A familiar motif courses through a host of 2025's popular films. This notion that stretches all the way back to the time of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the villain is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his vast wealth to defame Earth's superhero icon while manipulating world events for personal gain. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro squandering tens of millions to cast the heroes into a prehistoric death trap for his own profit. In *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of super-wealthy lynxes who pilfered a well-meaning mother's altruistic invention and set her up for murder, solely for their own profit.
A Tradition of Cinematic Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate embodies a rich antagonist running a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people suffering through abject destitution, while leveraging digital impersonations and a powerful media apparatus to portray them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight economic inequality in such a blunt manner, but its villains live in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, pushing them from their homes and into bondage. The Chinese animated hit *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing box-office hit, pits the scrappy inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit extravagant gleaming towers floating overhead. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy comedy reboot of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's plot to cause planetary doom — for his own profit, needless to say.
It is not particularly surprising in a string of movies presupposing that the affluent have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a insatiable, privileged hunger for more wealth. "Rich people are villains and plucky heroes are heroes" as a plot device stretches back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies contrasting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against fat cats, 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 refreshed a similar story for the era of the greedy, harmful entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is replete with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is contrary to fundamental decency, and celebrate the defusing, downfall, and sometimes elimination of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
Nevertheless, inexplicably, we never get around to eating the rich. Whenever politicians respond to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at popular entertainment, I roll my eyes, because if people actually were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the public consciousness — certainly American society would not persistently worship billionaires. Still the headlines makes it obvious regularly that a frightening percentage of Americans subconsciously equate riches with intelligence and social worth, even after a century of history's most popular movies communicating the reverse.
In fact, it looks as though the constant stream of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a safety outlet that hinders real-world action. Provided with a frequent serving of largely triumphant fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater content about good conquering evil. These stories are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will root out any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies aren’t new in that regard, they certainly adhere to some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more targeted, and apparently more violent. It is no longer satisfactory in the current era to see rich people learn a useful lesson about modesty, 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, greedy, hateful rich individuals were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a hostile planet (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were stabbed to death with a wine opener (*Companion*) and assaulted fatally by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the hauled off to jail conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that the wealthy function with different standards, and are highly probable to negotiate their release."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending fails to deliver anymore. Conversely, these villains are likely to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in notably grotesque, ironic ways.
Notable Outliers
There are exceptions, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is reformed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
