A familiar theme runs through many of 2025's popular films. This concept which extends all the way back to the time of silent film comedy. In the new *Superman* film, the antagonist is a jealous, sociopathic billionaire exploiting his immense fortune to tarnish Earth's mightiest protector while manipulating world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending a fortune to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed death trap for personal amusement. In *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a well-meaning mother's life-changing idea and framed her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a affluent bad guy controlling a TV network that profits hugely by exploiting and murdering people living in desperate poverty, while using AI forgeries and a powerful smear campaign to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight economic inequality quite that directly, but its antagonists live in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, forcing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, contrasts the resourceful residents of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit extravagant gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Even, the zany farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plan to trigger worldwide catastrophe — to make money, of course.
There’s nothing especially new in a string of movies taking it as a given that the affluent have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a insatiable, privileged desire for more wealth. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device goes back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against tycoons, industrialists, and bumbling wealthy fools. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised a similar story for the era of the exploitative, damaging tech-bro villain, the entire history of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is contrary to fundamental decency, and exalt the defusing, downfall, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
And yet, for some reason, we never actually taking down the wealthy. On each occasion elected officials respond to a new mass shooting event by blaming violent video games, I feel exasperated, because if people actually were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — surely American society would not continue to revere billionaires. And yet the daily reports reveals constantly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with competence and importance, even after a century of history's most popular movies communicating the opposite.
In fact, it appears that the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that impedes substantive reform. Provided with a frequent serving of predominantly happily-ever-after fables where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are neutralized and shamed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about good conquering evil. These stories are like ethical parables, suggesting that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will identify any bad apples among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up by their bootstraps.
A Sharper Message in 2025
But while 2025's movies are not novel in that sense, they certainly adhere to some recent trends among class warfare stories: They’re getting more enraged, more pointed, more specific, and observably more lethal. It is seldom sufficient in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, greedy, hateful affluent villains were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on national television (*The Running Man*). They were murdered with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the packed into a police car conclusion, possibly since it’s become so clear that affluent individuals operate under different standards, and are very likely to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" outcome fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to perish at the final act of their movies, often in particularly brutal, poetic ways.
Notable Outliers
There are exceptions, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up confined to the digital realm, a setup that obviously being saved for a follow-up film. 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 unmasked as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
