An age-old motif courses through a host of 2025's popular films. This concept which extends back in time to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to smear Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering tens of millions to throw the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and set her up for murder, all for their own profit.
A Tradition of Film Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through desperate poverty, while using digital impersonations and a sophisticated propaganda machine to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its villains live in obvious luxury while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, sets the scrappy residents of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in lavish gleaming towers floating overhead. Remarkably, the zany farcical update of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to cause planetary doom — to make money, of course.
It is not inherently notable in a string of movies presupposing that the wealthy have disproportionate control, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged desire for greater riches. "Elites are the bad guys and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept dates back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is incompatible with basic human values, and exalt the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, somehow, we never actually eating the rich. On each occasion lawmakers react to a new mass shooting event by faulting violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the societal mindset — certainly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. And yet the news reveals regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with intelligence and value to society, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies communicating a contradictory message.
If anything, it looks as though the endless parade of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that gets in the way of real-world action. Provided with a regular dose of mostly happily-ever-after stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film feeling good about justice being served. These stories are like cautionary fables, implying that society is just, and that determined protagonists will identify any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
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 angrier, sharper, more targeted, and observably more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era 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, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car ending, possibly since it’s become so obvious that the wealthy function with a separate justice system, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are likely to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exclusions
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up confined to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
