A familiar theme runs through a host of 2025's popular films. This notion that stretches all the way back to the time of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his enormous resources to defame Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir investing vast sums to throw the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Lineage of Film Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that makes millions by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through desperate poverty, while using deepfakes and a sophisticated propaganda machine to depict them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn’t emphasize economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its villains enjoy clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them into unemployment and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, pits the scrappy people of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in lavish sky-high mansions in the sky. Interestingly, the zany comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, naturally.
There’s nothing especially new in a run of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding appetite for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the birth of movies, with early comedies contrasting his always poor iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the exploitative, damaging Silicon Valley antagonist, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is incompatible with core morality, and applaud the defusing, routing, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
And yet, inexplicably, we never actually taking down the wealthy. On each occasion elected officials respond to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people really were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — surely American society would not persistently worship billionaires. Still the headlines demonstrates every single day that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously equate riches with smartness and social worth, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies conveying the opposite.
If anything, it looks as though the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that impedes substantive reform. Offered a steady diet of mostly triumphant tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about justice being served. These films are like cautionary fables, implying that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will identify any corrupt individuals among the generally hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
An Angrier Message 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, more pointed, more targeted, and observably more fatal. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, possibly since it’s become so clear that the wealthy operate under different standards, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "off to face justice" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exclusions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is only humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
