A recurring theme courses through many of 2025's popular films. This notion which extends far back to the era of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his enormous resources to defame Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending a fortune to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of On-Screen Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people enduring abject destitution, while using digital impersonations and a powerful media apparatus to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists live in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, contrasts the scrappy residents of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit lavish gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to trigger global armageddon — for financial gain, of course.
There’s nothing particularly surprising in a series of movies presupposing that rich people have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged desire for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his always poor beloved underdog against corporate bosses, authority figures, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that revised that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is at odds with fundamental decency, and celebrate the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
And yet, inexplicably, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion elected officials react to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — certainly American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. But the daily reports demonstrates regularly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively associate wealth with smartness and value to society, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies promoting a contradictory message.
Actually, it seems like the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that impedes substantive reform. Provided with a frequent serving of predominantly uplifting fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film content about right prevailing. 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 lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more targeted, and apparently more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car finale, possibly since it’s become so obvious that affluent individuals operate under different standards, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Rather, these villains are prone to perish at the end of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Key Exceptions
Some films diverge, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
