some films diverge, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
