A recurring motif permeates numerous 2025's popular films. It's an idea that goes far back to the era of Charlie Chaplin. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his vast wealth to defame Earth's mightiest protector while orchestrating world events for his own profit. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the villain is a privileged biotech mogul investing tens of millions to trap the heroes into a dinosaur-packed danger zone for personal amusement. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a dynasty of extremely affluent lynxes who appropriated a well-meaning mother's beneficial creation and framed her for murder, purely for their dynasty's gain.
A Tradition of Cinematic Wealth Disparity
In *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a wealthy villain controlling a TV network that makes millions by exploiting and murdering people living in extreme hardship, while leveraging deepfakes and a well-honed propaganda machine to portray them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight class division quite that directly, but its villains enjoy conspicuous opulence while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's poorest citizens, forcing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's highest-grossing movie, contrasts the scrappy inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who dwell in lavish gold-and-jade palaces in the sky. Even, the lighthearted farcical update of *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to bring about worldwide catastrophe — for financial gain, naturally.
It is not inherently notable in a run of movies taking it as a given that rich people have too much power, are devoid of conscience, and a insatiable, privileged desire for increased fortune. "The wealthy are antagonists and plucky heroes are heroes" as a theme goes back to the dawn of cinema, with early comedies pitting his chronically destitute Little Tramp character against corporate bosses, bosses, 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 the exact same bit for the era of the greedy, harmful tech-bro villain, the complete chronicle of cinema is filled with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that affluence is incompatible with basic human values, and applaud the overthrowing, downfall, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Catharsis That Fails to Transform
However, somehow, we never actually eating the rich. Whenever elected officials react to a tragic gun violence event by blaming popular entertainment, I sigh with frustration, because if people truly were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society would not continue to revere billionaires. But the news demonstrates constantly that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously link affluence to competence and importance, even after one hundred years of the world's most beloved movies conveying a contradictory message.
Actually, it appears that the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that impedes meaningful change. Given a regular dose of predominantly triumphant tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater content about justice being served. These movies are like moral fairy tales, pretending that society is just, and that plucky heroes will root out any corrupt individuals among the largely hard-working, virtuous, deserving wealthy who lifted themselves by their bootstraps.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that regard, they indeed follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more specific, and apparently more violent. It is seldom sufficient nowadays to see rich people learn a useful lesson in empathy, 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, avaricious, malicious wealthy people were eliminated by mythological beasts (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a corkscrew (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an ambitious rival (*Him*).
"Very few of 2025’s extremely affluent villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, perhaps because it’s become so apparent that rich people function with a separate justice system, and are all too likely to negotiate their release."
The "off to face justice" ending isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are likely to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exceptions
A few stories differ, of course. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Sinful schemer Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up exiled to the computer world, teasing that he is being saved for a follow-up film. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is reformed as a person. The wealthy lynx dynasty members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
