An age-old motif permeates a host of 2025's popular films. This concept that stretches back in time to the time of Charlie Chaplin. In the new *Superman* film, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire wielding his vast wealth to defame Earth's mightiest protector while controlling world events for his own profit. Within the dinosaur sequel *Rebirth*, the bad guy is a privileged biotech mogul squandering vast sums to throw the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone to boost his wealth. In Disney's *Zootopia 2*, the antagonists are a dynasty of ultra-rich lynxes who appropriated a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and framed her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Tradition of On-Screen Class Warfare
Within the dystopian thriller *The Running Man*, the antagonist embodies a rich antagonist operating a TV network that earns a fortune by exploiting and murdering people enduring extreme hardship, while employing AI forgeries and a well-honed propaganda machine to depict them as selfish, shiftless, dangerous criminals. The musical *Wicked: For Good* is less direct about wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its antagonists live in obvious luxury while exploiting and abusing Oz's most vulnerable population, driving them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's top box-office hit, sets the tough residents of a struggling farm town against haughty aristocrats who inhabit lavish gleaming towers above the clouds. Even, the agreeably goofy humorous remake of *The Naked Gun* centers on a billionaire's scheme to cause planetary doom — for financial gain, of course.
There is little inherently notable in a string of movies presupposing that rich people have excessive influence, no morals or empathy, and a endless, demanding hunger for greater riches. "Rich people are villains and scrappy underdogs are heroes" as a concept dates back to the birth of movies, with early comedies pitting his perpetually impoverished beloved underdog against fat cats, industrialists, and inept, drunken millionaires. Beginning 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 exploitative, damaging entrepreneurial bad guy, the entire history of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that riches is at odds with basic human values, and applaud the defusing, downfall, and sometimes demise of powerful, wealthy people.
The Outlet That Alters Little
However, somehow, we never actually consuming the elite. Whenever elected officials respond to a tragic gun violence event by pointing fingers at 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 make it seep the public consciousness — surely American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. And yet the headlines makes it obvious constantly that a significant portion of Americans subconsciously associate wealth with smartness and social worth, even after decades of cinema's biggest movies conveying the opposite.
Actually, it looks as though the endless parade of class-conscious storylines in American cinema has created a safety outlet that gets in the way of real-world action. Given a steady diet of largely triumphant tales where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are stripped of power and embarrassed, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about justice being served. These movies are like cautionary fables, implying that institutions function, and that determined protagonists will root out any malicious actors among the largely industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who lifted themselves on their own merit.
A More Pointed Edge in 2025
Even though 2025's movies do not break new ground in that respect, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among eat-the-rich stories: They’re getting angrier, sharper, more direct, and apparently more violent. It is no longer satisfactory these days to see rich people be taught a lesson in empathy, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they subjugated, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, avaricious, malicious rich individuals were slaughtered by fantastical monsters (*Death of a Unicorn*) and consumed by a enormous hybrid beast (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were obliterated on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and executed point blank 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 ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs conclusion, likely due to it’s become so apparent that affluent individuals operate under their own legal rules, and are all too likely to buy their way out."
The "behind bars" outcome no longer satisfies anymore. Instead, these villains are prone to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Exclusions
Some films diverge, undoubtedly. The iconic villain in *Superman* is merely humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Monstrous manipulator Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* winds up banished to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for future installments. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* is stripped of all his money and is transformed as a person. The Lynxley family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be culprits, but they don’t meet|avoid
