An age-old idea courses through many of 2025's popular films. This notion that stretches far back to the days of the Little Tramp. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the antagonist is a greedy, heartless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to defame Earth's greatest hero while manipulating world events to enrich himself. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the antagonist is a wealthy pharmaceutical heir squandering vast sums to cast the heroes into a monster-filled death trap for his own profit. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of extremely affluent lynxes who pilfered a kindly mom’s altruistic invention and framed her for murder, solely for their dynasty's gain.
A Legacy of On-Screen Class Warfare
In the remake of *The Running Man*, the antagonist plays a affluent bad guy running a TV network that earns a fortune by taking advantage of and killing people living in desperate poverty, while leveraging AI forgeries and a powerful smear campaign to portray them as greedy, lazy, scary criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* is less direct about economic inequality as overtly, but its evil characters reside in clear extravagance while preying upon and oppressing Oz's disadvantaged inhabitants, driving them into unemployment and into bondage. The box-office champion *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one film, contrasts the resourceful inhabitants of a impoverished farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit lavish gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* revolves around a billionaire's scheme to bring about planetary doom — for his own profit, needless to say.
There is little particularly surprising in a run of movies presupposing that the wealthy have disproportionate control, lack ethics or compassion, and a endless, demanding appetite for increased fortune. "Elites are the bad guys and everyday folks are heroes" as a theme goes back to the birth of movies, with early comedies pitting his chronically destitute beloved underdog against corporate bosses, bosses, and clueless rich men. Beginning with the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" films of the 1930s to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive Silicon Valley antagonist, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which presume that wealth is contrary to fundamental decency, and exalt the neutralizing, defeat, and sometimes demise of elite figures.
The Release That Changes Nothing
And yet, somehow, we never get around to consuming the elite. Whenever elected officials respond to a public shooting event by faulting violent video games, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that susceptible — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to allow it to permeate the societal mindset — surely American society would not persistently idolize billionaires. And yet the headlines reveals every single day that a alarming number of Americans instinctively associate wealth with intelligence and value to society, even after a century of history's most popular movies promoting the reverse.
In fact, it appears that the never-ending cycle of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that hinders meaningful change. Offered a regular dose of largely uplifting tales where the hero prevails, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can walk away feeling good about good conquering evil. These stories are like moral fairy tales, suggesting that the system works, and that resourceful individuals will root out any corrupt individuals among the generally industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who succeeded on their own merit.
A Sharper Tone in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they do follow some contemporary patterns among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more pointed, more direct, and seemingly more lethal. It is no longer satisfactory nowadays to see rich people gain some humility about modesty, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they oppressed, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel wealthy people were killed by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and devoured by a colossal prehistoric creature (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a distant sphere (*Mickey 17*) and gunned down at close range on live TV (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a wine opener (*Companion*) and bludgeoned by an up-and-coming rival (*Him*).
"Almost none of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, possibly since it’s become so obvious that the wealthy function with their own legal rules, and are highly probable to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" resolution isn’t cathartic anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to meet their end at the final act of their movies, often in particularly horrific, fitting ways.
Key Exceptions
There are exceptions, certainly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is only disgraced, revealed, and dispatched to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up exiled to the computer world, where he’s clearly being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is redeemed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
