An age-old idea permeates a host of 2025's popular films. This notion which extends far back to the days of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his enormous resources to defame Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul spending a fortune to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a clan of super-wealthy lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Lineage of On-Screen Class Warfare
In *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate plays a wealthy villain running a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people living in desperate poverty, while leveraging AI forgeries and a powerful media apparatus to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about wealth disparity as overtly, but its villains live in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them out of jobs and into bondage. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top movie, contrasts the scrappy inhabitants of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who live in opulent gleaming towers in the sky. Remarkably, the lighthearted farcical update of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to trigger global armageddon — for financial gain, needless to say.
It is not inherently notable in a run of movies presupposing that rich people have disproportionate control, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding hunger for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device dates back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his always poor beloved underdog against fat cats, bosses, and clueless rich men. Starting 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 exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the complete chronicle of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that affluence is contrary to core morality, and applaud the defusing, defeat, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
And yet, inexplicably, we consistently fail to taking down the wealthy. Whenever lawmakers respond to a new mass shooting event by faulting violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that susceptible — if frequent consumption to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. Still the news makes it obvious regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans innately associate wealth with competence and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies promoting a contradictory message.
In fact, it looks as though the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that impedes real-world action. Provided with a frequent serving of predominantly uplifting stories where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about good conquering evil. These movies are like moral fairy tales, implying that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will root out any corrupt individuals among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded through sheer effort.
An Angrier Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies are not novel in that respect, they do follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more targeted, 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 forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car ending, perhaps because it’s become so clear that rich people function with different standards, and are very likely to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending no longer satisfies anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to perish at the final act of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Significant Outliers
A few stories differ, of course. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up 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 wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
