A recurring idea permeates a host of 2025's popular films. This concept that goes back in time to the days of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul spending a fortune to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and framed her for murder, solely for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of Cinematic Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people enduring extreme hardship, while leveraging AI forgeries and a well-honed propaganda machine to label them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists enjoy clear extravagance while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them out of jobs and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, contrasts the tough inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against haughty aristocrats who dwell in opulent gleaming towers in the sky. Even, the lighthearted comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to trigger worldwide catastrophe — to make money, naturally.
It is not especially new in a run of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have too much power, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against tycoons, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is incompatible with core morality, and applaud the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Release That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, somehow, we never get around to eating the rich. On each occasion elected officials react to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — certainly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. But the headlines demonstrates every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously equate riches with intelligence and social worth, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies communicating a contradictory message.
Actually, it seems like the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that impedes meaningful change. Given a frequent serving of mostly happily-ever-after fables where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can finish the film satisfied about right prevailing. These stories are like ethical parables, implying that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will weed out any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that regard, they do follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more incisive, more specific, and apparently more lethal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel rich individuals were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and executed at close range on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car finale, likely due to it’s become so obvious that the wealthy live by different standards, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" outcome isn’t cathartic anymore. Conversely, these villains are apt to perish at the end of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exceptions
There are exceptions, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the virtual grid, teasing that he is being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
