A recurring motif courses through many of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that stretches back in time to the time of silent film comedy. In James Gunn’s *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his enormous resources to smear Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending a fortune to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and pinned the blame on her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of On-Screen Elite Villainy
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a rich antagonist running a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people living in extreme hardship, while using AI forgeries and a sophisticated smear campaign to depict them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight class division in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists reside in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them into unemployment and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, contrasts the resourceful inhabitants of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit lavish gold-and-jade palaces above the clouds. Even, the zany humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to bring about global armageddon — to make money, of course.
There is little inherently notable in a series of movies assuming as fact that rich people have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a endless, demanding appetite for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme goes back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures setting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that updated the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is at odds with basic human values, and applaud the neutralizing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Release That Changes Nothing
However, somehow, we consistently fail to eating the rich. Whenever politicians react to a tragic gun violence event by faulting popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people really were that easily influenced — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — certainly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. Still the daily reports reveals constantly that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively link affluence to smartness and importance, even after one hundred years of cinema's biggest movies promoting the reverse.
If anything, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that gets in the way of meaningful change. Given a steady diet of largely uplifting tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away feeling good about good conquering evil. These stories are like ethical parables, suggesting that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will weed out any corrupt individuals among the mostly hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting more furious, more incisive, more direct, and seemingly more lethal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful rich individuals were slaughtered 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 gunned down at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, possibly since it’s become so apparent that rich people operate under their own legal rules, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" resolution fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to die at the final act of their movies, often in especially grotesque, ironic ways.
Key Exceptions
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself banished to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
