A familiar motif courses through numerous 2025's popular films. This notion which extends all the way back to the time of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his enormous resources to defame Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir spending a fortune to trap the heroes into a prehistoric danger zone for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and set her up for murder, all for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of Cinematic Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people living in abject destitution, while leveraging digital impersonations and a sophisticated media apparatus to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality as overtly, but its villains reside in obvious luxury while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, forcing them from their homes and into cages or slavery. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one movie, pits the tough residents of a struggling farm town against arrogant elites who dwell in lavish gleaming towers above the clouds. Interestingly, the lighthearted farcical update *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to trigger global armageddon — to make money, of course.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a series of movies assuming as fact that the affluent have excessive influence, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged appetite for more wealth. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the birth of movies, with the Little Tramp's adventures pitting his always poor Little Tramp character against tycoons, authority figures, and inept, drunken millionaires. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which take it for granted that wealth is incompatible with basic human values, and celebrate the defusing, routing, 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 react to a new mass shooting event by blaming violent video games, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that impressionable — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the collective psyche — certainly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. And yet the daily reports reveals constantly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously equate riches with smartness and importance, even after a century of history's most popular movies promoting the reverse.
If anything, it appears that the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has created a relief valve that impedes substantive reform. Given a frequent serving of predominantly uplifting stories where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away content about good conquering evil. These movies are like cautionary fables, pretending that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will weed out any bad apples among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up through sheer effort.
An Angrier Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among anti-wealth stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more specific, and seemingly more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or lose their money to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious affluent villains were killed by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed directly on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s super-wealthy villains get the packed into a police car ending, possibly since it’s become so obvious that the wealthy live by their own legal rules, and are highly probable to purchase their freedom."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to perish at the end of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exceptions
A few stories differ, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are exposed as thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
