A recurring theme runs through numerous 2025's popular films. This notion that stretches all the way back to the days of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a rich pharma-bro investing a fortune to throw the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for personal amusement. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, all for their financial benefit.
A Tradition of Film Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people enduring abject destitution, while employing digital impersonations and a powerful smear campaign to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about class division in such a blunt manner, but its evil characters reside in conspicuous opulence while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them out of jobs and into cages or slavery. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, pits the tough inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in extravagant gleaming towers above the clouds. Even, the zany comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's plan to bring about planetary doom — to make money, naturally.
It is not inherently notable in a series of movies assuming as fact that the wealthy have excessive influence, are devoid of conscience, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his perpetually impoverished iconic vagrant against fat cats, bosses, and bumbling wealthy fools. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" classic musicals to the 1980s dance movies that refreshed that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that riches is incompatible with core morality, and applaud the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes destruction of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
Nevertheless, somehow, we never get around to consuming the elite. On each occasion politicians react to a public shooting event by blaming popular entertainment, I feel exasperated, because if people truly were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the collective psyche — surely American society wouldn’t still idolize billionaires. But the news makes it obvious every single day that a significant portion of Americans instinctively link affluence to intelligence and importance, even after a century of history's most popular movies conveying the opposite.
If anything, it appears that the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has provided us with a pressure release that impedes real-world action. Offered a steady diet of mostly happily-ever-after fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film content about justice being served. These movies are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that institutions function, and that resourceful individuals will root out any malicious actors among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves through sheer effort.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting more furious, more pointed, more specific, and apparently more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people be taught a 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, selfish, cruel affluent villains were slaughtered by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car ending, likely due to it’s become so obvious that the wealthy operate under their own legal rules, and are very likely 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 brutal, poetic ways.
Key Outliers
Some films diverge, certainly. Lex Luthor in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator 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* is stripped of all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
