A recurring motif permeates a host of 2025's popular films. It's an idea that goes back in time to the era of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire using his enormous resources to defame Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a rich pharma-bro squandering vast sums to throw the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and set her up for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Legacy of On-Screen Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist portrays a affluent bad guy operating a TV network that makes millions by taking advantage of and killing people suffering through abject destitution, while leveraging AI forgeries and a sophisticated smear campaign to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight wealth disparity as overtly, but its evil characters reside in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's poorest citizens, pushing them out of jobs and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, sets the scrappy people of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in extravagant gleaming towers in the sky. Even, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to trigger worldwide catastrophe — to make money, of course.
There is little especially new in a run of movies presupposing that the wealthy have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged desire for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a theme stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies setting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against corporate bosses, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed a similar story for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the whole legacy of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is contrary to core morality, and celebrate the defusing, downfall, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
Nevertheless, for some reason, we never actually consuming the elite. Every time politicians respond to a tragic gun violence event by faulting violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that impressionable — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — certainly American society would not persistently revere billionaires. But the headlines makes it obvious every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively link affluence to smartness and social worth, even after one hundred years of history's most popular movies conveying a contradictory message.
In fact, it looks as though the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that impedes meaningful change. Provided with a regular dose of largely happily-ever-after fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away content about good conquering evil. These stories are like moral fairy tales, implying that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will weed out any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
But while 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more enraged, sharper, more specific, and seemingly more lethal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or be stripped of wealth to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the hauled off to jail ending, possibly since it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals operate under a separate justice system, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are prone to perish at the end of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Outliers
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* finds himself confined to the digital realm, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
