An age-old theme permeates numerous 2025's popular films. This notion that goes back in time to the days of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his enormous resources to defame Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering vast sums to cast the heroes into a monster-filled arena for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's altruistic invention and framed her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Cinematic Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin embodies a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people enduring extreme hardship, while using AI forgeries and a powerful media apparatus to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about wealth disparity quite that directly, but its villains live in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, sets the resourceful residents of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who live in opulent sky-high mansions in the sky. Interestingly, the lighthearted farcical update of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to trigger worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, needless to say.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a series of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding appetite for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme goes back to the birth of movies, with Chaplin’s silent movies contrasting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. From 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 rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is incompatible with basic human values, and celebrate the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes elimination of elite figures.
The Outlet That Alters Little
However, somehow, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Whenever lawmakers follow a public shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. Still the daily reports demonstrates constantly that a significant portion of Americans instinctively link affluence to competence and social worth, even after decades of history's most popular movies conveying the opposite.
In fact, it appears that the constant stream of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has provided us with a safety outlet that hinders substantive reform. Offered a frequent serving of predominantly uplifting tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away satisfied about justice being served. These stories are like cautionary fables, pretending that society is just, and that plucky heroes will identify any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that sense, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more specific, and apparently more fatal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson 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 wealthy people were slaughtered by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious 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 affluent individuals function with different standards, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to perish at the final act of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Outliers
There are exceptions, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the virtual grid, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
