An age-old motif runs through numerous 2025's popular films. It's an idea that goes back in time to the era of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's greatest hero while orchestrating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul spending tens of millions to trap the heroes into a prehistoric arena for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Film Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that profits hugely by taking advantage of and killing people living in extreme hardship, while leveraging deepfakes and a sophisticated media apparatus to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division as overtly, but its villains live in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them from their homes and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, contrasts the scrappy people of a hardscrabble farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in extravagant gleaming towers in the sky. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy farcical update *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to trigger global armageddon — to make money, naturally.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a string of movies taking it as a given that the wealthy have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the dawn of cinema, with the Little Tramp's adventures contrasting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, bosses, 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 refreshed that very premise for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that affluence is incompatible with basic human values, and celebrate the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
However, inexplicably, we never actually taking down the wealthy. On each occasion lawmakers react to a public shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not continue to worship billionaires. Still the headlines demonstrates every single day that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with smartness and value to society, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies conveying a contradictory message.
If anything, it appears that the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a pressure release that gets in the way of meaningful change. Offered a steady diet of predominantly happily-ever-after tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can finish the film feeling good about justice being served. These stories are like moral fairy tales, implying that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will identify any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they do follow some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more targeted, and apparently more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so obvious that the wealthy live by different standards, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to die at the end of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Significant Exceptions
Some films diverge, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself exiled to the computer world, 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 Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
