A recurring motif permeates numerous 2025's popular films. This concept which extends far back to the era of the Little Tramp. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul spending vast sums to trap the heroes into a prehistoric arena for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Cinematic Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a rich antagonist running a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people living in desperate poverty, while leveraging deepfakes and a well-honed propaganda machine to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division quite that directly, but its evil characters enjoy obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, driving them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, sets the resourceful inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in extravagant gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Remarkably, the zany comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's scheme to trigger planetary doom — to make money, needless to say.
There is little especially new in a string of movies assuming as fact that rich people have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding desire for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against tycoons, bosses, and clueless rich men. 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 replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is at odds with core morality, and exalt the defusing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Alters Little
However, somehow, we never get around to consuming the elite. Every time elected officials follow a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I sigh with frustration, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — certainly American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. Still the daily reports demonstrates every single day that a alarming number of Americans innately associate wealth with intelligence and importance, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies conveying a contradictory message.
Actually, it looks as though the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that hinders substantive reform. Given a regular dose of predominantly happily-ever-after stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can walk away content about good conquering evil. These films are like cautionary fables, suggesting that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will weed out any malicious actors among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they do follow some recent trends among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more direct, and observably more violent. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people be taught a lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail ending, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that rich people function with a separate justice system, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to die at the final act of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exclusions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
