A recurring idea runs through numerous 2025's popular films. It's an idea that goes far back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul squandering a fortune to throw the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, purely for their own profit.
A Tradition of Film Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a wealthy villain operating a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people living in desperate poverty, while leveraging digital impersonations and a powerful smear campaign to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about wealth disparity quite that directly, but its evil characters enjoy clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, pits the resourceful inhabitants of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in opulent gleaming towers floating overhead. Even, the lighthearted humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to cause worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, needless to say.
It is not inherently notable in a run of movies presupposing that the wealthy have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme dates back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against fat cats, authority figures, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is incompatible with fundamental decency, and applaud the defusing, defeat, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Alters Little
However, somehow, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion elected officials respond to a public shooting event by pointing fingers at violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the collective psyche — undoubtedly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. But the news makes it obvious regularly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously equate riches with intelligence and value to society, even after decades of history's most popular movies promoting the opposite.
In fact, it appears that the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a relief valve that gets in the way of substantive reform. Offered a regular dose of predominantly triumphant fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away satisfied about justice being served. These films are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that society is just, and that plucky heroes will identify any malicious actors among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they do follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more direct, and apparently more lethal. It is seldom sufficient these days to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, possibly since it’s become so clear that rich people live by different standards, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to perish at the conclusion of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exceptions
Some films diverge, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
