A recurring theme courses through numerous 2025's popular films. This concept that goes back in time to the era of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire wielding his enormous resources to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul investing tens of millions to throw the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and set her up for murder, purely for their financial benefit.
A Lineage of Film Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin portrays a wealthy villain running a TV network that earns a fortune by preying upon and eliminating people living in desperate poverty, while leveraging digital impersonations and a powerful media apparatus to label them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters enjoy obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them from their homes and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, pits the resourceful people of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit opulent sky-high mansions floating overhead. Remarkably, the lighthearted comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to cause global armageddon — to make money, naturally.
There is little especially new in a run of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme dates back to the early days of film, with early comedies contrasting his chronically destitute iconic vagrant against tycoons, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated a similar story 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 at odds with core morality, and applaud the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
However, somehow, we never get around to consuming the elite. Every time politicians react to a public shooting event by faulting graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — surely American society would not persistently worship billionaires. And yet the daily reports demonstrates every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously link affluence to smartness and importance, even after a century of the world's most beloved movies conveying the reverse.
Actually, it seems like the never-ending cycle of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that gets in the way of meaningful change. Given a regular dose of largely happily-ever-after stories where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can walk away feeling good about right prevailing. These movies are like ethical parables, implying that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will root out any corrupt individuals among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they do follow some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more direct, and apparently more lethal. It is seldom sufficient these days 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 exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful wealthy people were eliminated by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the packed into a police car finale, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that rich people operate under different standards, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to die at the final act of their movies, often in especially brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Outliers
A few stories differ, undoubtedly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is transformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
