An age-old motif permeates a host of 2025's popular films. This concept that goes far back to the days of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul investing vast sums to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena to boost his wealth. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and pinned the blame on her for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people living in abject destitution, while employing digital impersonations and a sophisticated media apparatus to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity quite that directly, but its antagonists reside in conspicuous opulence while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them into unemployment and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, contrasts the tough people of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in lavish sky-high mansions above the clouds. Even, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to cause planetary doom — for his own profit, needless to say.
There is little especially new in a run of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against corporate bosses, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is contrary to core morality, and celebrate the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Outlet That Alters Little
However, inexplicably, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion lawmakers react to a tragic gun violence event by faulting graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people really 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 continue to worship billionaires. And yet the news reveals regularly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously link affluence to competence and value to society, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies promoting a contradictory message.
Actually, it looks as though the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has provided us with a relief valve that impedes meaningful change. Given a regular dose of predominantly happily-ever-after stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater content about good conquering evil. These stories are like cautionary fables, suggesting that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will root out any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more specific, and apparently more violent. It’s rarely enough 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 subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that rich people operate under a separate justice system, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "off to face justice" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Rather, these villains are apt to meet their end at the conclusion of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exceptions
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the digital realm, teasing that he is 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 Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
