A familiar theme permeates many of 2025's popular films. This concept that stretches back in time to the time of silent film comedy. Within the DCU reboot *Superman*, the evil force is a envious, ruthless billionaire using his vast wealth to smear Earth's superhero icon while controlling world events to enrich himself. In *Jurassic World: Rebirth*, the bad guy is a rich pharma-bro squandering vast sums to trap the heroes into a monster-filled danger zone for his own profit. Within the animated sequel *Zootopia 2*, the wrongdoers are a clan of ultra-rich lynxes who stole a kindly mom’s beneficial creation and framed her for murder, all for their own profit.
A Lineage of Film Wealth Disparity
In the remake of *The Running Man*, a wealthy media magnate portrays a rich antagonist controlling a TV network that profits hugely by preying upon and eliminating people enduring abject destitution, while using AI forgeries and a well-honed propaganda machine to label them as avaricious, indolent, terrifying criminals. The Oz-based film *Wicked* doesn't highlight wealth disparity in such a blunt manner, but its villains live in clear extravagance while taking advantage of and mistreating Oz's most vulnerable population, pushing them out of jobs and toward imprisonment or servitude. *Ne Zha 2*, the year's number one box-office hit, pits the resourceful people of a struggling farm town against condescending upper classes who inhabit opulent gold-and-jade palaces floating overhead. Interestingly, the agreeably goofy humorous remake *The Naked Gun* focuses on a billionaire's plan to trigger global armageddon — for his own profit, of course.
There’s nothing especially new in a series of movies presupposing that the affluent have too much power, lack ethics or compassion, and a bottomless, entitled hunger for greater riches. "The wealthy are antagonists and everyday folks are heroes" as a concept dates back to the early days of film, with Chaplin’s silent movies pitting his perpetually impoverished Little Tramp character against tycoons, bosses, and inept, drunken millionaires. From the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland "Let’s put on a show" movies from that era to the 1980s dance movies that updated that very premise for the era of the rapacious, destructive entrepreneurial bad guy, the whole legacy of cinema is packed with "eat the rich" stories, which assume that wealth is incompatible with fundamental decency, and applaud the neutralizing, routing, and sometimes demise of the rich and powerful.
The Catharsis That Changes Nothing
And yet, for some reason, we never actually consuming the elite. On each occasion lawmakers follow a tragic gun violence event by faulting graphic media, I roll my eyes, because if people truly were that easily influenced — if repeated viewing to an idea via media was enough to cause it to infiltrate the public consciousness — undoubtedly American society wouldn’t still revere billionaires. And yet the daily reports demonstrates every single day that a alarming number of Americans subconsciously link affluence to competence and importance, even after a century of history's most popular movies conveying the opposite.
Actually, it seems like the endless parade of eat-the-rich storylines in American cinema has given us a pressure release that gets in the way of meaningful change. Provided with a regular dose of largely triumphant fables where the underdog wins, while the billionaires are defanged and humiliated, everyone can leave the theater satisfied about right prevailing. These films are like cautionary fables, pretending that society is just, and that determined protagonists will root out any malicious actors among the mostly industrious, moral, worthy wealthy who pulled themselves up on their own merit.
A Sharper Edge in 2025
Although 2025's movies do not break new ground in that sense, they certainly adhere to some modern developments among class warfare stories: They’re getting angrier, more incisive, more targeted, and observably more lethal. It’s rarely enough nowadays to see rich people be taught a lesson in humility, like in 1941's *Sullivan's Travels*, or forfeit their fortune to the people they exploited, like in 1983's *Trading Places*. In 2025, selfish, cruel affluent villains were eliminated by legendary creatures (*Death of a Unicorn*) and eaten by a giant mutant dinosaur (*Jurassic World: Rebirth*). They were blown up on a alien world (*Mickey 17*) and shot in the face directly on a broadcast (*The Running Man*). They were killed with a improvised weapon (*Companion*) and beaten to death by an rising rival (*Him*).
"Hardly any of 2025’s ultra-rich villains get the driven away in cuffs finale, likely due to it’s become so apparent that the wealthy live by different standards, and are very likely to buy their way out."
The "arrested and awaiting trial" ending fails to deliver anymore. Instead, these villains are apt to meet their end at the end of their movies, often in notably horrific, fitting ways.
Notable Outliers
A few stories differ, certainly. Superman's arch-nemesis in *Superman* is simply humiliated, exposed, and sent to prison. Evil mastermind Julian Dillinger in *Tron: Ares* ends up banished to the virtual grid, a setup that obviously being saved for possible sequels. Korda in Wes Anderson's *The Phoenician Scheme* loses all his money and is redeemed as a person. The antagonist family members in *Zootopia 2* are revealed to be thieves and liars, but they don’t meet|avoid
