An age-old motif runs through numerous 2025's blockbuster hits. This concept which extends back in time to the time of the Little Tramp. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a greedy, heartless billionaire exploiting his vast wealth to smear Earth's greatest hero while controlling world events for personal gain. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a privileged biotech mogul spending vast sums to cast the heroes into a dinosaur-packed arena to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the villains are a family of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a altruistic inventor's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Lineage of Cinematic Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, Josh Brolin plays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people living in desperate poverty, while leveraging digital impersonations and a powerful propaganda machine to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. *Wicked: For Good* doesn't highlight economic inequality quite that directly, but its villains enjoy clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them from their homes and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing film, contrasts the tough residents of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who live in extravagant gleaming towers in the sky. Remarkably, the lighthearted comedy reboot *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plot to cause worldwide catastrophe — for his own profit, needless to say.
There’s nothing inherently notable in a series of movies taking it as a given that rich people have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a bottomless, entitled appetite for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept stretches back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies setting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against tycoons, bosses, and clueless rich men. Starting with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that revised the exact same bit for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that riches is at odds with basic human values, and exalt the overthrowing, routing, and sometimes destruction of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Alters Little
However, somehow, we never get around to taking down the wealthy. On each occasion elected officials respond to a new mass shooting event by pointing fingers at graphic media, I feel exasperated, because if people really were that susceptible — if regular exposure to an idea via media was enough to make it seep the public consciousness — certainly American society wouldn’t still worship billionaires. Still the news reveals every single day that a frightening percentage of Americans instinctively equate riches with intelligence and value to society, even after decades of the world's most beloved movies promoting the reverse.
If anything, it appears that the constant stream of anti-wealth storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that impedes real-world action. Provided with a regular dose of mostly uplifting tales where the everyman triumphs, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can finish the film feeling good about right prevailing. These films are like moral fairy tales, pretending that institutions function, and that plucky heroes will weed out any bad apples among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A More Pointed Tone in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they do follow some contemporary patterns among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more specific, and apparently more lethal. It’s rarely enough in the current era to see rich people be taught a 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, selfish, cruel wealthy people were killed by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were destroyed on a distant sphere (*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 up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, likely due to it’s become so obvious that the wealthy function with their own legal rules, and are all too likely to purchase their freedom."
The "behind bars" resolution no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to perish at the end of their movies, often in particularly grotesque, ironic ways.
Significant Exclusions
A few stories differ, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the digital realm, where he’s clearly being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* forfeits all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are unmasked as frauds and deceivers, but they don’t meet|avoid
